THE OPPORTUNITY

As we near our ten-year anniversary and begin strategic planning for the next ten years, ReFrame seeks a Deputy Director of Communications & Creative to elevate ReFrame’s vision, mission, and impact to the next level. We are a powerful, high-aspiring staff team made up of people with diverse experiences and identities committed to building a narrative ecosystem capable of transforming the world around us toward a common sense rooted in multi-racial democracy and an economy that works for all of us.

In line with our lineage and our aspirations, we actively work to build a resilient organization. Our culture is rooted in care, curiosity, creativity, humor, innovation, and a commitment to excellence in the service of liberation. We lead with anti-racist, pro-queer and trans, working-class, disability justice, and feminist values. We believe liberation is a journey, leaning into learning and enacting how to be curious and rigorous stewards of liberation.

ReFrame is a remote-first organization and is fiscally sponsored by the Proteus Fund which partners with foundations, advocates, and individual donors to advance democracy, human rights, and peace.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Deputy Director of Communications & Creative is a senior leadership position that, in consultation with the executive team and under the direction of the Executive Director, develops and directs external communications and creative content strategy while living into ReFrame’s values, mission, and goals. This position is responsible for all aspects of external communication and creative content, including but not limited to strategy development and implementation, audience identification and refinement, utilizing emerging opportunities for content development and distribution, directing creative content in line with ReFrame’s brand, and metrics and evaluation. The Deputy Director of Communications & Creative is an active member of the executive team, leverages staff to execute the daily work of communication and creative, and collaborates with advisors, program directors and managers, consultants, vendors, and other stakeholders to advance the organization’s strategy.

Position & Compensation
This is a full-time, exempt position that reports to the Executive Director.
The starting compensation for this role is based on a range between $103,000 and $154,000.

Location
This is a remote position based in the United States. U.S. East and Central Time Zone Preferred. We are not currently accepting applications for those residing outside of the U.S.

Application Close Date & Target Start Date
Applications are accepted through March 31, 2023. The target start date for this position is May 15, 2023.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

We are seeking a collaborative senior leader who is both a thinker and a doer and who owns their domain of work as well as ReFrame’s broader vision, mission, values, and goals. You should bring:

A Transformative People-Centered Approach
You have strong alignment with ReFrame’s vision, mission, and approach putting the values of racial, gender, and economic justice and their intersections into action in the work environment and beyond. You are self-reflective, cultivate your leadership growth, steward the leadership development of others, and proactively engage and build a culture of feedback.

Strategy and Culture Building Chops

You have a track record of designing solutions from vision to execution grounded in strategy, expertly navigating elevation changes in setting strategy, and making decisions in the near term, medium term, and long term based on organizational goals and values. You can both dream up strategic paths and direct their operationalization with multi-dimensional teams maintaining a can-do attitude when curveballs strike. You can effectively cope with ongoing change, shifting gears when needed and supporting staff with wit, candor, and direction. You can comfortably handle uncertainty while laughing along the way.

The Skills of an Evangelist

You find opportunity around any corner and no idea is too off the wall. You look to ReFrame staff, program participants, and project partners for inspiration and insights to immerse our audiences in our vision and our impact across existing and emerging platforms with clarity of strategy. You see yourself as a chief evangelist for ReFrame’s mission while also empowering others to carry forward the good word across a diversity of audiences and to carry the message with integrity, lineage, and swag. You don’t shy away from holding organizational boundaries while seeking common ground in the collective endeavor to build a powerful narrative ecosystem while solidifying ReFrame’s financial sustainability.

Next Level Agile Project Direction

You can lead a team and move people into action toward a common vision and goal holding the highest standards of excellence and accuracy of work in your domain and in the domain of staff, vendors, and organizational partners in your purview. You can direct yourself and others with clear communication and high organization skills to meet deadlines and direct multiple priorities at once including across teams in the organization when necessary.

Interpersonal Savvy and Insatiable Curiosity

Organizations are only as strong as the teams that move them forward. You are effective at directing up, sideways, and down across the spectrum of roles and capabilities in the organization – balancing leadership development, relationships (both internally and externally), and outcomes of the work at hand. You can build constructive and effective relationships grounded in trust, curiosity, proactive communication, and a shared commitment to the common purpose of the organization. You exercise diplomacy while balancing both giving direction and soliciting feedback.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

Organizational Strategy and Direction

As a part of the executive team, steward the organization in line with mission, vision, and values by supporting and participating in organizational strategy development, goal setting, and planning.

