*This will be starting out as a 9 month contract*

About the Role: This position supports Business Attraction and Neighborhood Activations within Newark. It requires a hands-on approach to event planning and management, community engagement, and program management.

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide community support to tech start-ups and retail businesses, including:
• Act as the initial point of contact for businesses in the program, assisting with incoming requests for small business support.
• Liaise with third-party administrators to track monthly spend and onboard new businesses into the benefits program.
• Conduct outreach to businesses quarterly to obtain key metric updates and update the internal tracker for business reviews.
• Maintain a database of business summaries to share with PR teams, prospective investors, and local business opportunities.
• Collect and share relevant local events for the business community.
• Coordinate events for neighborhood and tech ecosystem-related activations, such as:
• Programming within local parks, libraries, and other neighborhood stakeholders.
• Farmers markets, in-store activations at local restaurants, and festivals.
• Manage pre-event logistics, including coordinating vendors, security, A/V, legal reviews of contracts, processing purchase orders, etc.
• Provide on-site event support, including setup, breakdown, and event management.
• Ensure post-event follow-ups are completed, including debrief meetings, attendee surveys, reporting metrics, and submitting invoices.
• Draft and edit communications to promote business attraction and activations.
• Engage with community stakeholders, such as programming partners, property owners, and tech ecosystem participants.
• Coordinate regular tech ecosystem stakeholder meetings to ensure ongoing collaboration and awareness of initiatives.
• Perform other tasks as assigned by senior leadership.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree preferred.
• 5 years experience in executing events and/or community engagement.
• Ability to multi-task, quickly change focus, and balance immediate needs with longer-term goals.
• Strong relationship-building skills and persuasive communication abilities.
• Comfort with ambiguity and the ability to find opportunities in it.
• Outstanding work ethic and organizational skills.
• Extremely detail-oriented.
• Demonstrated initiative and creativity.
• Strong Excel skills.
• Ability to work evenings and weekends when necessary.