Resource mobilization officer jobs in brent cross, greater london

BACKGROUND
Over the past 90 years, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has developed unparalleled expertise in responding to emergencies and helping uprooted communities to rebuild. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. The IRC is on the ground in more than 40 countries, providing emergency relief, relocating refugees and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster.

The IRC is committed to a culture of bold leadership, innovation in all aspects of our work, creative partnerships and, most crucially, accountability to those we serve. The IRC is a tireless advocate for the most vulnerable.

IRC UK
IRC UK is part of the IRC global network, which has its global headquarters in New York. Our team in the UK works to raise profile, deliver policy and practice change, and increase funding to help restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Since 2021, IRC UK has also provided integration services directly to refugees in England.

In Europe, the IRC also has offices in Berlin, Bonn, Brussels, Geneva and Stockholm.

The Purpose of the Role

Marketing & Mobilization (M&M), a part of External Relations (ER), is a dynamic team, tasked with overseeing and creating communications and marketing, building the IRC’s global profile and brand, increasing private revenue from deeper donor engagement and partnerships, and influencing our target audiences. In alignment with our Strategy100 commitments, M&M has launched ambitious multi-year campaigns that raise funding, profile and influence and will improve our share of voice and resonance in key geographies and globally.

The Content and Creative team, a part of M&M, consists of award-winning creative specialists and idea partners, developing powerful communications and experiences to really engage audiences and ultimately to deliver on ER ambitions and objectives. Using creative mediums such as storytelling, visual design, and video, they tap into the expertise of colleagues across the organization.

The Officer, Private Fundraising Communications is responsible for developing content that inspires private sector funding towards the IRC’s innovative and impactful programs in 40+ countries. This person will collaborate extensively with program teams and External Relations to create communications that engage prospective donors, demonstrate their unique philanthropic impact, and inspire ongoing support through tailored content across Trust & Foundations, Global High Net Worth Individuals, Global New Business, and Corporations.

This person will be a strong grant writer, dynamic storyteller, communicating the story of IRC’s work on behalf of people impacted by crisis for over 90 years through concept notes, proposals, pitch decks, reports, and other fundraising content. The ideal candidate will be familiar with humanitarian program design concepts and complex proposal development processes.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Business Development Writing (40%):

● Responsible for producing persuasive and well-structured proposals for 6+ figure grants, positioning IRC as a best-in-class humanitarian and development organization. (They will support a portfolio with a special focus on Trust & Foundations, with projects for Corporate, HNWI, etc. as assigned.)

● Conduct programmatic research, collaborate with various teams (fundraising, program, etc.), and articulate the organization's goals, strategies, and impact to secure funding for humanitarian and development projects.

● Transform technical, programmatic content into sophisticated, compelling, donor-friendly materials. These materials will showcase the impact and sustainability of our programs while communicating our shared values with private sector partners.

Impact Reporting (40%):

● Create comprehensive and compelling reports and other written materials that highlight innovation, evidence, and outcomes the IRC delivers for our clients in some of the world’s toughest places, while building trust and transparency with private sector donors.

● Use data, human-interest stories, and other storytelling to create compelling, effective reports. These reports will fulfill donor-set requirements and communicate what sets our program approaches, evidence generation, advocacy, and expertise apart.

● Present program results clearly, workshopping reports with technical experts across the IRC.

Project Management (20%):

● Serve as a primary focal point for account managers to navigate communications resources and grant writing services.

● Lead the end-to-end process of proposal development across a diverse portfolio of grants - including curating content, workshopping information with program and communications colleagues, and building editorial timelines to finalize written assets across IRC teams.

● Document timelines and follow up with relevant responsible parties to help ensure core proposal/reporting milestones are met

● Coordinate with IRC teams (Program, Finance, Design and UX, Communications, etc.) to shape custom grant communications and set priorities.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

● Experience in crafting compelling proposals for high-net-worth donors, foundations, and corporations.

● Exceptional writing and editing skills, with exposure to strong program design backed by logframes, theories of change, and work plans.**

● Strong storytelling skills, with the ability to transform technical concepts and program design ideas into easy-to-understand communications that are brand-aligned, creative, and inspiring.

● Strong project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects and meet tight deadlines.