• Co-design, support, and participate in organization-wide planning processes across core capabilities from programming to operations to revenue at monthly, quarterly, and annual rituals

• Co-design, support, and participate in weekly organizational work planning and coordination rituals

• Proactively collaborate in partnership with the executive team on budgeting and workforce forecasting as well as monthly P&L reconciliation.

Develop and Direct Communications and Creative Strategy

Under the direction of the Executive Director and in consultation with the executive team:

• Develop and lead communications and creative strategy in line with organizational values and goals that support ReFrame’s current operating budget and our future growth - starting at $6.5 million annually and growing to $10 million annually over the course of three years.

• Develop and lead communications and creative strategy planning that elevates the mission, vision, and impact of the organization through compelling, brand-aligned, storytelling content.

• Set goals for communications and creative strategy including tracking progress, setbacks, and overall performance including

  • Analyzing results and presenting findings to the executive team

  • Integrating impact measurement into planning and decision making

• Bring communications and creative strategy into overarching organizational strategy and ensures all staff and collaborators are prepared and supported

Lead and Collaborate with Team ReFrame

• Direct management of annual communications and creative budget across multiple projects and teams

• Direct the training of Reframe staff, and other key stakeholders, in the development of compelling content about ReFrame projects and their impact

• Direct a cross-functional team that supports organizational projects in the development of creative content that supports strategy implementation, for example:

  • Collaborating with research teams on the production and distribution of research projects

  • Collaborating with training teams to produce brand-driven immersive experiences

  • Collaborating with the revenue team in developing compelling presentations and funder and donor-facing materials
    

• Build a comms and creative team through

  • Maintaining open and clear communication across the team

  • Utilizing organizational practices and tools for team coordination and work management

  • Supervising program staff at a variety of levels from assistant to director level

  • Annual evaluations of all direct reports

  • The hiring and onboarding of all direct reports and skip-level reports in the communications and creative

  • Performance management for direct reports

Engage and Organize Stakeholders, Build & Organize Systems

• Work with a team of staff, consultants, and vendors to drive the communications and creative plan to distribute content across channels and platforms including but not limited to video and audio, email, website production, and targeted earned media.

• Identify, develop, direct, and implement organizational systems that support communications and creative endeavors in collaboration with the executive team that are cross-functional, repeatable, and scaleable across the organization.

• Develop a bench of vendors that can be leveraged for both discreet and long-term communications and creative projects.

• Direct managers and directors with various experience levels to effectively supervise staff around comms and creative activities

• Direct cross-functional staff teams that can bring a high level of attention to detail, efficiency, and excellence in producing and distributing content while ensuring brand integrity across organizational projects and activities including:

  • Developing and maintaining brand guides

  • Developing and maintaining templates for talking points and design language across ReFrame core capabilities

  • Train and support all staff in embodying brand identity as part of onboarding and ongoing organizational development

• Serve as an ambassador for the organization in high-level partnerships from philanthropy, consultants, and vendors to program partners.

• Co-design, with the executive director and executive team, compelling story arcs for revenue generation. 

QUALIFICATIONS & COMPETENCIES

• Commitment to the mission and values of a progressive social justice organization

• Culturally aligned with an organization that is committed to movement-facing work, grounded in racial and gender justice, flexible, and accountable to multiple stakeholders

• Experience with power building organizing coalitions, organizations, and networks including

  • Familiarity with progressive social movements

  • Familiarity with power building organizing and other change methodologies

• Expertise with narrative and strategic communications development and implementation including

  • creative direction and compelling storytelling

  • visual design language and writing for a variety of audiences

• Executive leadership skills including
  • 10+ years experience in the non-profit or private sector with at least

    • 7+ years in leadership roles in non-profits

  • 7+ years in communications & creative including 3+ years in directing role

  • 5+ years in supervising staff and managing teams of various sizes and across all levels of staff

  • Demonstrated understanding of change management principles

  • Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication and relationship skills-building

  • A direct communicator who proactively solicits feedback

  • A high degree of emotional intelligence

  • Ability to adapt and quickly adjust in response to changing priorities

• Expertise in aligning and integrating communications and creative goals with organizational design and development including

  • Strategic mindset

  • Facilitation and agenda design expertise

  • Expert work planning and project manager

  • Expertise in team performance and management

  • Ability to multi-task with competing priorities and detail-oriented

• Thrives in remote teams and work environments including agility with remote work tools, such as:

  • Google Work Space

  • Asana or similar digital project management tools

  • Slack

  • Airtable or equivalent software

  • Microsoft Office Suite

  • Apple Hardware

• Authorization to work in the U.S. and based in the United States

We value candidates who can demonstrate capability and articulate how prior experiences will help them transition into this role.