Communications Officer
- Full-time, £25,000 – £28,000 p.a.
- Currently remote, with the option of continuing up to 3 days working remotely in the long-term (and 2 days per week in our offices near Waterloo)
- Flexible working hours subject to arrangement
Drive Forward Foundation is an award-winning charity that enables young people with a background in (foster) care to achieve their full potential through education and training, sustainable employment and a career of their own choice. We are a dedicated and vibrant team, committed to supporting the young people we work with.
Working with young people aged 13 – 26, we are a vibrant and committed team who love what we do. We’re looking for a creative Communications Officer with a strong digital background to help us engage with more young people and the people who can support them.
If you’re passionate about helping young people get on in life, and can identify with the aims of our charity we’d love you to join our small, successful team.
Who you are
Working alongside the Director of Fundraising & Communications, you will play a pivotal role in bringing our charity’s communications up to the next level!
In your role, you’ll be collaborating with the whole of our team, creating interesting and engaging content to help raise awareness, find new partners, and enable more care-experienced young people to achieve their full potential.
This a very varied role in which you’ll have the opportunity to learn and improve your skills across content production (blogging, social media, videos, podcast) as well as managing multiple social media channels, and occasional press work.
As Communications Officer you will:
Look after our social media channels: writing engaging copy, creating appealing visuals (we use Canva), creating video and audio content for our YouTube and Podcast (sourcing content, conducting interviews, editing), community engagement and live streaming, track our digital performance using platform analytics
Support maintenance of our website: write engaging blogs (topical, stories, events…) and edit team member’s contributions, update our WordPress-based website
Compile Drive Forward’s monthly supporter newsletter & annual report
Tell emotive and real stories: The individual young person sits at the very centre of our work and it is their stories, needs and aspirations that drive everything we do. Too often, their experiences, struggles, and achievements go unnoticed whilst it is these stories that have the power to drive real change
Respond to the team’s marketing needs: creating posters and flyers, liaise with our design/print partners, event support
Support Drive Forward’s PR work: writing press releases, building a story archive in collaboration with our Policy Forum, engaging with journalists/media representatives
Support the wider activities of the charity as required (e.g. event staffing or fundraising activities)
You should bring:
- A can-do attitude and willingness to support your colleagues
- A curious mind and commitment to professional development and learning
- A forward planning attitude and good organisational skills
- Excellent verbal and written communications skills, able to relate to people at all levels, and create copy for multiple audiences
- The ability to work effectively to deadlines and meet targets
- Experience of creating engaging social media content using tools like canva, publisher, photoshop, or similar
- Experience (professional/personal) of creating video content (e.g. using Premier Pro, iMovie, VSDC, mobile editors or similar)
- Ability to work within the vision, purpose, and ethos environment of a charitable organisation
Nice to haves / learning opportunities:
- Experience in maintaining a strong organisational brand
- Experience of developing positive relationships with external media outlets/journalists
- Experience working with Google Analytics and Google AdWords or similar
- SEO experience/knowledge
- Experience of creating audio content (e.g. podcasting and editing)
Benefits
- Salary: circa £28k depending on experience/performance (reviewed after 6 months)
- 23 days paid leave p.a.
- Time-in-lieu awarded for any overtime
- Discretionary half-day once a month
- Excellent training opportunities
- Staff wellbeing activities
Apply now
We’re supporting anonymous recruitment. For that purpose, we’re asking you to apply via the CharityJob portal where you can find more detailed information about the recruitment process. Please make sure that you state all relevant experience, skills, and personal motivations in your ca. 500 words long covering letter.
Examples of previous work are also welcome.
Equal Opportunities
As an equal opportunities employer, we welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons. Keeping in mind that approximately 70% of our clients are from a BAME background, we highly encourage BAME candidates to apply.