● Strong ability to collaborate with diverse stakeholders.**

Experience:

● Demonstrated experience in grant writing, proposal development or reporting, preferably in an international organization and/or for the Corporate sector.**

JCWI are looking for an Advocacy and Communications Director

Location | London N7 and flexible hybrid working
Reports to | Executive Director
Direct Reports:   | Advocacy and Communications Team (currently 4 members)

Who we are

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) is an independent charity established in 1967. For over 57 years, we have promoted our vision of a society in which people can live safely and are treated with equal dignity and respect, regardless of where they are from or how they came to the UK. To achieve this, we provide legal advice, representation and holistic support to migrants experiencing injustice, poverty, and discrimination; we undertake parliamentary advocacy and expert policy analysis; we speak out and challenge damaging and discriminatory media narratives about immigration; we use law as a tool of resistance;  we work in solidarity with migrants and grassroots groups, and we build campaigns that work towards a fairer approach in immigration and asylum law and policy. We root all aspects of our work in humanity, compassion, anti-oppression and anti-racist values, taking an approach that radically challenges the way that things are to build a new and better world for migrants.

Role purpose

This is a new role, where the director will bring together the work of the Advocacy and the Communications teams to lead JCWI's campaigns. The Director leads JCWI’s campaigns and community organising; policy and parliamentary advocacy; working in alignment with directly impacted communities and partners within and beyond the migration sector. The Director builds and maintains strong relationships with key stakeholders, and ensures the organisation’s collective expertise influences political debates and the public narrative on migrants’ rights and racial justice.

The role provides strategic leadership for JCWI’s campaigns to drive forward positive change for migrant rights in an increasingly hostile political climate, and supports a wide range of work building campaigns, coalitions and networks to advance migrant justice, ensuring that JCWI is a generous and collaborative partner, working in solidarity with all groups, including grassroots and community groups, unions, faith groups and NGOs.

The Director provides line management and strategic leadership to the Advocacy and Communications Team, overseeing the direction of the team, overseeing the teams' work and ensuring close, collaborative working relationships across all teams.

The Director is a lead spokesperson for the organisation, representing JCWI and our values at public forums, in the media and within coalitions. They will set the narrative and agenda for public discourse on migrant rights and border reform, lead the organisation’s long-term digital outreach and engagement work and support the team to create compelling and accessible content, driving traffic to our digital channels and converting this into successful supporter and donor recruitment and engagement strategies. They maintain the visibility of JCWI and its messages and protect & promote JCWI’s reputation as a leading voice in the discourse on migration, rights, and racial justice in the UK.

JCWI has a proud history of leadership from racialised people and people with lived experience of the immigration system, and therefore we strongly encourage applications from people with lived experience of the immigration system and are representative of the communities we work with.

Leadership

• Anti-oppression: Ensure that JCWI’s work remains situated within a wider movement against racism and oppression, and that our strategies better centre and support grassroots and community groups and people directly impacted by border violence, by maintaining and building strong relationships with migrant-led and racial justice organisations  

• Senior Leadership: Collaborate with other members of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) to deliver the organisation’s five-year strategy, ensuring we live our core values

• Strategic Leadership: Support the Advocacy and Communications Team to develop, implement and review effective strategies for all policy, advocacy, campaigning, and community organising work. These strategies will cohere with JCWI’s legal work, and aptly respond to an evolving political landscape, by knowing which levers to pull when in order to build power and influence
• Line management: Support all direct reports with regards to well-being and development, through one-to-one supervision, guidance and long-term work planning, ensuring staff have autonomy over their work, with their skills, expertise and strengths valued, and embodying a non-hierarchical approach to line management

• Positive culture: Embody and embed a positive and healthy working culture within the Advocacy and Communications Team and across the organisation, which includes fostering a safe space for learning and growth, maintaining a positive work-life balance and collaborative work ethos

• Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning: Work with the Grants Manager to develop and maintain improved Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning systems, set targets and measure outputs within the Advocacy and Communications Team which cohere with the organisation as a whole and our collective strategic objectives.

• Collaboration: Maintain and foster strong intra and inter-departmental relationships at every level, ensuring collaboration and open communication to deliver our organisational objectives

• Spokesperson: Represent the organisation as a lead spokesperson in public forums, in coalitions, on broadcast, and in print media

• Team development: Support the Team to grow through continuous investment in training, learning, and development, with people from racialised and marginalised backgrounds meaningfully supported against any structural barriers they may face. Manage recruitment for the Advocacy and Communications Team, encouraging better representation at JCWI, including increasing the number of people from racialised and marginalised backgrounds, especially those with lived experience of the immigration system

• Financial planning: Work with the Operations Team to ensure the budget for JCWI’s advocacy work is effectively planned for and managed, and that the team is appropriately resourced 

Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns Work

• Lead on JCWI’s core campaigns, driving forward policy, advocacy, and campaigns outputs, and ensuring the campaigns centre the views and experiences of people with lived experience

• Lead on JCWI’s ‘reactive’ policy, advocacy and campaigning work in response to an ever-changing and increasingly hostile political landscape, representing JCWI in coalitions and developing sound policy and political analysis on key threats facing migrant communities, including but not limited to: refugee rights, human rights protection, the hostile environment, Windrush, digital justice, detention, and family reunion.

