mothers2mothers (m2m) Current Available Job Opportunity

mothers2mothers (m2m) is an Africa-based NGO that unlocks the potential of women to eliminate paediatric AIDS and create healthy families across eight sub-Saharan African countries. m2m trains, employs, and helps empower HIV-positive women to work as community healthcare workers in understaffed health centres and underserved communities. Through a peer-to-peer approach, these ‘Mentor Mothers’ deliver a range of health services, advice, and support to women and their families.

Started in Cape Town, South Africa in 2001 with an initial focus on preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, m2m has innovated and built on its strengths and now provides family-centred support for a range of related health and social issues spanning pregnancy, birth, childhood, and adolescence. It also partners with governments and other NGOs on the adoption of its programme to spread the Mentor Mother Model and its benefits.

m2m has a track record of scaling its services and proven impact. To date, m2m has reached over 11M women and children under two, and created more than 10,000 jobs for African women living with HIV. For more, visit www.m2m.org.

 

Job Title: Communications Manager
Location: South Africa

The Communications Manager (CM) plays a significant role in delivering high-quality, high-impact communications for mothers2mothers (m2m), in line with our strategy and tailored to our key target audiences. Reporting to the Global Communications Director (GCD), the CM will have primary responsibility for managing m2m’s creative output (including managing a team of two creative professionals), and will also play an oversight role in our communications relationship with 11 countries. S/he will hold primary responsibility for global departmental analytics and reporting, and will also play a key role in optimising and integrating our digital channels around the world. Based in Cape Town.

Key Performance Areas:

Strategy Execution and Measurement

• Partner with the GCD and other senior communications colleagues to ensure the successful delivery of m2m’s communications strategy, including the translation of large strategic goals into actionable, measurable work-plans.
• Take primary responsibility for department reporting and analytics – working with colleagues to design/update an analytics dashboard to give up-to-date information on performance on key metrics. Interrogate data to make suggestions for improvements.
• Take primary responsibility for preparing m2m’s quarterly progress reports which is shared with donors, partners, and other external stakeholders. Feed into other reports such as Annual Reports and Donor Summaries.

Country Communications

• Managing a team of two (Senior Communications Officer and Communications Assistant), and working in close collaboration with the Country Management Unit, ensure excellent relationships with our country offices. Joint responsibilities with the team will include:
• Embedding and updating standard operating procedures for country communications.
• Identifying success stories that illustrate our work, and collaborating with in-country colleagues to produce these for use across a range of channels. This might include case studies, short films, blog posts, podcasts, and more.
• Ensure that these success stories get the visibility they deserve, by ensuring they are featured in content plans, proposals, at advocacy events, and more.
• Providing training and support to country leadership teams to ensure they understand and are confident with m2m organisational messaging and branding. This will be a blend of in-person and virtual training.
• Ensure the team is responsive to support requests from countries. These are varied but may include helping prepare for a donor site visit, participation in national level events, or local media relations enquiries.

Creative Projects

• Managing a team of two designers, hold overall delivery responsibility for m2m’s creative output. This will include:
• Ensuring continued efficient workflow processes for the design team, managing workloads, and ensuring delivery of product.
• Working with the design team from brief to execution across a range of creative projects, including: fact sheets, brochures/handouts, infographics and data visualisations, web pages and microsites, bespoke presentations, and more. This will require effective collaboration with communications and resource mobilisation colleagues in the US and EU.

Digital Integration and Delivery

• Working with colleagues across the m2m communications team internationally, take primary responsibility for ensuring that m2m’s website and digital channels:
• Are integrated and aligned to m2m’s strategy, messaging, and annual communications workplans
• Are frequently updated in line with the aims above
• Achieve monthly, quarterly, and annual targets in support of our strategy.
• Working in partnership with the Communications and Community Fundraising Officer, ensure these channels are effectively measured (including paid adverts and promotion) and that feedback is acted on.
• This will also include the management of an external web support agency and close partnership with m2m’s IT team.

Internal Communications

• In collaboration with a number of colleagues, deliver selected internal communications projects including:
• A new podcast and interview update with the m2m President and CEO, targeted at employees globally.
• Training sessions for Country Directors and Heads of Department on m2m messaging, impact and proof points.

Writing, media relations, and other general communications support:

The Communications Department at m2m is a busy department that collaborates with almost all other areas of the organisation. In partnership with the GCD, the CM will also be expected to:

• Serve as an internal “traffic cop” – being the first port of call for many day to day requests, and then assigning responsibility and ensuring delivery.
• Write high-quality, clear copy for a variety of uses, including blog posts, media releases, op-eds, social media posts, talking points/speeches, proposals, donor reports, and more.
• Lead on the African aspects of our Patrons programme including identifying and liaising with A-list celebrities who serve as Patrons for m2m to raise awareness and resources for our work.
• Collaborate with the Business Development team to edit and contribute to high-value proposals
• Lead on media relations in South Africa both responding to inbound queries and proactively generating coverage

Qualifications and Experience:

Essential

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field.
• Seven to ten years of relevant communications experience, demonstrating increasing seniority and responsibility, including line management of colleagues.
• Excellent written and spoken English. The chosen candidate will be an accomplished writer, who is able to distil complex concepts and messages into simple, compelling assets for a range of audiences and channels. This includes the ability to work with data.
• A strong design sensibility and previous experience managing complex creative projects (e.g. website redevelopments/management, films, animations, etc.) is essential.
• Experience with digital tools and channels, including content management systems, social media platforms and tools, analytics platforms, and email marketing systems.
• Prioritisation and multi-tasking:
• This is a challenging role with diverse priorities the successful applicant will have demonstrated the ability to manage multiple projects at the same time.
• The applicant must have a proven ability to establish strong relationships with a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders from grassroots activists to C-suite executives. S/he must be comfortable working in a diverse international environment.
• Applicants must have the legal right to live and work in South Africa.

Preferred

• Fluency in French, Portuguese, or Kiswahili will be a major asset.
• Previous experience in public health and/or a not-for-profit organisation.
• Preference will be given to candidates living with HIV, as well as to employment equity candidates.

mothers2mothers is an equal opportunity employer. We particularly encourage applications from people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA), people with disabilities, women and previously disadvantaged people.

Competitive salary packages will be negotiable in accordance with m2m’s remuneration policies.

To Apply:

Interested applicants should apply for this position via https://www.m2m.org/careers/

Application Deadline: 31 March 2020