We’re always open to talent!

Yes, we might post a job when it comes open, but we also might simply discover a great person and slot them in without posting the job, or create a role just for them when the conditions are right.

View Current Job Openings & Ongoing Resumé Submission »

CAREERS AT VOLUME ONE

Let’s Build Something Together

We’d very much like to meet you, but first, a bit about us up front.

Launched as a small arts and culture “zine” in the early days of 2002 in downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Volume One has evolved into an integrated media company and community action agency that has received numerous local, regional, and national awards, recognitions, and widespread praise for its community aesthetic and unique voice. A voice that not only reflects the hearts and minds of the community, but gently pulls them in new directions.

Volume One Building

We’re an editorially led, public-driven group of staff and contributors creating content, experiences, and connections for readers and leaders across a broad demographic spectrum. In short, we use media — print, digital, video, social — to positively impact and shape the region we serve with community-sourced ideas, stories, and design. It’s a collective feedback loop geared to inspire us all to reach toward a better future — culturally, socially, and economically — for our little piece of Wisconsin.

To that media landscape we layer in rich, real-life experiences leveraging food, music, art, recreation, education, and local shopping to create dynamic community events that engage people with the innovation, talent, and opportunities around them.

Our People

As a group of nearly two-dozen editors, designers, developers, marketers, photographers, writers, retailers, and business thinkers, we have a high-energy, creative culture. We are idealistic but practical. We work pretty damn hard, but yes, we leave time for fun too. And no, our fun isn’t just bad dad jokes and holiday potlucks.

We’re talking brewery tours, paintball outings, curling classes, bowl-a-thons, go-kart races, pedal pub rides, and more. We mean semi-annual kayak floats down the Eau Claire River, a yearly pre-Thanksgiving staff breakfast, and even the occasional community-wide April Fool’s Day Pillow Fight.

Why all this foolishness? Because experiencing all this community has to offer is just part of our company DNA. And since our staff is at the heart of everything we do, we offer considerable time off (including half-day Fridays all summer!), personal flexibility, and general understanding as our employees’ lives change and evolve. Excessively long hours, overly rigid methodologies, and “that’s the way we’ve always done it” attitudes generally don’t have a home here.

Our Work

We’re lucky in that as a highly public organization, our friends, family, and neighbors see the things we make and do every day, because nearly everything we create is shared with and consumed by this community. So we get to hear and feel people’s appreciation for what we do all the time.

It’s a cycle of feedback that helps guide our thinking and reinforces our purpose. And as the most diverse media brand in our market, we stretch what it means to think and act local, striding beyond the norm to create a varied portfolio of impactful work, including:

icon publications Boundary-Pushing
Publications & Websites

icon digital Deep, Cross Platform
Digital & Social Reach

icon video Forward-Thinking
Content, Video, & Design

icon events Culture-Shaping
Experiences, Events, & Promotions

icon partnerships Value-Building
Community & Business Partnerships

icon ticketing Fun-and-Easy
Community Event Ticketing

icon retail Movement-Making
Retail Shopping

A behind-the-scenes look at our editorial/design relaunch in fall of 2020.

OUR WORK

Top 10 Tasks

We do a lot of good stuff.
Here are the big ones.

1

Volume One Magazine

First created in 2002, our flagship, multi-award-winning publication, Volume One, is a twice-monthly magazine packed with both heart and brains. Each issue contains impactful feature stories, the latest on community developments and happenings, special themed sections, the most robust event listings found anywhere in our market, and intentionally-designed ads from a broad range of businesses and organizations. 14,000 copies are printed and distributed at more than 400 locations throughout Eau Claire, Menomonie, Chippewa Falls, and points between.

2

VolumeOne.org

An online destination and network of mobile-first websites updated daily with fresh editorial, breaking civic news, community events, photo sets, a restaurant guide, short-form video features, fully produced podcasts, and much more, all garnering more than 4 million annual page views and linked in to more than 120,000 email subscribers across seven niche lists. Our event listing network is the engine behind other leading community calendars as well, powering the websites of organizations like Visit Eau Claire and Downtown Eau Claire Inc.

3

Digital Marketing

Photo by Wendy Wei from Pexels

By combining our own local expertise and a powerful national digital marketing partnership with Adcellerant, our team is committed to making quality digital marketing accessible to any business, whether promoting to a local market or anywhere in the world. Our staff along with national experts, utilize the latest technology to work alongside clients and find the right solutions, budgets, and impacts.

Digital services can include Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, pre-roll video, OTT streaming services search engine optimization and marketing, programmatic display, geo-fencing, streaming audio advertising, and more.

4

Best of the Chippewa Valley

You’ve likely seen those gold “Best Of” badges everywhere – on billboards, vehicles, ads, TV commercials, and more. Well, that’s us. And our readers.