• Represent JCWI at meetings and events with key decision makers, including parliamentarians, policymakers and other organisations in the sector, to make the case for policy change, influence narratives, and hold those in power to account in solidarity with communities at the sharpest end of UK immigration controls 

• Work closely with the Legal Directors and wider team to ensure our casework and outreach informs JCWI’s advocacy work, and to together identify opportunities for public-interest litigation relevant to JCWI’s campaign priorities 

• Ensure JCWI’s Lived Experience Strategy is embedded into the Advocacy and Communications Team’s ways of working and oversee the implementation of the Strategy across JCWI with the support and collaboration of the whole organisation.

Public Campaigns, Outreach and Engagement Work

• Lead, develop, implement, and review effective strategies for communication and engagement work across traditional, digital and paid media
• Support a proactive, safe culture that identifies, creates, and jumps at opportunities to increase JCWI’s impact
• Work with the Communications team to ensure their input is incorporated into organisational strategy and ensure communications strategies support both strategic campaigns and broader organisational objectives
• Support our traditional press and digital engagement work to ensure JCWI is at the forefront of public discourse on migrant rights and border reform
• Work closely with the Legal Directors and wider team to ensure our casework and outreach informs our external communications
• Grow and engage JCWI’s audiences, ensuring a consistent tone of voice and brand across outputs and channels and influencing public discourse in support of flagship campaigns
• Set quantifiable targets and have a strong understanding of reporting, evaluation and measurement of comms outputs.
• Ensure the voices of JCWI’s service users, our grassroots partners and community-based campaigners with lived experience of the sharpest end of the border regime/immigration controls borders are elevated and supported.
• Provide oversight on written and multimedia outputs, including comments, pitches, editorials and digital content, reviewing and quality assuring for sign-off, and ensuring spokespeople are well trained and well briefed before engaging with the media
• Support reactive or ‘breaking news’ work and ensure rotas (including out-of-hours rotas) for media and press are well managed

Person Specification – Advocacy and Communications Director

The ideal candidate has experience:

• In a management or leadership role (essential)
• Developing and implementing campaigns on migrants’ rights, racial or social justice issues (essential)  
• Working with complex policy issues in a highly politicised setting (essential)
• Engaging both digital and traditional media in a strategic way for campaigns or public narrative change (essential)
• Developing and implementing long-term, strategic plans which are rooted in firm values and visions (essential)
• Working collaboratively and building strong relationships with individuals and coalitions (essential)   
• Working meaningfully with communities and people who have lived experience of oppression (essential)
• Lived experience of the immigration system, or from a racialised or marginalised background (desirable)
• Working in immigration, asylum, and/or human rights law (desirable) or willingness and ability to learn (essential)
• Developing, supporting, or implementing plans for supporter recruitment & mobilisation (desirable)

NB: experience may be in a paid or unpaid capacity, and includes work undertaken in a range of organisational forms, which includes but is not limited to non-profit organisations, political campaigns, trade unions, community and grassroots groups, and organising movements

The ideal candidate is:

• Committed to defending and furthering the rights of all people who move, and embodies wider anti-oppressive values and practices, including anti-racism, queer and trans liberation, gender justice, class solidarity, and the importance of an intersectional approach to social justice 
• Recognises the value of legal representation when used as a tool of resistance, and is committed to legal aid as fundamental to access to justice
• Someone who proactively collaborates with others and nurtures and develops relationships both internally and externally, seeing the value in the diversity of skills and methodologies that drive organisations and campaigns forwards  
• A strategic thinker who is politically astute, has an advanced understanding of the political landscape as it relates to migrants’ rights and racial justice and can identify threats and harness opportunities when working on politically contentious issues  
• A relationship-builder, able to support their Team and the organisation by building and maintaining relationships with external partners, including with key media
• Creative and innovative, and eager to encourage and support others’ creativity  
• A person who comfortably deals with new and complex information, digesting this quickly and simplifying nuanced policy or legal issues for a range of audiences 
• An excellent written and verbal communicator, able to produce written outputs and review or edit drafts for quality, consistency and accessibility, and also represent the organisation at key events, meetings and in the media clearly and persuasively
   

How to apply
Please submit your CV and a covering letter (no longer than 2 A4 pages) which outlines your suitability for the role as set out in the job description and how you meet the person specification above, via our website.

DEADLINE:  
Submission of CV and covering letter  | 11.30pm 28th August