Halt the Harm Network / Stop Bad Data Centers Communications and Amplification Fellow

Halt the Harm Network | Stop Bad Data Centers Initiative

The Halt the Harm Network is building a growing national community of leaders, organizers, and advocates working to address the impacts of large-scale data center development. We have strong content, real success stories, and a network that is actively producing meaningful wins. The challenge is that not enough people outside the network are hearing those stories. This role exists to dramatically increase the visibility of the work already happening and get those stories in front of the audiences that need to see them.

About the Work

Communities across the country are fighting back against harmful data center development and winning. Residents have stopped billion-dollar projects in Virginia, Texas, Arizona, Missouri, and Maryland. They’ve recalled elected officials. They’ve packed council chambers until 2am. They’ve changed zoning codes permanently.

The problem isn’t that these victories aren’t happening. It’s that not enough folks are hearing about them, not the organizer in Georgia who’s about to face the same developer, not the climate journalist whose readers would care deeply, not the podcast host whose audience is already asking hard questions about AI and energy, not the Substack writer with 40,000 subscribers who covers exactly this terrain.

This fellowship exists to fix that. We need someone who can increase visibility, bookings, and placements so that the stories, strategies, and victories happening across the network reach the audiences that need to see them.

We need someone who can get the news and concepts out and amplified.  The idea that communities are fighting AI data center expansion and winning, that there’s a network supporting them, that there are tools and strategies available, and do get the outreach through the channels where that idea will actually land and travel.

That could mean booking appearances on podcasts with engaged audiences, securing placements in newsletters with large subscriber bases, and building relationships with creators and influencers who can feature and amplify network stories. The goal is to place our people and stories into conversations that are already reaching the audiences we care about.

What You’ll Do

The Core Job: Book, Place, and Amplify

Your primary responsibility is getting HHN’s people, stories, and ideas in front of audiences that matter by booking our team and network members on the right shows, pitching our content to the right writers and creators, and building the relationships that make those placements happen repeatedly.

Podcast booking and outreach

• Identify and systematically pitch podcasts on the climate, AI accountability, tech criticism, energy justice, local democracy, and rural community beats , anywhere an audience would care about data centers, electricity bills, water, or who’s actually winning fights against Big Tech
• Book HHN team members and network community leaders as guests: people who’ve fought and won, organizers who can tell the story of what’s possible, experts who can explain the grid and subsidy angles in plain language
• Maintain an active target list and track pitches, responses, and placements ,  treating podcast outreach like a booking operation, not a one-time ask

Creator, influencer, and newsletter outreach

• Build relationships with climate and tech accountability influencers across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The  creators whose audiences include people who don’t yet know they’re living next to a proposed data center, people who care about AI’s real-world costs, people who are looking for fights worth joining
• Pitch HHN’s content, community stories, and community leaders to Substack authors, independent newsletter writers, and bloggers with large engaged lists  treating an email newsletter with 30,000 engaged readers as a major win
• Pursue co-creation and amplification opportunities, not just coverage: helping influencers and creators make their own content around data center fights rather than just hoping they’ll mention HHN

Journalist and media outreach (secondary channel)

• Pitch and place stories in traditional and digital outlets when needed local news covering active data center fights, tech accountability journalists, climate and energy reporters who cover the grid,  as one channel among many, not the primary focus
• Maintain targeted press lists and a light editorial calendar tied to gateway content releases and webinar cycles so outreach is timely and purposeful rather than reactive

Content conversion for distribution

• Convert HHN’s primary content (webinars, gateway page launches, documentation) into ready-to-pitch assets (clips, pull quotes, graphics, short-form summaries) designed for external creators and influencers to pick up, repurpose, and amplify on their own channels.
• Work with program leadership to identify what content is most placeable, what stories are most compelling, and what formats travel best in which channels

Social and influencer strategy

• Lead the influencer cultivation and amplification strategy for HHN’s light social presence, identifying which voices to develop relationships with, what content performs in which channels, and where HHN should be showing up and how. The focus is strategic outreach, not daily posting.
• Help HHN think about its presence not as a broadcast operation but as a network of amplifiers: the goal is to have ten creators and newsletter writers who think of HHN as a go-to source, not to rack up followers on our own accounts

Secondary: Rapid-Response Support for Local Groups

When a community group is days out from a major hearing or a media moment breaks, you’ll be available to help — but this is not the center of the role.

• Provide quick “Say This, Not That” coaching to community leaders preparing for press interviews or public statements: what lands, what doesn’t, how to stay on message when a developer’s communications team is in the room
• Help groups draft talking points and short press advisories when something is breaking fast — not polished communications products, but fast, usable guidance
• Connect local groups to reporters and outlets that have covered similar fights in other geographies, drawing on the relationships you’re building across the media ecosystem

What You Bring

You understand where the climate and tech accountability conversation actually lives in 2025 — and it’s not only in newspapers. You know the podcast ecosystem. You follow Substacks and creator channels. You have a sense of who has big engaged audiences on the climate and AI beat and how to get their attention without burning relationships.

You’re a connector and a booker as much as a communicator. You know how to pitch a podcast host in a way that makes them feel like they found the story, not that they’re being sold something. You know how to approach a newsletter writer or a TikTok creator with something genuinely useful to them, not just something useful to us. You’re persistent without being annoying, and you track your pitches like a real booking operation.

You don’t need to be a data center policy expert — but you need to be curious enough about the issues to talk about them credibly and to help community leaders talk about them well. The people you’ll be booking and placing are the experts. Your job is to get them in the room — or on the mic.

Particularly relevant experience includes:

• Podcast booking, media relations, or talent outreach in advocacy, journalism, or creator economy contexts
• Relationships or fluency in the climate, energy justice, tech accountability, or AI criticism creator and media ecosystem
• Pitching and placing content across non-traditional and digital channels: podcasts, newsletters, Substack, social platforms
• Social media strategy or influencer outreach, even at a light or part-time level
• Experience working with non-professional spokespeople — community leaders, organizers, neighbors — rather than polished media-trained executives

What the Fellowship Looks Like in Practice

This is a fractional fellowship, not a staff position. You’ll operate as a contractor embedded in HHN’s lean backbone team, working approximately 10–20 hours per week. Hours will vary: some weeks are light and focused on relationship-building and list maintenance; others — when a webinar drops, a major campaign victory lands, or a national story breaks around AI and energy — will require surge capacity and fast turnaround.

You’ll have access to HHN’s growing library of campaign materials, webinar recordings, gateway content, and organizer network — a deep well of stories, expertise, and voices ready to be placed. You’ll coordinate closely with program leadership on priorities and timing, and you’ll have real latitude to develop and execute the amplification strategy in the way you think works best.

The goal isn’t to make HHN famous. It’s to make the movement impossible to ignore — to make sure the story of communities fighting and winning against trillion-dollar tech companies is everywhere the right people are looking, in every format they’re already paying attention to, told by the community leaders who actually lived it.

Type: Part-time fractional fellowship (contractor) 

Time commitment: Approximately 10–20 hours/week, with surge capacity during high-activity periods 

Compensation: Fellowship stipend (commensurate with scope and experience) 

Reports to: HHN Program Leadership