Application Pack: Senior Communications Advisor – U.S. office

Thank you for your interest in the above post. This application pack contains:

·  Information about Global Witness

·  Consultant tasks and person requirements

To apply, please send a covering letter together with a two page CV. Your covering letter should demonstrate your suitability for this position.

The covering letter and CV should be emailed to to reach Global Witness no later than 11.59pm 7 September 2015 (EDT). Please write “Senior Communications Advisor U.S. ” in the subject heading. Late applications cannot be considered.

Applicants applying for this position must prove they have the ongoing right to work in the U.S.

Please note that we will only contact short-listed candidates, and feedback can only be offered to those candidates who attend an interview.

Global Witness

Global Witness is a dynamic international organisation that investigates and campaigns to stop human rights and environmental abuses caused by the exploitation of natural resources. We collect irrefutable evidence through our investigations and combine it with powerful advocacy to force change.

Global Witness’ work makes a difference. Our campaigning helped put a stop to illegal logging which was funding wars waged by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and by Charles Taylor in Liberia. We bought the issue of blood diamonds to the world’s attention and the landmark Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was established as a result. Similarly, our investigations into corruption in oil, gas and mining were instrumental in making a case for the establishment of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the leading global mechanism aimed at increasing transparency in transactions between governments and companies.

More recently, our research on conflict minerals in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has exposed how warring parties make millions of dollars each year through illegal control of the mineral sector. Our campaigning has led to landmark due diligence legislation being passed in the U.S. and in DRC. Global Witness’ work on oil governance in South Sudan was instrumental in securing strong transparency and accountability provisions in the new Petroleum Act, and our banks team have exposed how major financial jurisdictions like the UK are being used to launder vast amounts of corrupt money, keeping millions in poverty and reliant on aid.

In 2003 we were co-nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for our work on diamonds. Most recently, we won the 2014 TED Wish Prize to support our campaign against anonymous companies and the organisation’s founders were presented with the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.


Senior Communications Consultant

Reporting to: Director of Communications

Location: Washington DC

Timeframe: The Consultant will be contracted for a period of 5 months, full time, with possible one month extension.

Fees: Dependent upon experience

Job Description

Strategy and leadership

·  Working with Director of Communications, help design and lead Global Witness's U.S. comms strategy, including:

-  working with rest of comms team

-  contributing to strand and team campaign strategies

-  ensuring campaigns-comms integration from the start (from research planning through to delivery)

·  Supporting Global Witness’s fundraising and profile building

·  Lead on devising and implementing campaign communications activity in the U.S. , including:

-  advising teams on best tools to communicate for greatest influencing impact

-  identifying innovative approaches to deliver on campaign objectives

-  identifying campaigns and angles that will engage the public

·  Help build understanding of Global Witness key U.S. audiences and promote evidence-based approaches to engaging them effectively.

·  Help develop and maintain influential communications partnerships

·  Champion excellent communications across the U.S. office, providing training and ensuring high quality output in line with Global Witness’s style and brand.

·  Keep Global Witness planning documents are up to date and help to ensure comms products are delivered on time, keeping oversight of delivery timelines and flagging issues to senior management in timely fashion.

·  Advise on budget requirements and operate within the budget available.

Delivery

·  Work with Director of Communications to ensure U.S. office has right systems and processes in place for an effective and well-coordinated comms operation

·  Help U.S. office build and maintain excellent relationships with journalists and partners

·  Drive a proactive and strategic news approach, including spotting opportunities, delivering influential media coverage, selling journalists unique story ideas, creating and pitching compelling content and stimulating debate in media and social media.

·  Work with team to develop high quality, engaging and well-targeted U.S. campaign and fundraising materials, across print, film, photography, audio, infographics, data visualisation etc.

·  Ensure delivery of well-written and channel appropriate content for Global Witness digital channels.

·  U.S. Help ensure excellent internal communications across U.S. office and broader organisation

·  Monitor and evaluate U.S. communications activity and contribute to organisational and team evaluations.

·  Help protect the reputation of Global Witness in the U.S. , monitoring for and highlighting both risks and opportunities, implementing crisis management media strategies as required.

·  Play active role in communications team, including providing back-up support where necessary.

·  Admin jobs and share of ‘out of hours’ on-call media work as necessary.

Person specification:

Essential:

·  Significant experience working in a busy press office, communications department or as a senior journalist, preferably in an international and / or campaigning environment.

·  Excellent understanding of how strategic communications can influence change.

·  Excellent understanding of U.S. communications and media landscape and strong U.S. media contacts

·  Strong editorial judgment and understanding of different audiences, content, media formats.

·  Sharp news sense and demonstrable ability to create, pitch and deliver news.

·  Excellent writing and/or broadcast skills, including the ability to summarise complex data and make it accessible to mainstream and social media.

·  Basic web editing and CMS skills.

·  Strong planning, evaluation and project management skills, including ability to set priorities, manageable work-plans and work within budgets.

·  Sound experience of news management, including identifying issues which involve operational and reputational risk.

·  Demonstrable ability to meet deadlines and prioritise when working under pressure on a number of projects.

·  Strong leadership and inter-personal qualities, including experience of inspiring, negotiating and working with campaigning / policy colleagues to deliver excellent strategies and communications.

·  Ability to do ‘on call’ rota work at weekends and out of hours.

·  Commitment to Global Witness’s mission, values and approach

·  Confident, ambitious and willing to learn.

·  Fluent in English.

Desirable:

• Knowledge of Global Witness issues

• Experience producing multi-media materials e.g. photo and video editing, photography.