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Remote Job Alert! Restless Development is looking for a Head of Communications: Apply Now!!

Apply by : 14th July 2024

Head of Communications:

Restless Development knows that young people are capable of changing the world – we see it every day. However, we need to convince the rest of the world, and that’s where you come in!

Are you a visionary, communications leader with a track record of creating and delivering strategic communications that gets cut-through with target audiences? Can you help us celebrate the role that young people play in the world, inspiring others young people and decision makers to take action? If you think you’ve got the skills, passion and drive to be at the centre of our efforts to strengthen youth power, we would love to hear from you

About Restless Development

Restless Development is a global non profit agency. We support the collective power of young leaders to create a better world. We are independently registered and governed in nine countries (India, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, UK, USA, Zambia and Zimbabwe) bound together by our vision for youth power. We run youth-led programmes to tackle the issues that young people care about the most –  We also run the Youth Collective – a growing network of over 4000 local youth civil society groups and organisations in 185 countries. We are committed to creating an agency that walks the talk on power shifting, using the power shifting checklist, both internally and externally.

Our approach to safeguarding

Restless Development considers the welfare and protection of children, young people and vulnerable adults to be an organisational imperative with primacy over the success of programmes or strategic objectives. We recognise that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and we expect all of our staff, volunteers and partners to ensure we protect the communities in which we operate from harm and abide by our Safeguarding Policy.

More information about Restless Development:

Background:

Youth Power is the heart of Restless Development. It is the collective force of young leaders to create a better world. Is the vital glue which binds communities and drives positive social change.

Every year Restless Development supports over a quarter of a million young leaders. Providing new opportunities, mentoring and resources to make lasting change in their communities and beyond. And in doing so we multiply young leaders. But we aim to have a much bigger impact than the reach of our programmes – creating a world where Youth Power thrives. The use of our communications is imperative to championing, celebrating and connecting young leaders, and creating a world where Youth Power can thrive.

Our Communications is key to strengthening youth power, engagement of young leaders everywhere, especially in the majority world, as well as strengthening the visibility and profile awareness of Restless Development with partners and funders.

The strength of our communications is pivotal to both achieving our strategy (strengthening youth power) and our business model (to secure core and flexible funding from disruptive philanthropists). We aim to increase the quality and cut-through of youth-led content from the global south to dominate our channels, engaging and expanding our audience of young people, funders and partners.

We have made the recent decision to double our efforts to ensure that communications are centred on youth power. With the aim of our communications to be led by young people, for young people in the majority world. Resulting in this exciting new Head of Communications position – a new role responsible for helping us realise these ambitions.

About the role

We know that young people are capable of changing the world – we see it every day! However, we need to convince the rest of the world, and that’s where you come in.

We are looking for a visionary communications leader who can help us celebrate the role that young people play in the world, in order to inspire other young people and decision makers to take action. This exceptional leader will work across the global agency to help us strengthen our profile and raise our visibility at a pivotal moment for Restless Development.

This role will lead a globally distributed communications team of 4 full time staff, a group of young power champions and a wider community of 5 junior comms staff based in our Africa and Asia offices.

Your responsibilities will be twofold: 

Firstly, you will be a creative powerhouse who can lead the communications team to produce the best youth-led content. You will set and deliver a communications strategy that enables us to deliver, test, learn from new communications approaches, always putting strengthening youth power at the core. You will work with our global communications team, as well as youth power champions to create a steady stream of content that engages young people, as well as 2-3 big moments or creative projects a year that make some noise.  Examples of these big moments / campaigns would be: the launch of our flagship “State of Youth Civil Society” research, Restless Development’s 40th anniversary celebrations and the Walking the Talk programme.

Secondly, you will lead our global team to develop and deliver against a communications plan for success.  You will lead a team to deliver against varied targets and deliverables, growing a community of collaboration, learning and growing brand visibility and cut-through.  Your people centred leadership approach will be key,setting up the team to thrive.  You will build strong internal relationships (especially with the Global Leadership Group) and excellent external working relationships with communications partners and media. 

In the next 12 months, once this new role and team is in place, this role will be responsible for recruiting a new digital engagement manager to write and update our digital engagement strategy, with the roll out of a new CRM that will revolutionise our contact engagement across Restless Development and the Youth Collective.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Lead Global Communications for Restless Development:

  •  Lead a high performing and happy global communications team of 4. Leading by example and providing support and mentoring. Fostering a positive and productive work environment.
  • Develop and deliver a Communications Strategy (that has organisational buy-in and excitement). Enabling us to strengthen our brand and recognition as well as cut-through for young leaders.
  • Lead a comms culture change across Restless Development to enable us to meet our targets. Leading and supporting the global communications community across the agency.
  • Annual and quarterly learning, planning and budgeting reporting into the Global Leadership Group and Trustees.
  • Build and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders, including media, donors, and the Global Leadership Group.

Strengthen Youth Powered Communications

  • Work with Young Leaders to develop and deliver our Youth Powered Comms – growing content, cut-through, and celebration of youth power.
  • Increase the volume and impact of youth-led content, working with our global network of young leaders – testing and using new channels to maximise our youth engagement.
  • Secure media placements and amplify youth voices to influence decision-makers and inspire young people globally. 

Building a Collaborative & Impactful Global Brand

  • Develop a strong and consistent global brand identity for Restless Development.
  • Foster collaboration among a geographically dispersed communications team, ensuring clear communication and streamlined workflows.
  • Identify and capitalise on “Big Moments” for the organisation, maximising impact and brand awareness through strategic communications campaigns.

