Director of Marketing and Communications

Director Of Marketing & Communications

This individual utilizes digital media to help recruit 18-25 year-olds to join City Year as AmeriCorps members and to achieve City Year fundraising and impact goals. This person should also utilize these platforms to improve relations with corporate sponsors, to inform donors, to interact and engage with thought leaders and possible applicants. This person should be creative and should play an instrumental role in developing marketing strategies for City Year. This person should also be fluent in analytics and data analysis, utilizing reports to constantly improve performance across all platforms.

Reporting to the Senior Vice President and Executive Director of City Year Chicago, the Director of Marketing & Communications is a strategic leader who proactively creates and elevates our messaging and communication strategy to raise awareness of our mission, expand our media presence and raise awareness among our city and state elected officials. The Director of Marketing & Communications will create and implement CYC's branding strategy to ensure consistent coherent representation of CYC's impact across all departments and communication outlets, including CYC's social media platforms. The ideal candidate cares deeply about addressing systemic inequities in education, is knowledgeable about the political landscape in Chicago and Illinois and can represent CYC powerfully in community spaces. CYC values and continuously works to build an equitable and inclusive culture where diverse people feel they belong.

Responsibilities include:

• Develop and manage content calendars to schedule and organize digital marketing campaigns
• Oversee social media accounts and develop strategies to increase engagement, followership, and brand awareness.
• Lead the implementation of the site's social media strategy and design supporting collateral, leveraging a range of digital channels including Instagram, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, the website, email newsletters, and other digital marketing platforms.
• Create all marketing and branding materials to be used regularly at CYC events, recruiting efforts, one-pagers, annual Impact Report, external communications, invitations, newsletters, and other communication materials (printed and electronic)
• Develop clear communication cascade and strategy for disseminating communications to internal and external audiences (e.g., communication medium, audience, etc.)
• Spend time in the field as needed to gain working knowledge of corps member impact stories and assist with the testimonial preparation of corps member and student testimonials
• Manage and update City Year Chicago website (cityyear.org/Chicago) with updates so content remains current
• Support evaluation of efficacy by designing analytic reports based on metrics/goal
• Monitor and track the engagement and progression of key supporters and champions to identify opportunities for deeper involvement or elevation.
• Serve as City Year Chicago Social Media Manager and Brand Manager on all calls with City Year Headquarters
• Support all City Year Headquarters' Marketing and Communications initiatives at the site level as needed
• Schedule and run site visits with elected officials and key staff members
• Secure officials to participate in City Year signature events & service days
• Partner with City Year national headquarters on enacting the organization's policy platform, developing a deep understanding of the platform and working to operationalize it in Chicago
• Track national, state and local education policy that may have impact on our work
• Support Executive Director and Managing Directors by preparing memos and sharing information to ensure team is current on key issues
• Develop and build a portfolio of media relationships to bolster brand recognition and support organizational strategies
• Support site leadership in development of key messages, talking points, scripts for key internal and external audiences, corps prep, general production support, and wrap up communications
• Lead the effort on all brand building events for the site
• Identify and lead media and messaging needs of major organizational events, and manage the creation of event-specific materials such as collateral, look and feel, speaker invitations, scripts, briefings, and media releases
• Manage Public Relations with Media groups across Illinois to ensure CYC visibility, consistency of message during all situations and crises, and mission advancement
• Ensure consistency of messaging within CYC by sharing expectations, tone, and content with other departments
• Work closely with Executive Leadership and Development Team members to understand priorities and business goals and develop strategies to meet the organization's needs.
• Serve as a powerful CYC representative at local events and community functions.
• Partner with CYC departments and staff to ensure that site-wide goals are met, including, but not limited to, stakeholder engagement, event and service day participation, and cross-departmental committees.

Qualifications include:

• Bachelor's degree preferred; degree in marketing, communications, or related field strongly preferred.
• Minimum of 5 years of professional experience in communications/marketing/public relations field; nonprofit preferred.
• Knowledge of state and local government relations and proven experience building relationships with elected officials
• Strong communications, writing, and editing skills to ensure connectivity to mission and appropriate style and usage.
• Highly proficient in social media tools, analytics, social media trends, audience engagement, and brand voice development.
• Knowledge of graphic design, brand management, adhering to style manual preferred.
• Outstanding project planning skills and strong attention to detail in a fastpaced environment capacity to imagine, plan and implement.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office platforms required and strong familiarity with Adobe Creative Suite and CMS platforms (ex. Canva, Marketo, MailChimp) preferred.
• Occasional travel required.
• Deep understanding of and commitment to City Year's values.

Required Documents

A cover letter and resume must be submitted to be considered for this position. Preferred resume formats will depict not only a candidate's responsibilities and job functions in previous work, but will include specific, quantitative results where applicable. Additional quantitative context around specific budget sizes, team sizes, or other work environment information will help City Year compare the scale of your work environment with our operations.

Compensation and Benefits

Full time employees are entitled to compensation commensurate with experience. Benefits for full time employees include health insurance with Flexible Spending Account, paid vacation, holidays, parental leave, 401K, and more. City Year is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to a diverse workforce.