Founded in 1956, Providence Preservation Society (PPS) is one of the country’s first preservation organizations. It is a unique civic and community nonprofit with a distinguished history of scholarship, grassroots advocacy, and visionary educational and training initiatives that has spearheaded the successful preservation of significant buildings, cultural landscapes and neighborhoods across the city. PPS understands that the work of preservation is not defined by the fight to protect singular examples of architecture, as though the city were a museum, but must engage with planning and policy, place-based research, creative practice, climate justice, and community organizing with the goal of shaping a livable, equitable city for all. Our 2021-2026 Strategic Plan outlines the organization’s progressive approach that prioritizes social and racial justice and new initiatives that address systemic inequities.
PPS seeks a Reporter-Researcher to cover developments in Providence that impact the urban fabric and the city’s diverse cultural heritage practices for our weekly newsletter, and to contribute historical research and writing on the city’s buildings and cultural landscapes to ongoing initiatives and publications including PPS’s markers program, the annual Most Endangered Places List, and the Guide to Providence Architecture, a reference resource used by 35,000 people each year.
The successful candidate will be passionate about history, cities, and design with strong research and analytical skills and the ability to distill complexities of planning and policy into lively prose. Issue coverage will include reports on relevant city commission, committee, or City Council meetings; profiles of people who are preserving or shaping community space and cultural practices; features about historic homes, buildings or spaces that hold meaning for different communities; assessments of current or potential real estate developments with regard to issues of design and equity; and solutions-oriented analyses of policies related to planning, zoning, and adaptive reuse.
This is a new position that was created two years ago from the belief that relevant and timely communication backed with rigorous reporting are critical to PPS’s ability to achieve its mission – especially in the current context of weaker local news ecosystems. This is an exciting opportunity to participate in the critical project of rebuilding local news and an informed public from an organization that is regarded as one of the city’s legacy institutions and a trusted source of research and information. Articles in PPS's newsletter, the Providence Post, are often listed in The Architect's Newspaper's "What We Are Reading" feature and are routinely republished by local media partners in Rhode Island. PPS's advocacy and research work is often covered by the Boston Globe, Providence Journal, and other local and regional news sites.
Full job description, qualifications and application instructions available on our website at https://ppsri.org/about/jobs-and-internships/.
Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis but will be reviewed starting March 10, 2026.
