Job Title: Assistant Director - Communications and Content
Location: Flexible - Home-based, Shelter Office-based, or combination with regular travel to London and other locations
Contract Type: Interim, 12 months Fixed Term Contract
Accountable to: Director of Communications, Policy, and Campaigns
Salary: £78,441per annum
Hours: 37.5 per week (pro-rata if part-time)
Leave: 30 days holiday per annum + Exceptional Benefits
Closing date: Sunday 5th May at 11:30pm
About Shelter
A home is a fundamental human need, as essential as education or healthcare. Yet millions of people across Britain struggle on a daily basis with homelessness, bad housing conditions, soaring rents, discrimination, and the threat of eviction. So, we are striving for change, with individuals, in communities, across society, and leading the way to a safe home. We need ambitious, best-in-class individuals who are passionate about our cause to join us at this exciting time. This is your chance to play a part in the fundamental change we are striving to achieve.
At Shelter we are united by our purpose to defend the right to a safe home. Our enemy is the social injustice at the core of the escalating housing emergency. We believe that to win that fight, we must be representative of the people we are here to help and those who support our movement for change. In all our people decisions, we take pride in being inclusive, fair, equitable and transparent.
We have committed to combat racism both within and outside Shelter and welcome you on our journey to becoming a truly anti-racist organisation.
About the Team
This interim role reports to the Director of Communications, Policy and Campaigns (CPC), alongside other Assistant Directors.
The CPC team drives Shelter's campaigns for social housing and renters' rights, supporting our services and income generation efforts.
You'll manage heads of important content and engagement teams, driving strategic direction and collaboration across functions.
About the Role
As Assistant Director Communications and Content, you'll lead Shelter's communication efforts, ensuring impact, reach and a coherent organisational voice.
You'll oversee media teams, drive cross-channel campaigns, and develop ambitious communication strategies. With your experience in matrix management and project/change management, you'll guide teams to achieve our strategic goals amidst organisational change.
About You
We're seeking candidates with extensive experience leading and managing media and communications teams, along with a track record of developing impactful cross-channel campaigns. Your ability to navigate complexity, build collaborative relationships, and drive strategic change will be crucial in this role.
How to Apply
Please reserve the following dates in your diary when you apply:
- An introduction Interview will take place Friday 10th of May virtually for approximately 30 minutes
- Panel Interviews will take place virtually on Monday 13th of May
Please ensure you have read the full Recruitment Pack before applying. Please click ‘Apply for Job’ below. You are required to submit a CV and a supporting statement. The supporting statement should address and cover the following 3 questions. Answers should not be more than 250 words in length.
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Can you elaborate on your experience leading and managing high-performing communication team/s? Please provide an example of a successful initiative or project you led, highlighting how you achieved strategic objectives.
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Can you provide an example of a time when you led a high-performing team/s through a period of significant change or transition? How did you approach managing both the strategic objectives and the team dynamics during this process?
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Please elaborate on your experience of leading external communications that deliver on values of anti-racism and inclusion - highlighting how you navigated challenges and supported team members to feel empowered to contribute.
Benefits
We offer a wide range of benefits, including 30 days of annual leave, enhanced family friendly policies, pension, and interest free travel loans. Our employees also have access to a tenancy deposit loan, payroll giving, cycle to work scheme and an employee assistance programme.
Shelter helps millions of people every year struggling with bad housing or homelessness through our advice, support, and legal services. And we campaign to make sure that, one day, no one will have to turn to us for help. We’re here so no one has to fight bad housing or homelessness on their own.
Safeguarding
Safeguarding is everyone's business. Shelter is committed to protecting the health, wellbeing, and human rights of those we support, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect.
All our staff will be expected to observe professional standards of behaviour and conduct their work in line with our Safeguarding Policies.
Shelter does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Using Anonymous Recruitment
This organisation is using Anonymous Recruitment to reduce bias in the first stages of the hiring process. Our system keeps your personal information hidden until the recruiter contacts you.
The Food bank Campaign Coordinator is responsible for delivering Trussell Trust’s influencing and mobilising work, in their target area, during the General Election. You will do this by building strong relationships with other food banks in your Parliamentary constituency areas of Rhondda and Ogmore, Bridgend and Vale of Glamorgan. Campaign Coordinators implement Trussell Trust’s national General Election strategy, by using organising techniques to put pressure on PPC’s in each Parliamentary constituency.