Other

  • Work into the Strategy Partnerships Director to ensure the communications input and delivery against grants (managing consultants or others deliver the work) and deliver on time.
  • Work into the Influencing Director on managing risk and crisis communications, ensuring our staff have annual training and support.
  • Planning into the next 12 months, recruit and manage a new Digital Manager to develop a new global digital engagement strategy that enables us to strengthen our audience engagement, from the UK triathlons to the Youth Collective and across Hubs as we migrate to a customer relationship management software.
  • You may occasionally be required to work on weekends and/or public holidays, for which time off in lieu will be granted.
  • Other duties as required.

Job title: Head of Communications

Location: In the global south with a preference for Nairobi, Lagos or Johannesburg, or in a Restless Development Hub in India, Nepal, Tanzania, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Zimbabwe. 

Salary: Kenya: KES 6,111,471 pa, plus 9% housing allowance, or National equivalent as per our Global Salary Scale

Length of contract: Fixed term 2 years, with possible extension

Reports to: Senior Business Development Director (with a dotted line to the Co-CEO)
 Direct Reports : Global Communications Manager, Youth Power Communications Coordinator and Digital Communications Manager (to be recruited next year)

Visa Requirement : Must have the right to work in the country of location

Expected travel: Occasional travel to visit Restless Development Hubs and to our annual leadership conference

For more opportunities such as this please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, What’s App, TwitterLinkedIn and Telegram

About you

We are looking for people with the right competencies and skills for the role, and who demonstrate the personal qualities consistent with our values.

Our value: HEART – We are who we serve. We are brave.

Behaviour: Upholds a values-led culture across the Hub or International Unit, inspiring a Restless passion and professionalism amongst all others. Considers the Restless Values when making decisions and taking measured risks at a strategic level. Creates an enabling environment for innovation across the Hub or International Unit. Takes measured risks and solves complex issues with creativity and innovation. Maintains a focus on aligning the organisational vision for long-term growth in a changing world.

Our value: HEAD – Delivers Quality. We are 100% professional.

Behaviour: Drives quality across the Hub or International Unit by holding all teams to account for high performance and value-for-money. Ensures the Hub or International Unit is effectively and efficiently resourced to deliver quality against strategic priorities. Drives change across the Hub or International Unit by considering the long term impact of risks and strategic decisions to multiple teams.  

Our value: VOICE – We generate leaders. We are proud to carry the banner for youth-led development.

Behaviour: Leads strategy development and creates a compelling organisational vision. Is accountable for performance at a Hub or International Unit level. Develops leadership in others for future growth of the organisation. Builds organisational capacity by creating a culture of continual learning through performance management, training, coaching and mentoring; aligning their own personal and professional development to current and future organisational needs.

Our value: HANDS – We are in it together. We listen and learn.

Behaviour: Builds consensus and commitment amongst staff and major national partners. Confidently anticipates and responds to challenge or resistance in difficult circumstances. Coaches others to communicate strategically.  Is a role model for collaboration at a national, regional and global level; frequently contributing to internal processes and decisions. Leads participatory decision making and strategy development.

Skills and experience

Essential 

  • Significant experience leading and managing teams, including virtual and matrix management.
  • Demonstrable track record in creating creative communications content, preferably aimed at or developed with young people.
  • Experience leading risk management, crisis communications and safeguarding in communications processes.
  • Experience leading a creative communications function at a nonprofit agency.
  • A strong creative network, including good relationships with media outlets.
  • Integrity and transparency: The ideal candidate should value honesty and accuracy in all communications.
  • Strong ethical compass: Must demonstrate a strong understanding and commitment to ethical communication practices.

Desirable

  •  An understanding of international development, in particular the youth sector.
  • A good understanding of the issues facing young people in the global south, preferably through lived experience.
  • An understanding of power shifting in development, and how this applies to communications.

Restless Development is an Equal Opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all sectors of the community. Restless Development will ensure that no applicant or staff member receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, marital status, social status, caste, race, ethnic origin, religious belief, age, HIV status, disability, or any other factor that cannot be shown to be relevant to performance.

What we do for you

Remuneration

We are proud to commit to a transparent global salary scale, ensuring a fair and comparable system of pay across all global locations. In addition to salary, we offer pension contributions and other benefits in accordance with the local Hub. 

Values and Culture

At Restless Development, we’re proud that the strength and integrity of our Values has been recognised by staff, young people, donors and others who we work with.  Beyond this, we have a culture of recognising and celebrating both our Values and our global achievements with monthly Values Champions and an annual Values Day.

Work-life Balance

It goes without saying that we work hard at Restless Development. We also recognise the importance of helping staff to maintain a positive work-life balance by offering:

  • 24 days annual leave (in addition to public holidays and with an extra day of annual leave given for each full year of service, up to a maximum of 28 days).
  • Birthday Leave
  • Access to flexible working.
  • Generous study leave, maternity, paternity or adoption leave, and other leave allowances.

Professional Development

Restless Development is proud to be an employer who recognises potential and invests in the development of its staff.  We are committed to the professional development of our staff through:

  • Empowering opportunities to work on significant projects which stretch and inspire staff – allowing them to develop on-the-job. 
  • Regular performance management.
  • Training and development opportunities, including supporting our staff to identify mentors both within and outside of the agency.
  • Quarterly Staff Workshops for all staff to give and receive agency updates, receive training, and socialise.

Travel and Medical Insurance

When travelling abroad with work, all staff will be covered by Restless Development’s travel and medical insurance.

To Apply

Please submit your CV and a cover letter that provides tangible examples of how your skills, knowledge and experience will support your ability to perform the key priorities outlined in the above job description (using no more than 750 words)

Please keep your covering letter to no more than one page, and include at least one example of a recent global communications champion, moment or product that you have led. 

APPLY HERE

For more tips on how to apply visit our website here.

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