We’ve been running the Best of the Chippewa Valley Reader Poll since 2007, with more than 160,000 votes cast by more than 12,000 local people each year for a wide range of topics from restaurants and entertainment to retailers and service providers.

Getting that badge is a sought-after honor by hundreds of businesses in this region, plus, they get to come and celebrate it all at our annual massive and creative cocktail party, Best Night.

5

Social Media

With a youthful, engaged, and savvy audience comfortable in digital spaces, Volume One’s dynamic social media feeds do more than just compliment our print publications and websites — they drive the community conversation. Using a modern aesthetic and approach, our staff operates a robust daily presence on Facebook and Instagram, as well engagement with YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and our feeds boast more than 40,000 followers across our market and beyond.

6

Video & Photography Studio

Visuals are important to us. Both through our own studio and out in the field, we create community and business videos and photography with warmth, authenticity, and style, across multiple industries and for varied audiences.

Our video and photo production staff have worked in markets including Chicago, New York Seattle, Los Angeles and of course right here in the Chippewa Valley, creating work that has been featured on TV shows, in film festivals, and online for both local and national clients and partners including PBS/Frontline, Fox Business News, and many more.

7

Design

Good design is at the heart of everything we do, and it’s synonymous with our entire identity. Our team of print, web, and motion graphics designers know what it takes to connect with audiences and make brands and ideas shine across multiple formats. Their design and web work has received top-tier awards from regional and national media associations, and drives community interest in every project we take on.

8

Community Events

Volume One events are known across the community as high-quality productions that push the Chippewa Valley forward in new and impactful ways, delivering significant value to both attendees and partners alike.

Each year tens of thousands of locals and visitors attend our beloved community events like the Sounds Like Summer Concert Series, Chalkfest, Restaurant Week, Best Night, Food Truck Fridays, Winter After Hours, and many more.

9

Event Ticketing

Our custom ticketing website provides a simple yet highly customizable online (and real world) platform for selling both general admission and reserved seating tickets to virtually any kind of event. It has sold tens of thousands of tickets for more than 50 local organizations, including clients like the Chippewa Valley Airshow, Pre-Eaux Claires Festival events, Leinenkugel’s, and more. Using this localized engine, sellers are automatically connected with Volume One’s entire media network for built-in promotion and exposure.

10

The Local Store

Our historic, 4,000-square foot retail, art, and event space is an iconic downtown shopping and cultural center offering apparel, art, gifts, books, beer, wine, foodstuffs, and other notable items either created by the people of this community or somehow inspired by them and this place we call home.

Our Community

© Mike Howard Photography

If you’re not all that familiar with Eau Claire and the Chippewa Valley, but are considering applying to come work with us here … holy cats have you come to the right place. We live and breathe the landscape, people, and places of this little corner of the world.

So much so that we partnered with the Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce a while back to launch ThinkEauClaire.com – a whole deep-dive website and a couple of fun videos to help tell the story of the transformation happening in this city. And word is getting out, too – to the point that it’s become the second-fastest growing metro in the State, only behind our state capital.

So rather than lay it all out here again, scoot on over to ThinkEauClaire.com and take a look for yourself at what we put together. And while you’re at it, a stop by VisitEauClaire.com, another longtime partner of ours, would be a good idea too.

Our Benefits

All of the following benefits are available to full-time employees,
and many of them are also available to part-timers and interns.

Home, Health & Family Life
  • Health and Dental Insurance Plans
  • Family gym membership
  • Bike/walk to work program with stipend
  • Maternity/Paternity partial paid leave for birth and adoption
  • Paid Bereavement Leave
Vacation & Holiday Time
  • 24.5 - 34.5 paid days off, including:
    • 2 weeks paid vacation to start
      3 weeks paid vacation after 3 years
      4 weeks paid vacation after 5 years
    • Eight paid holidays
    • Summer Half-Day Fridays (13 half days off, paid)
  • Additional 10 unpaid personal days if needed
Community Involvement
  • 3 paid non-profit volunteer days per year
  • Annual stipend for serving on a non-profit board of directors
  • 24 hours/year available for mid-day community committee meetings
Professional Development & Personal Financial Health
  • 3% matching retirement IRA contributions
  • Technology purchase program
  • Continuing education reimbursement
Fun Stuff
  • A relaxed, fun office environment
  • Daily staff Caffeination Station
  • Free Beer Fridays
  • Wednesday Donut Buffets
  • Free extra stuff: tix, ski passes, gift cards, etc
Additional Benefits
  • Mileage reimbursement
  • Local Store discount
  • Unemployment compensation
  • Workers Compensation
  • Social Security

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Volume One has always celebrated diversity in our community-focused content, featuring stories on individuals, businesses, organizations, and movements from as many walks of life as we can uncover throughout the valley. We also continue to carve out space for and elevate paid contributions directly from BIPOC, LGTBQ, and other community stakeholders whose voices matter to us, and matter to this place we all love.

