Communications Director

Supported by: Executive Director
Hours: Full-time (40 hours/week)
Salary: $90,772 according to set salary policy
Location: Remote; open to candidates in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom*
Application window: Applications will close at 11:59pm PDT on August 15, 2024
*For the perfect candidate who can work US/EU time zones, we’re willing to consider hiring outside of these regions.

About Animal Charity Evaluators

Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that uses evidence and reason to serve people who want to help animals. Trillions of animals experience extensive but avoidable suffering on farms and in the wild, which motivates our team to contribute to a world where all animals can flourish regardless of their species. We work toward this by identifying where donations can best help animals and awarding grants to promising projects that help animals around the globe.

Position summary

The Communications Director is accountable for establishing and executing strategic marketing and communication plans designed to optimally advance ACE’s theory of change.

Key areas of responsibility

Strategy and leadership — 15%

• Contribute to an organization-wide communication strategy that will position ACE as a trusted authority and thought leader in animal advocacy
• Develop, implement, and direct a communications plan that aligns with ACE’s strategic and fundraising plans
• Identify challenges and emerging issues faced by the sector and organization and define and execute appropriate solutions and opportunities to address them
• Analyze opportunities to optimize our content and brand voice to increase engagement with our target audiences
• Set KPIs and annual OKRs for the department and contribute to organizational strategic plan development
• Facilitate productive collaborations with other departments to ensure our work, brand, and key messaging is accurately represented and integrated into our programs and fundraising efforts
• Manage Communications budget

Supporting communications staff — 15%

• Coach your team members, helping them identify opportunities for growth by expanding on their strengths or overcoming performance and skill gaps
• Create the conditions that allows your team to thrive, ensuring mission alignment and clarity on priorities, plans, and expectations for success
• Model our guiding principles
• Help connect your team members with the resources they need to achieve their best results, including feedback, coaching, introductions, and learning tools
• Keep your team informed about organization-wide and cross-departmental goals and changes, and communicate necessary information from your team to the broader organization

Communications — 25%

• Ensure our content strategy is executed across our channels and materials
• Ensure ACE’s work products are effective and keep marketing and communications materials up-to-date
• Oversee, support, and advise on copy editing within all departments that create written content
• Lead and develop marketing collateral
• Manage and protect the ACE brand
• Improve and manage our editorial workflow to ensure efficient, impactful, and timely publication of engaging, mission-aligned content
• Respond to public crises and opportunities as they arise

Marketing — 25%

• Oversee ideation and management of marketing efforts to grow donor and subscriber base
• Oversee, support, and advise on implementation of successful conversion email journeys
• Oversee, support, and advise on SEO work
• Develop and maintain a public relations strategy that will allow ACE to cultivate and enhance meaningful relationships with media contacts and key influencers
• Collaborate with the Development Director to align on fundraising messaging and campaigns
• Manage AdWords account and make changes to ads based on performance reports
• Oversee, support, and advise on paid social media advertising and Google ad grants, and adjust as needed based on performance

Measurement, evaluation, and learning — 10%

• Implement and maintain tracking mechanisms to measure the department’s impact on the organization’s theory of change
• Assess the effectiveness of our marketing and communication initiatives (such as SEO, social media, event attendance, newsletters, ads, earned media, AMAs, etc.)
• Share transferable skills within and with other departments
• Optimize our tactics, strategies, and messaging based on relevant assessments
• Maintain knowledge of marketing, communications, and fundraising trends and best practices, and evaluate emerging media technologies to advance ACE’s theory of change
• Stay informed on regulations on marketing and fundraising practices to ensure legal compliance

Administration, planning and organizational collaboration — 10%

• Plan daily work
• General admin
• Maintain vendor relations
• Connect with staff

Qualifications

Essential

You do not need to excel in every single quality listed here, but each of these abilities will be necessary to be successful as our Communications Director.

• You have affinity with ACE’s mission, vision, and guiding principles
• You have led marketing and/or fundraising campaigns
• You understand how to measure and evaluate marketing campaigns for success
• You are comfortable using analytics tools to measure marketing success
• You can make complicated content easy to understand
• You are productive working in a fully remote environment
• You can independently prioritize and manage various tasks and deadlines
• You can work productively under pressure
• You have planned and led complicated projects from start to finish
• You consider the context and consequences of your work based on the organization’s mission
• You understand how diversity, equity, justice, and inclusion impact the quality and effectiveness of our work
• You strive to deliver high quality work
• You have social insight and ability to support a variety of learning and working styles
• You think critically and are willing to question the status quo to improve our impact
• You have experience leading and supporting others to reach their potential and overcome skill and performance gaps
• You give constructive feedback to your peers, even when it’s difficult
• You have experience building an inclusive and engaged working environment

Preferred qualifications/skills

Please apply even if you do not have the experience listed below; these would be nice to have but are not required.

• You are familiar with animal advocacy
• You have worked for a charity or non-profit organization
• You have worked in fundraising
• You do not shy away from productive conflicts
• You are familiar with effective altruism or effective giving principles
• You are familiar with MailChimp, Google Analytics, Salesforce, Asana, and Google office products

We invite anyone who is interested to apply, regardless of their background, experience, or credentials. We aim to select candidates based on performance and actively try to minimize the influence of our biases. There is no perfect candidate; if you can picture yourself thriving in this role, we’d love to review your application.

Application process

Step 1 – by August 15: Fill out the application questions below
Step 2 – by end of August: Top candidates will be invited to complete a series of paid work tasks
Step 3 — by mid September: Top candidates will be invited to take part in an interview (conducted by video call)
Step 4 — by October: ACE will make a final decision and notify all remaining applicants

All applications will be processed in strict confidentiality and applicants will be anonymous to the hiring committee until the interview stage.

Commitment to diversity and equal employment opportunities

We believe the best decisions are made when diverse perspectives are included. As such, we are committed to maximizing the diversity of our organization. We want to engage all those who can contribute to our mission and to making an impact for animals. We offer a mission- and employee-focused virtual work environment and a competitive compensation package.
We strongly encourage Black, Indigenous, and people of the global majority (BIPGM), women, LGBTQ+ individuals, persons living with disabilities, and people of various socioeconomic backgrounds to apply for this position. A college degree is not required.

Animal Charity Evaluators is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, creed or religion, sex, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, body size, national origin, disability, age, marital status, veteran status, family status, genetic information or characteristics (or those of a family member), ancestry, place of origin, social condition, political belief or activity, conviction of an offense for which a pardon has been granted or in which a record suspension has been ordered, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

Benefits

Our team works hard, but we also make time for our families, animal companions, friends, hobbies, and of course our own health. At Animal Charity Evaluators, you are expected to take vacation and it will be frowned upon if you work when you are sick. We offer paid parental and family leave and are encouraged to take it when needed. We work when and where we’re most productive, and are reimbursed for the equipment we need to do our job.