Campaign Specialist At Tusk Ventures - Chicago

Who we are.

Tusk Ventures helps early stage tech startups win the political and regulatory fights that determine whether great companies succeed. We work with founders who are building businesses in industries where changing the law, influencing regulators or beating incumbents is just as important as building a great product. Our team combines political strategy, communications, regulatory expertise and campaign thinking to help companies enter new markets and change the rules that stand in the way of growth.

The role.

The companies we work with are taking on entrenched interests, changing outdated regulations, creating new regulatory frameworks and navigating complicated political environments. Winning those fights requires a lot of strategy, but it also requires a lot of execution.

We’re looking for a Campaign Specialist at our Chicago office who can help our team turn campaign strategy into action. That means doing the research that tells us what is actually happening on the ground, reaching out to potential partners who can help move our campaigns forward and producing the volume of social and digital content that modern campaigns require.

This is a hands-on role. You will spend a lot of time finding information, building lists, making calls, sending emails, drafting posts, tracking responses and figuring out how to get things done. Some of the work will be fast and reactive. Some of it will be repetitive. All of it matters because campaigns are often won by doing the basic things better and at greater volume than everyone else.

You’ll work across campaigns in industries including AI, healthcare, fintech, gaming and energy and alongside senior strategists who will set the overall direction. Your job is to help make those strategies real. This is not a policy job. We are looking for someone who wants to learn how campaigns work by actually working on them.

What you’ll do.

• Research what is happening on the ground. Dig into the facts we need to make good campaign decisions: who the relevant players are, what organizations exist in a market, what they have said publicly, where they stand, what relationships matter and what opportunities or problems we may be missing.
• Build research memos, lists, trackers and other materials that give campaign teams reliable information they can act on.
• Do high-volume outreach. Identify potential influencers and organizations who could support our clients and campaigns, find the right way to reach them and contact them by email, phone, social media and other channels.
• Help recruit supporters, coalition partners, validators, customers, industry participants and other people who can make a campaign stronger.
• Follow up repeatedly, keep track of responses and make sure promising conversations do not disappear into a spreadsheet.
• Draft outreach emails, call scripts, follow-ups and other materials, adapting the message depending on who we are trying to reach.
• Produce and execute social and digital content at campaign speed. Draft dozens of social posts, digital messages and other pieces of campaign content across multiple clients.
• Turn campaign messages, news developments, research and client announcements into a steady pipeline of usable content rather than waiting for every post to become a major creative exercise.
• Help manage posting calendars and execute approved content across relevant channels.
• Identify timely opportunities to join conversations online, respond to developments and amplify campaign messages.
• Support broader campaign execution, including coalition building, grassroots organizing, events, media opportunities and other tactics as needed.
• Work across several campaigns at once, stay organized and reliably close the loop on assignments.

What we’re looking for.

• Roughly 2-3 years of experience in politics, campaigns, advocacy, public affairs, communications, organizing, research, digital media or a similarly fast-moving environment. Strong recent graduates with substantial campaign or internship experience may also be a fit.
• Someone who likes doing the work, not just talking about strategy.
• A strong researcher who is naturally skeptical of the first answer, knows how to find information from messy or incomplete sources and can distinguish a real fact from something that merely sounds plausible.
• Comfortable using public records, social media, and other research sources, while understanding that AI output needs to be verified.
• Persistent and comfortable reaching out to people you do not know. You should not be afraid of cold emails, cold calls, follow-ups or hearing no.
• Able to produce a high volume of clear, sharp writing. Perfect prose matters less than being able to understand the message, write it quickly and adjust it for different audiences and platforms.
• Extremely comfortable with social media and digital communications. You should understand how people actually consume and share information online.
• Organized enough to manage large outreach lists, research projects and content pipelines without losing track of details.
• Curious and able to get up to speed quickly on unfamiliar industries, companies, political environments and regulatory fights.
• Good judgment. You will often be working with incomplete information and need to know when to keep moving, when to verify something and when to ask for help.
• Competitive, resourceful and willing to keep pushing when the obvious approach does not work.
• Comfortable working in an environment where priorities can change quickly and there is often more work to do than time to do it.

You do not need venture capital experience, deep policy expertise or years of government experience. Some of the strongest candidates may come from campaigns, organizing, communications, digital, research or advocacy roles where they learned how to move quickly and get people to act.

What you’ll get from us.

Tusk Ventures believes that treating employees well helps the whole company prosper. Benefits include:

• Highly competitive base salary.
• 401(k) with employer contribution of 3% of compensation.
• 100% covered premiums for medical, dental and vision, with dependents and spouses 80% covered.
• Generous vacation policy.
• Fully paid four months of parental leave.
• Covered cell phone service.
• Hybrid work environment.

The pay range for this position is expected to be between $115,000 and $149,000/year. However, the base pay offered may vary depending on multiple factors, including job-related knowledge, skills, experience, market factors, and network.

Tusk Ventures is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status or any other basis covered by appropriate law.

If you require reasonable accommodation to participate in this hiring process, please direct your inquiries to Evanie Peters, HR Generalist, at View email address on click.appcast.io. Please include the job title you are applying to in the subject line. Only requests related to accommodations will receive a response.