Director of Communications & Marketing

Church Hill Activities & Tutoring (CHAT) serves youth in the East End of Richmond and equips them to make life transforming decisions. Over the past fifteen years, we have served over 600 incredible youth in our community.  We believe that every child is made in the Image of God and has inherent dignity and worth. But, the cyclical forces of poverty that our students face deny this value and create barriers to relationships and resources.  In spite of these challenges, we have Gospel hope for the future of our youth and city.  We believe in the power of the faith, community, and education to transform our community. 

In our work, we get to be part of incredible stories of transformation and success in the lives of youth we have the honor to serve. And we want to be part of even more. We can’t wait to work with someone who contributes to more inspiring change through communication and storytelling with excellence, creativity, and respect for the East End community. This role will be a part of CHAT’s overall development and fundraising team, reporting to the Executive Director and working alongside the Director of Development.  This team’s primary focus is building the donor relationships and financial resources that fuel CHAT’s work, but it also takes the lead on public advocacy, maintaining CHAT’s overall brand, and telling inspiring stories about our students that drive a more hopeful narrative about the East End of Richmond. 

Required Qualifications
  • Faith in Jesus Christ, affirming the Apostles Creed and lived out in a faith community.
  • Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited post-secondary institution.
  • Minimum 5 years professional experience working in communications and marketing.

Preferred Qualifications
     Skills
  • Significant experience planning & executing multi-channel fundraising/storytelling campaigns & projects
  • Experience cultivating a strong social media presence.
  • Strong writer - you seek out a story, and have a knack for showing, not telling, in ways that are respectful and dignifying across lines of race, class, and culture. 
  • Experience overseeing graphic design, photography, and/or video projects - willingness to jump in, learn and produce basic creative deliverables in these fields. 
  • Experience shaping and maintaining a strong brand. 

    Approach
  • Team leader and self-starter: work collaboratively with colleagues; but also have the entrepreneurial drive to conceive and implement new projects as a strategic communications leader. 
  • Problem solver and strategic thinker: find ways around the obstacles to get the job done and make us more effective. Prioritize the projects and deliverables that have the highest return on investment. 

     Culture
  • Strong finisher: multitask and prioritize well, meet deadlines, take the initiative to fill in the gaps, and follow tasks through to the end.
  • Relentlessly improving: looking to sharpen your skills, increase your efficiency, and get regular feedback.
  • Faith & Humility: as part of a Christian nonprofit, you affirm the Apostle’s Creed, look to tell stories of spiritual transformation, and are ready to listen to community feedback as we engage complex issues. 

Goals and Responsibilities
The primary goal of this position is to inspire and expand our community of donors and volunteers as we seek to double the number of students we serve from 200 to 400 in the next 5 years. The right person in this role will also help us strengthen our overall brand, broaden our public advocacy, and tell stories that honor the students and families we’re blessed to serve. To these ends, responsibilities will include:

Develop and Implement Overall Communications & Marketing Strategy 
  • Plan and execute fundraising campaigns across channels (direct mail, social media, email, etc). 
  • Refine and expand the ways we share our gratitude with our donors and volunteers, and communicate the impact that their investment is having on students. 
  • Tell stories of our students and families that honors their inherent dignity and worth, highlights the challenges they face without sensationalism, and positions CHAT as a partner, rather than a savior. 
  • Help our team build CHAT’s position as a thought leader and trusted voice for people looking to learn more about the East End of Richmond, youth development, and Christian approaches to addressing poverty and injustice. 
  • Develop communication approaches for multiple audiences and demographics (major donors, smaller givers, grant makers, church partners, the East End community and general public)

Project Management and Execution
  • Oversee and execute, in collaboration with the development team and freelancers, the production of:
  • Print Media (annual reports, brochures, appeal letters, major donor materials & event materials)
  • Web (emails, blog, website updates)
  • Social Media (FB, Instagram, Twitter, etc)
  • Videos and Photos (quick updates and longer-form storytelling)
  • Lead and coordinate content creation & copywriting for all communications materials - both getting out from behind the desk and spending time with students and staff, and building systems to collect information and stories about our work. 
  • Produce basic creative deliverables in design, photography, and/or video (e.g. social media posts, flyers, appeal letters, cell phone videos, etc). 
  • Evaluate and align systems for communication project management & execution (communications calendar, task management, file management, web platforms)

Bring Cohesion and Clarity to Brand and Voice
  • Work with the development team and program leaders to ensure consistent brand and message.
  • Lay the groundwork to move towards a possible rebrand or refresh in coming years. 
  • Build a consistent persona and guidelines for CHAT’s public voice on key issues.


Other Responsibilities
  • Communicate regularly with partners/donors 
  • Occasionally take on additional tasks that serve the overall CHAT mission

Sample Daily Schedule
While each weekday has a unique set of responsibilities, a sample daily schedule gives a sense of the range of tasks and responsibilities that could occur on a regular basis throughout the year. Like other directors at CHAT, the person filling this role will be afforded significant flexibility and autonomy with their time and work style to ship deliverables, meet goals, and accomplish strategic priorities. 

Arrive at 9 AM: A typical workday for this position is 9 AM - 5 PM and home base would be CHAT’s administrative offices, (3015 N St, Richmond VA 23223). However, there will be regular meetings in other East End locations during the day, periodic evening events, and the possibility of out-of-town travel 1-2 times per year. The ability to flex schedule in order to gather content is essential. 
9 - 10 AM: Respond to emails and review calendar and upcoming project deadlines
10 - 11 AM: Development Team Meeting - review a key metric, share new ideas, update each other on key projects, and assign key tasks for the day and week ahead.
11 - 12 AM: Visit a program to take photos, interview a student or staff member for an upcoming story, and connect with our organization’s overall mission. 
1 - 1:30 PM: Edit and post a picture from program visit on social media; update CHAT’s blog with previously developed content. 
1:30 - 4:30 PM: Focused work on planning an upcoming marketing campaign, copywriting, or engaging a creative freelancer for a major project, such as graphic design for the Annual Report 
4:30 - 5:00 PM: Develop future social media from curated news articles and resources on that educates our public audience on poverty, youth development, and Christian social justice work, and discuss with team over email.

Salary & Benefits
Commensurate with Experience. We offer competitive health insurance plans, parental leave, personal days, and more.

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