With these efforts in mind, we are further committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills from throughout the Chippewa Valley and beyond. We believe that the more inclusive of an employee and contributor environment we can create, the better our work in support of this community will be.

As such, we are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factor. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.

Our Give-Back Pledge

Everything we do has an innate element of support for this community. When our publications cover a local nonprofit or fledgling business upstart, we’re working to nurture their endeavors with awareness and attention. When we offer more than 20 large-scale, free events in the city each year, we’re striving to offer more affordable cultural opportunities for individuals of all socioeconomic backgrounds. When we carve out editorial space for underrepresented voices across the Valley, we’re creating opportunities to continue critical dialogues and foster understanding across an increasingly diverse community. These are but a few examples of the way we give back, because this sort of support is at the heart of why we exist.

However, we also choose to give back more actively and directly. Each year, above and beyond our daily endeavors, we further pledge at least 3% of our annual top-line revenue (not just profits) to support a variety of community organizations and non-profit organizations through full-cash contributions, event fundraisers, media sponsorships, retail-profit sharing, promotional support, video production, paid staff volunteer time, and more.

We use these methods to support local organizations that address a range of community issues, including food security, literacy, families in need, cultural accessibility, diversity initiatives, and much more, as well as for philanthropic capital campaign donations toward legacy community projects like the Pablo Center at the Confluence, the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library Story Builder project, and the forthcoming new Children’s Museum of Eau Claire.

Community Engagement

Beyond working for Volume One, our staff is involved in the city and state through invitations to serve on the Board of Directors of a variety of community organizations, including:

  • Eau Claire Chamber of Commerce
  • Visit Eau Claire
  • Wisconsin Arts Board
  • Downtown Eau Claire, Inc
  • The Community Table
  • North Barstow Business District
  • Chippewa Valley Museum
  • Friends of the Library
  • Chippewa Valley Book Festival
  • Community Television
  • Clear Vision Eau Claire
  • Eastside Hill Neighborhood
  • Comprehensive Plan Citizen Advisors
  • North Riverfronts Neighborhood
  • Eau Claire Sculpture Tour
  • Western Wisconsin Press Club
  • Literacy Volunteers
  • Converge Radio

Awards & Accolades

As an organization, Volume One gains praise both locally and nationally, garnering awards for our work in the Chippewa Valley community. A few more recent ones include:

  • 2021 Milwaukee Press Club Awards:
    Best Overall Design (Gold)
    Best Sports Story (Gold)
    Best Website Design (Gold)
    Best Business Story or Series (Silver)
    Best Journalistic Use of Social Media to Tell or Enhance a Story (Bronze)
  • 2021 Best Multimedia Project - Association of Alternative Newsmedia
    for Outbroken: a pandemic’s impact on Wisconsin farms & food
  • 2021 Best Digital News Project, Best Local Website
    from the Local Media Association Awards
  • 2020 Milwaukee Press Club Awards:
    Best Pandemic Story in Print (Gold)
    Best Pandemic Story in Video (Gold)
    Best Use of Multimedia (Gold)
    Best Local News or Feature Website (Bronze)
  • 2020 Facebook Journalism Project Grant Award
    for Outbroken: a pandemic’s impact on Wisconsin farms & food
  • 2020 Google News Initiative Grant
    from Google News Initiative’s Journalism Emergency Relief Fund
  • 2020 Bicycle Pedestrian Service Award
    from the City of Eau Claire
  • 2020 National Main Street Center Grant
  • 2020 Wisconsin EDC Innovation Grant
  • 2020 Best Special Section (3rd)
    from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia
  • 2019 Digital Campaign of the Year - “Think Eau Claire
    from the Mid America Chamber Association
  • 2016 Small Business of the Year
    from the Eau Claire Chamber of Commerce
  • Outstanding Publication Award
    from International Economic Development Council
  • Quality of Place Enhancement Award
    from Synergy Economic Development Group
  • Above and Beyond Award
    from Downtown Eau Claire, Inc.
  • Milwaukee Press Club's 2016 Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism Awards:
    Gold award Best Local News or Feature Website for VolumeOne.org
  • Milwaukee Press Club's 2015 Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism Awards:
    Gold award in Best Website Design for VolumeOne.org
    Silver award Best Local News or Feature Website for VolumeOne.org
    Silver award for Best Use of Multimedia for our special Music Capital of the North theme site published in July of 2015