You will build and lead local community teams who support ending the need for foodbanks, securing commitments from your PPC’s to ‘prioritise the problem of people going without essentials if re/elected, acknowledging the role social security needs to play in tackling it.’
This role is funded by the Trussell Trust as part of their General Election strategy, and you will be part of a network of Campaign Coordinators around the UK doing this work. You will be the link between your food bank(s) and the Mobilisation team at Trussell Trust, as we build a movement to end the need for food banks.
Responsibilities of Campaign Coordinator:
· To build trusted relationships with food banks during (pre and post) UK General Election. You will hold 1:1 conversations with each food bank in your allocated area and ensure there is clear communication between the food banks.
· To support teams of community volunteers. You will have 1:1s with: food bank staff, volunteers, interested individuals, partner organisations and stakeholders in each community to develop community bases for your campaign work.
· To lead effective door-knocking teams in your community. You will door knock with your community campaign team to drum up support for the campaign, provide members of the public literature on Food bank use in their local community, and invite people to their local hustings.
· To help each of your community campaign teams organise a local husting. You will ensure that your community campaign teams: attend national Trussell Trust webinars, receive national guidance on how to approach PPC’s, understand the Trussell Trust legal GE guidance, understand the logistics of organising a hustings, ensure that the husting is accessible as possible and ensure that the voices of people with lived experience are heard through the hustings.
· To develop good relationships with local press and media outlets. You will work alongside national Trussell Truststaff to find key press and media contacts in your assigned area, ensuring your community campaign teams get coverage for their hard work.
· To deliver the local campaigning strategy working with food bank staff, volunteers and clients.
· To work with the Organising and Local Mobilisation team in Trussell Trust and engage with the training and support on offer, including work with other Campaign Coordinators in the Trussell Trust network.
Person Specification
Desirable technical skills and knowledge:
● Experience of campaigning or organising to achieve a change.
● Experience working alongside people with lived experience of poverty
● Experience facilitating groups and organising engaging group activities
● Experience managing and working with volunteers.
● Experience of community outreach in the local area.
● Good project management skills, able to balance a range of priorities.
● UK driving licence and access to vehicle
Behaviours and competencies:
● Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to build relationships and gain trust of people with lived experience of poverty and using food banks
● Confident in communicating and, able to seek and balance a range of views and stakeholders, influencing where required.
● Demonstrate a commitment to the values of the Trussell Trust /local food bank.
Key Stakeholders
● Your local food banks, including the project manager, volunteers, and people they support.
● Local elected representatives
● Local stakeholders and partners (charities, churches, and other relevant community groups)
● Local organisations working to support people in poverty
● The Trussell Trust Area Team, who support your food banks in their day-to-day work.
● Trussell Trust’sSenior Manager for Organising and Local Mobilisation
● The wider TT Organising and Local Mobilisation (OLM) Team who will deliver training and relational support.
● Trussell Trust’s Head of Organising and Local Mobilising
● Trussell Trust’s Activations team
● Trussell Trust’s church engagement team
● Joseph Rowntree Foundation staff
● Trussell Trust Policy, Research and Impact department
Our Values
The Trussell Trust is a charity that works to end the need for food banks. It is founded on and shaped by Christian principles.
Our values of dignity, justice, compassion and community, are central to all that we do and therefore supports our aim to be an organisation where the diversity of all employees is valued. We welcome people of all faiths and none and those that are committed to these values.
We recognise that we have under-represented groups within our workforce. As part of our commitment to diversity and equality of opportunity we are actively encouraging applications from under-represented groups such as returning parents or carers who are re-entering work after a career break, people who are LGBT+, from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, with a disability, impairment, learning difference or long-term condition, with caring responsibilities, from different nations and regions and those with a lived experience of poverty as well as any other under-represented group in our workforce. We are committed to ensuring the safety and protection of our employees from all forms of harm.
Please forward your covering letter outlining your experience which is relevant to the job description and CV
We don’t believe anyone in our community should have to face going hungry.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.