Associate Writer

About the role

Cartwheel is an early-stage startup building technology-enabled mental health services that put schools at the center. We see our role as supporting both families and the on-campus school staff who see kids every day. This means: earlier intervention, higher student and family engagement in care, and better coordination among the trusted adults in a student’s life.

In 2026, billions of dollars in new state and federal funding will reshape how America invests in youth mental health, and Cartwheel is at the center of that conversation. We're looking for an extraordinary writer to help us make the case — to governors, legislators, agency leaders, and school district decision-makers — that Cartwheel is the partner that turns those investments into real outcomes for kids and families.

This is not a grant writing role. It's a storytelling and persuasion role. You'll take the messy, complicated reality of delivering mental health care inside schools — the data, the policy constraints, the clinical outcomes, the parent who finally got her kid help — and turn it into writing that moves people to act. Your audiences range from state legislators to cabinet secretaries. Your formats range from polished RFP responses to two-page briefings that land on a governor's desk.

This is an early-career role on a function that's being built right now. You'll work alongside leadership and the Government Partnerships team. The best candidate for this role may not have a background in government contracting. You’re someone who learned to write by writing. You know how to make complex ideas clear, how to build a narrative arc, and how to write for an audience that doesn’t share your vocabulary. You care about the craft and you want to point it at something that matters.

What You’ll Do

• Write proposals that win
  • Draft the writing on high-stakes proposals and RFP responses for statewide partnerships and large school districts. You’ll structure the narrative, draft content, and ensure the final product is clear, compelling, and responsive to local needs
  • Work with Government Partnerships, Sales, School Success, Marketing, and Clinical teams to gather the substance — outcomes data, implementation plans, clinical model details — and translate it into persuasive, clear prose
  • Build and maintain a library of reusable proposal content (case studies, outcome narratives, model descriptions) that gets stronger over time
• Influence state and local policymakers
  • Distill insights and stories from schools, students, and families into concise, emotionally honest content that can inform policy conversations without reading like marketing
  • Develop state-specific impact narratives: What's working, what we're learning, and what the data says, told through the lens of the families and schools we serve
  • Write briefings, impact reports, and leave-behinds for legislators, governors' offices, state agencies — the materials that frame how officials understand what Cartwheel does and why it matters
• Elevate the quality of everything we put in front of government audiences
  • Serve as an editorial quality bar across government-facing content — reviewing and tightening work from across the team so that everything Cartwheel sends to a public official reflects the seriousness of the work
  • Think strategically about message and audience based on local priorities and politics
  • Collaborate with Cartwheel's marketing team to ensure government-facing content is consistent with but distinct from our broader brand voice

Who You Are

• Must have…
  • Recent graduate (or about to graduate) of a strong journalism or writing program, or equivalent independent experience — able to commit full-time
  • Strong raw writing talent, demonstrated through a portfolio of published writing (student newspaper, campus publication, journalism coursework, internship clips, or independent writing) that shows clear, narrative-driven storytelling for a general audience
  • Experience writing for or communicating with audiences that are busy, skeptical, and not experts in your subject area
  • Sharp editorial instincts: You can look at a piece of writing and tell what’s missing, what’s bloated, and what’s buried
  • Ability to tailor written content by audience and political or institutional context
  • Coachable and eager to learn quickly in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment with multiple concurrent deliverables; developing strong self-editing instincts
  • Genuine interest in youth mental health, education, or public policy — you don't need deep domain expertise on day one, but you need to care enough to build it quickly
  • Open to flexible work arrangements, including hourly, project-based, or fellowship-style
• Nice to have…
  • Experience writing government-facing content: RFP responses, grant proposals, legislative briefings, policy documents, or equivalent
  • Familiarity with K–12 education, school-based mental health, or pediatric behavioral health
  • Familiarity with state-level Medicaid, RHTP, or education funding mechanisms
  • Experience supporting government affairs, public affairs, or policy teams in a growth-stage company
  • Experience building or managing a content or asset library for a sales or partnerships team
  • Prior work in healthcare technology, edtech, or mission-driven organizations

Why you’ll love Cartwheel

• Mission-oriented and inclusive colleagues who will go to bat for you
• Competitive cash compensation and meaningful equity ownership stake in Cartwheel
• Employer-sponsored PPO medical, vision, dental and orthodontia coverage
• Generous PTO, including company-wide closure the last week of December
• Sick leave
• 401(k) with employer match
• Annual educational stipend
• Macbook