- Job Title: Media Relations Manager (maternity cover)
- Salary: £47,000 - £47,000 per annum
- Contract: Fixed Term
Media Relations Manager
Reporting to: Head of Communications
Location: Bristol, London, Sheffield with a day a week in the London office
Salary: £45,000-£48,000
Contract: 12 month maternity cover, starting in May 2020
Closing date for applications: Thursday, 30th April, 2020 at 10am
We are seeking a creative professional with solid media relations experience and great press contacts to help raise the profile of Power to Change and the community business sector. We will be announcing our emergency response to the crisis shortly and this role will be essential in getting the word out to communities and sharing the achievements of community businesses in keeping the country running. We therefore particularly welcome applicants with crisis management experience.
Have you wondered why more stories about communities taking over their pubs, shops, libraries, leisure centres and community centres are cropping up in the media? When you read them, are you filled with a sense that there can be a better way of running things for some of the most disadvantaged and isolated communities? Then this job may be just for you, generating those stories with the organisation that is behind the rise of the community business movement.
Power to Change is an independent charitable trust that supports community businesses in England, endowed by the National Lottery Community Fund (previously the Big Lottery Fund). Our vision is better places through community business. We want to back people to build successful community businesses for the benefit of their local places.
Join our growing, talented communications team, to engage with the media on both local and national levels to raise awareness and build on our success story. You will manage a PR agency who will work on a regional and national level to profile our grantees and the trust. You will also work with our partners to maximise publicity opportunities for our many joint ventures. You will lead on the roll-out of a messaging strategy and media training plan for the Trust and will take the lead on PR for the 2021 Community Business Weekend, our annual open doors event which celebrates the sector across the country. You will have the support of a PR agency and will also be instrumental in a PR Procurement process to review that agency during your employment.
You will have an outstanding record of achieving change through communications and have a background in journalism, PR, or both.
Key audiences:
- National government, National Lottery Community Fund via national media
- England’s 9k+ community businesses including the 1,000 we fund
- Key stakeholders in the focussed places we work in (e.g. Liverpool, Bristol, Bradford) such as local authorities, regional press etc
- Key media and influencers in the principal sectors in which we work; energy, housing, health/social care.
- Our ‘inner circle’ stakeholders e.g. funders, support providers, social investors, researchers, our expert panel.
Key responsibilities:
- Awareness
Find and create opportunities to raise awareness of the power communities have to address local issues, through the strongest stories of community businesses and the evidence we have built. Focus on the sectors and places in which we operate.
- Authority
Cement our growing reputation as a leading authority on, and catalyst for the power of community businesses through well-chosen communications platforms for the organisation’s leadership and wider team.
- Movement building
Identify and create opportunities with the greatest potential to forge and strengthen networks and amplify the collective voice of community businesses.
- Influencing
Use communications to help dismantle the barriers and facilitate the growth of community businesses so that local people can genuinely tackle local economic decline from the bottom up.
- Innovators
Position Power to Change as ‘more than a funder’ and an innovator in its field. This will widen the options for our legacy and help tell the story of community business better.
Deliverables:
- Oversee Power to Change’s COVID-19 response via PR, managing public relations agency and direct requests
- Project manage a PR Procurement process for a new agency in 6 months’ time
- Continue to achieve positive PR coverage for Power to Change’s research and programmes in relevant regional, national and sector media
- Lead the PR strategy for Power to Change’s Community Business Weekend
- Roll out our media training scheme across the entire Trust
- Provide ad-hoc assistance to other team members as required.
This job description is issued as a guideline to assist you in your duties, it is not exhaustive. Because of the evolving nature and changing demands of our work this job description may be subject to change. You may, on occasions, be required to undertake additional or other duties within the context of this job description.
Skills and experience
We will consider applicants from a wide variety of backgrounds within communications including experience of working in start-ups, SMEs, local regeneration, as well as charities. Experience can be agency or client side, private or social sector
- 5 years’ minimum experience of executing impactful media campaigns and building meaningful relationships with journalists and influencers.
- Managing external agencies as a key resource
- Experience of using a media monitoring service e.g. Gorkana, Precise
- Experience of briefing senior colleagues up to CEO level in preparation for media interviews and speech writing
- Experience of driving change and influencing opinion through media campaigns
- The creativity to spot a good story or opportunity
- Excellent attention to detail and proof reading skills
- The confidence and enthusiasm to sell in our bold and radical agenda for the community business movement in a face-to-face situation, on the phone or in writing.
- Prepared for crisis management.
- Excellent communication skills with a wide-range of stakeholders ranging from the owner of a community pub to a senior politician
We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all candidates irrespective of race, age, disability, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or belief, or marital or civil partnership status. We will assess all applications against the requirements for this post as detailed in the job description and person specification and ask for names and education history to be removed from applications.
We are Disability Confident Committed; we welcome and respond positively to applications from disabled people. We will meet individual needs throughout the recruitment process, including making any appropriate reasonable adjustments during the interview stage and to our workplace if selected into post to support colleagues with any form of disability. If you meet the minimum requirements for the role and would like a guaranteed interview, please email Nicola Fuschillo, Head of HR. You do not need to share any details about your disability at this stage.
As a Mindful Employer we recognise that in the UK, people experiencing mental ill health continue to report stigma and discrimination. We are committed to creating a supportive and open culture, where colleagues are able to talk about mental health. We are also committed to ensuring that our employees feel safe in disclosing any mental health conditions and confident that they will be properly supported and offered reasonable adjustments when required.
If you have any questions about how Power to Change is an equal opportunities employer please contact our Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator, Edward Walden.