Communications & Storytelling for Social Impact (Volunteer)

Fully remote (United States) · Volunteer · 5–10 hours/week · Minimum 6-month commitment · Reports to PromiseVoice Leadership · Collaborates with Social Media, Marketing, Newsletter, Blogs & Editorial, Media Relations, Design, PromisePublic, PromisePrograms, PromiseRise, PromiseStudios, and other MAP teams

About the Organization

Mentor A Promise (MAP) is a New York City–based nonprofit serving children and youth ages 5–18 experiencing housing instability through mentorship, education, literacy, social-emotional learning, creative expression, career development, advocacy, and community-centered opportunity. The organization is grounded in the belief that every child is a Promise—full of potential, dignity, and possibility—and delivers consistent, high-quality programming across shelters, schools, and community spaces. Signature experiences include The Imagination Studio, The Kitchen Table, The Sound Lab, and The Story Space, all within a trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and accessibility-centered framework. MAP prioritizes dignity-protective storytelling, consent-driven engagement, and deep community partnership.

PromiseVoice is MAP's integrated communications, marketing, media, editorial, and audience-engagement division. It brings together communications, marketing, social media, newsletters, blogs, editorial content, media relations, internal and external communications, and digital storytelling, working collaboratively to create communications that are coordinated, purposeful, and distinctly human.

Role Overview

MAP seeks a creative and thoughtful Communications & Storytelling for Social Impact volunteer to help communicate the mission, programs, people, ideas, and impact. This highly collaborative role follows a Purpose → Audience → Story → Message → Channel → Collaboration → Engagement → Learning framework. The goal is not simply to create more content, but to create communications worth someone's attention. Volunteers may develop stories for newsletters, adapt them for social media, collaborate on marketing campaigns, contribute to blog features, support organizational communications, or identify stories that travel across multiple PromiseVoice channels.

Key Responsibilities

• Communications & Storytelling: Develop clear, engaging, mission-aligned communications about MAP's programs, people, initiatives, opportunities, and impact. Transform organizational information into stories audiences can understand and connect with by asking: Who is this for? What should they understand? Why does it matter? What is the story? What should happen next?
• Social Media Collaboration: Work closely with the social media team to identify stories, messages, quotes, program moments, and organizational developments for meaningful digital content. Adapt longer stories into concise social content while preserving context and accuracy.
• Marketing Collaboration: Partner with the marketing team on campaigns, audience messaging, program promotion, volunteer recruitment, events, special initiatives, and other communications priorities. Connect storytelling with larger campaign objectives, ensuring marketing begins with a clear objective.
• Newsletter Collaboration: Contribute stories, interviews, features, organizational updates, and editorial content for MAP newsletters (including The Beacon). Identify the story behind the update—why a program mattered, what a partnership makes possible, what brought a volunteer to the mission.
• Blogs & Editorial Collaboration: Research, develop, write, or contribute to articles and features on topics including education, mentorship, housing instability, youth development, literacy, career readiness, accessibility, community, creativity, opportunity, and social impact. Build a library of thoughtful content where every article answers: Why should this exist?
• Cross-Channel Storytelling: Identify opportunities for one strong story to thoughtfully travel across multiple channels (e.g., Story Idea → Interview → Blog Feature → Newsletter Story → Social Content → Campaign Asset → Audience Engagement), adapting for each channel's audience, purpose, and format without losing integrity.
• Interviews & Story Discovery: Conduct approved interviews with volunteers, leaders, professionals, partners, and contributors. Ask thoughtful questions, listen carefully, and look beyond predetermined narratives.
• Organizational Communications: Support internal and external communications including announcements, program updates, volunteer communications, website content, campaign messaging, community updates, and special initiatives. Make organizational language clearer, warmer, and more accessible.
• Research & Accuracy: Research subjects appropriately and verify factual information before publication. Distinguish among Fact → Evidence → Interpretation → Story → Organizational Claim; never make a stronger claim than evidence supports.
• Ethical Storytelling: Approach stories involving children, families, housing instability, disability, or personal experiences with exceptional care. Housing instability should never become content simply because hardship attracts attention. Privacy, dignity, consent, safeguarding, and human agency come before the story.
• Creative Collaboration: Collaborate with writers, editors, social media contributors, marketers, designers, photographers, filmmakers, illustrators, and other creative professionals. Bring together narrative, visual language, conversation understanding, audience insight, and program knowledge for the strongest communication.

What You May Work On

• Newsletter stories, blog articles, social media campaigns, interviews, profiles, program features
• Organizational announcements, website content, volunteer stories, campaign messaging
• Community communications, educational content, impact storytelling, event communications
• Special PromiseVoice initiatives

Assignments vary based on organizational priorities, volunteer interests, skills, and available projects.

Qualifications

Strong candidates may have experience or interest in communications, journalism, public relations, marketing, digital media, storytelling, blogging, newsletters, creative writing, nonprofit communications, or related fields. Both experienced professionals and emerging communicators seeking meaningful portfolio experience are encouraged to apply.

• Strong written communication and storytelling skills
• Curiosity and willingness to ask thoughtful questions
• Ability to understand different audiences
• Strong editing and proofreading skills
• Ability to collaborate across creative disciplines
• Attention to factual accuracy
• Ability to translate complex information into accessible language
• Comfort receiving and incorporating feedback
• Strong organization and follow-through
• Respect for privacy and ethical storytelling
• Reliability and consistent communication
• Alignment with MAP's mission and values
• Residence in the United States

What Success Looks Like

• MAP's communications feel connected rather than fragmented
• Social media, marketing, newsletters, blogs, and organizational communications reinforce one another while serving individual purposes
• Strong stories move thoughtfully across channels
• Messages have clear audiences and objectives
• Organizational language becomes more human
• Teams collaborate earlier rather than bringing communications in at the end
• Stories preserve the dignity of the people within them
• Facts are verified
• Audiences understand not simply what MAP is doing—but why it matters

What You'll Gain

Hands-on experience across multiple areas of modern communications rather than a single channel, including storytelling, social media, marketing, newsletters, blogging, editorial development, interviewing, campaign communications, audience engagement, digital content, and nonprofit communications. Collaboration with a multidisciplinary communications team while developing portfolio-quality work connected to a social-impact mission.

Why This Role Matters

A story does not have to live in one place. It can begin in a conversation, become an article, travel through a newsletter, find another audience through social media, strengthen a campaign, introduce someone to an organization, and eventually inspire someone to participate. But that only works when people communicate with one another before communicating with the world. This role helps make that possible.

Volunteer Commitment

Unpaid volunteer position requiring approximately 5–10 hours per week with a minimum six-month commitment. Consistent participation, communication, collaboration, and reliable follow-through are essential. Volunteers should provide at least two weeks' notice when ending their service whenever possible.