Data Manager

The Data Manager at the Working Families Party (WFP) ensures that data tools smoothly supercharge our organizing.

Every tool has a data side and an organizing side: the Data Manager is responsible for the data side of our tools. They work closely with those responsible for the organizing side to maximize our impact on campaigns and as a movement.

Based in the Data Department, this role takes responsibility for the ownership and management of the data systems for WFP’s core organizing software, such as EveryAction, VAN, Votivate, Scale to Win, and Mobilize. This role requires a balance of backend tool administration expertise and frontline stakeholder collaboration skills. They are the primary touchpoint for organizers seeking hands-on data support at the Party.

The Data Manager plays a major role in ensuring data integrity for our single sources of truth in a large, multi-state, highly-coalition-oriented organization. They have lead responsibility for quality assurance and quality checks (QA/QC) of our organizing tool data. The Data Manager will draw upon their deep familiarity with the data structures and quirks – both on the user-interface and data table side – from previous campaigns. This person will leverage their expertise writing SQL queries to frequently access data from our BigQuery data warehouse to pull lists and calculate metrics for organizers.

This is a highly collaborative role. They are responsible for supporting tool adoption and making technical information accessible through training and documentation. They act as a thought partner to organizers and staff to develop effective data organization systems. They conduct training and prepare standards on the data side of tools so that organizers know how to cleanly generate and upload data in our systems.

The Data Manager coordinates with other members of the Data Department; for example, when the Engineering Team needs to create a new sync or data model. The Data Manager proactively engages the Analytics Director and Data Director for prioritization, consults, and progress reporting and bases decisionmaking on wider Party, Department, and Team strategy.

Data Systems Ownership

• Serve as an in-house data expert on organizing tools, including EveryAction, Mobilize, VAN, Votivate, and others. Design and implement approaches to organize data and processes in these systems and take ownership of data maintenance.

• Develop systems, structures, templates, processes, and documentation that organizers can apply in practice to enter, modify, and retrieve data.

• In addition to organizing tools, own Party infrastructure such as WFP’s endorsement and elected official processes and maintain these databases. Ensure that the systems design meets organizational needs, that data processes are clear and understood, that data is collected in a timely manner, and conduct quality assurance and quality checks.

Maintain Data Integrity

• Ensure that our data systems serve as single sources of truth for our organizing work by maintaining clean, accurate, and well-documented data.

• Develop quality assurance processes to ensure that data generation is standardized across our suite of voter contact tools.

• Continuously conduct quality checks and standardize data to ensure datasets are a high-fidelity, usable reflection of reality.

• Audit organizing tools regularly to ensure proper permissioning and that data protocols (e.g., naming conventions) are being used across the organization.

Data Support

• Serve as one of the main points of contact for data needs across the organization, responding to requests from organizers, fundraisers, and all Divisions through the Data Department’s ticketing system.

• Troubleshoot organizers’ data challenges with organizing tools, including those around permissions, bulk uploading, etc.

• Train and support organizers on the data aspects of tool use: the mechanics of using the tools and our processes and structures for ensuring clean, usable data. Coordinate with other teams to support advanced training.

• Supporting organizers by setting up API integrations between tools (e.g., VAN and Scale to Win).

• Provide additional capacity to enter, modify, and retrieve data to organizers.

• Work closely with organizers to resolve data issues, identify tool gaps, and implement improvements that streamline program work.

Data Requests and Reporting

• Write accurate, efficient SQL queries in accordance with WFP DATA Department best practices in order to answer a range of inquiries and questions about our data spanning multiple programmatic areas.

• Provide data visualizations and reporting that delivers actionable insight into WFP’s electoral and member organizing.

• At least 2 years of experience working for candidate campaigns and movement organizations in data and organizer roles

• Experience and deep familiarity administrating electoral software tools (e.g., VAN, EveryAction, Mobilize, Scale to Win).

• Facility with SQL and BigQuery in political contexts.

• Experience using Google Sheets and/or Airtable in advanced organizing contexts.

• Deep familiarity with at least one and ideally multiple national voterfile products (TargetSmart, Catalist, L2), including scores.

• Experience with using Google Data Studio, Hex, or other platforms for data visualization and reporting.

• Experience self-organizing data projects from beginning to end: scoping, design, gathering input, implementation, maintenance, and improvement.

• Facility with analytical reasoning to troubleshoot both technical and stakeholder problems. Ability to recognize patterns and are careful to check assumptions–whether they are your own or someone else’s.

• Excellent attention to detail and a keen eye for design.

• Confident in their ability to design and implement a system that addresses the needs of multiple stakeholders.

• Experience in a fast-paced, stakeholder-support role (tickets, requests).