Full-Time Senior Director of Communications
Job Description
About the Center:
Established in 1983 as a result of the AIDS crisis, New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center has grown and evolved over the last four decades, creating and delivering services that empower people to lead healthy, successful lives. The Center continues to serve the LGBTQ community through virtual support services, launched almost immediately after our building closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We offer a wide range of services including virtual one-on-one counseling; substance use treatment and support groups; virtual youth drop-in space; online arts and culture programming; health insurance navigation and a virtual “front desk” open seven days a week to respond to community inquiries. To learn more about how The Center is serving the community during this time, please visit gaycenter.org.
About the Opportunity:
The incoming Senior Director of Communications (SDC) will lead our communications department’s continuing evolution, as we strive to not only reach ever wider and more inclusive audiences, but also to engage and activate them. As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, the SDC will collaborate with other members of the team to integrate organizational goals into creative communications strategies. Inheriting a “small but mighty” communications team, the SDC will bring an orientation toward growth and development of these high potential leaders, moving the team to ensure all communications from The Center reflect the colorful plurality of voices that make up its constituency.
Responsible for all aspects of The Center’s strategic marketing and communication efforts, which aim to connect LGBTQ people to the life-saving and life enriching programs and services of the Center, the SDC will create, lead, and actively implement and project manage a communications and marketing plan containing measurable goals and objectives, including oversight and amplification of The Center’s brand and key messages across all communications channels, including our website, social media sites, press outlets, video creation, emails, development campaigns, special events, and program outreach.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
Communications Strategy and Execution:
- Create, lead, and implement a marketing and communications plan that is intentionally inclusive and far-reaching, which includes activation and engagement targets relevant to The Center’s goals, and contains measurable goals and objectives based on a comprehensive analysis of Center offerings, resources, financials, internal and external stakeholders.
- Oversee and ultimately approve all marketing and communications outputs including digital media, direct mail, onsite communications, and advertising.
- Plan and execute press outreach and campaigns including releases, strategic media placement and press conferences as needed.
- Manage all media relations to positive effect.
- Lead and execute all crisis communications, as they arise.
- Develop, coordinate, and communicate with a communications advisory board, composed of community members and communications experts.
- Obtain input from members of The Center’s constituency to ensure all types of campaigns and outreach reflect and/or incorporate the community’s diverse voices, identities, and experiences.
Team Leadership & Collaboration:
- Provide leadership, training, and support for the department, including directly managing and developing the communications team, ensuring goals are met, while the team remains nimble and responsive to competing priorities.
- In collaboration with other departments and the senior leadership team, increase Center-produced event visibility, strengthen attendance and participation in pre-identified programs and services, and increase Center membership program through targeted outreach.
- Create a regular schedule to coordinate with and assist relevant internal departments on marketing-related matters to create necessary outputs and maximize results.
- Apply strong decision-making, innovative and creative-thinking, and problem-solving skills to successfully promote The Center’s mission, services, programs, and events.
Required Experience, Knowledge and Skills:
- Mission & Values Alignment: Demonstrates passion for, close involvement/experience with, and understanding of the LGBTQ Community’s issues and needs, including centering the voices of those who have been historically oppressed, and a contemporary analysis of structural racism and bias.
- Communications Expertise: Expertise in the full spectrum of communications strategies and tactics, particularly digital engagement and activation in the social impact sector; history of applying creative, novel, or even unconventional solutions and ideas to communications campaigns; impeccable, flexible writer and editor who adapts to reach a wide variety of audiences; deep understanding of how to leverage communications as a vehicle for social impact and movement building.
- Activation & Engagement Experience: Working knowledge of, and experience with, all kinds of audience activation, including political advocacy or organizing, and how to leverage communications strategies to do more than just reach and engage but also to inspire and activate.
- Team Leadership: Proven history of leading, inspiring, and developing cohesive and high functioning teams with diverse identities to effectively deliver outcomes while centering an organization’s mission; track record of effective collaboration with executive leaders; experience setting and driving strategy at the organization level; ability to manage up, down, and across an organization effectively, without formal authority.
- Collaboration & Relationship Building: Demonstrated ability to cultivate, grow, and manage positive, mutually beneficial relationships at all levels of an organization; outstanding interpersonal and relationship management skills, including the ability to identify and work through challenges, underscored by strong judgment and emotional intelligence; proven collaborator, able to work with and through senior leadership teams, as well as across functions.
- Project Management: Outstanding project management skills, with a history of completing projects on time and on budget; ability to thoughtfully prioritize, delegate, and communicate project goals, milestones, and outcomes.
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The Center’s Commitment to Equity & Inclusivity
The Center was born of community activism in response to the AIDS epidemic, ensuring a place for LGBTQ people to access information, care, and support that they were not receiving elsewhere. We opened in 1983 to help people who had doors constantly closed in their faces, ostracized by family, friends, and shunned by the general society. Since that time, we have continually provided a wide array of services and programs to serve our community, with an intentional focus on providing support to those who are most vulnerable. We have always taken great care to be a space that responds to community need; engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion work is another outgrowth of those ongoing efforts. We recognize that in order to help LGBTQ individuals and our diverse community achieve parity in health, justice, opportunity and success outcomes, our organization must hold a strong foundation and competency in, as well as invest organizational focus on, equity and inclusion frameworks, practices and policies. This is also true in our hiring and retention of staff.
How to Apply
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