M4BL Senior Communications Director

M4BL SENIOR DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS

FTE: Full-time

Location: Remote; Approximately 50% travel required

Reports to: Operations & Infrastructure Executive Lead

Salary Range: $154-193K annually, with full health benefits for employees and dependents, employer-funded retirement plan, remote work stipend, and a flexible time off policy.

Application Instructions: Please submit a resume and a cover letter including a writing sample (3 pages maximum for the writing sample) to the application link. Applications without a cover letter or writing sample will not be considered.

All writing samples will be kept confidential. In your cover letter, please indicate where you learned about the posting.

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

MOVEMENT FOR BLACK LIVES

The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) is an ecosystem of organizations and individuals creating a shared vision and strategy to win rights, control and resources for Black people. Building on the legacy and strategies of past movements, the Movement for Black Lives has created a broad political home for Black organizers, activists, and their organizations. Our ecosystem is held together by politics of abolition, anti-capitalism and radical Black Queer Feminisms, and a value system that fights for the most marginalized amongst us.

Since 2014, the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) has continued the legacy of Black organizing for freedom, justice, and liberation for all Black people. Formed in the wake of the Ferguson uprisings, galvanized after the death of Mike Brown, and forged through collective trauma, rage, and power, M4BL is an ecosystem of Black-led organizations and formations nationwide that organize around a shared purpose to abolish harmful systems like policing and prison and build liberatory alternatives. We are organizing to amass significant political power to shape national and local agendas in the direction of our shared Vision for Black Lives policy platform—a comprehensive framework for a society that values Black lives, repairs past harms, and invests in Black communities.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Senior Director of Communications is responsible for engineering, developing, implementing, and evaluating our narrative power and strategic communications initiatives to serve M4BL ecosystem members and to make M4BL’s Vision for Black Lives a reality. This position requires a high-level understanding of narrative trends, patterns, and strategies within today’s socio-political context, primarily related to the experiences, oppressions, and needs of people of the African diaspora. The Senior Director of Communications sets the strategic vision and priorities for the team, requiring expert mastery of the core tenets of strategic communication and movement capacity building. The leader in this position supervises and is accountable to the communications team, which includes communications operations, press and editorial, digital, design, TGNCI (transgender, gender-nonconforming, and intersex) narrative power, policy communications, as well as various consultants who support the team.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Direct and support the M4BL communications team, including but not limited to hiring, termination, and evaluation of full time staff and consultants
• Evaluate the efficacy and progress of M4BL’s narrative and communications strategy, including press and editorial, digital strategy, TGNCI narrative power–building, design, crisis communications,  policy communications, and broad organizational comms support
• Supervise the management, and account for, the communications department budget
• Support M4BL’s Managing Director with the implementation of internal communications policies and processes
• Develop and lead the organization’s crisis communications and rapid response strategies. As an ecosystem of more than 150 organizations working in service to Black liberation, rapid response is a critical component of our work. The person in this role sits on the organization’s crisis response team and must be equipped to quickly assess the narrative and communications challenges and opportunities that are present in moments of crisis.
• Ensure that M4BL’s abolitionist, anti-capitalist, Black, Queer, and feminist values are illustrated within our communications work internally and externally
• Report accomplishments, disappointments, and noteworthy information and data to the executive team
• Cross-pollinate communications narrative-power support and tenets among other departments, such as field, partnerships policy, finance and operations, and tech
• Bottom-line message research, development, and distribution for core campaigns
• Collaborate with M4BL leadership on meaningful editorial partnerships toward political education for new and developing audiences
• Build and develop relationships with intra-movement and cross-movement partners
• Proliferate M4BL’s ideas and narrative power–building strategies within the nonprofit, organizing, and philanthropic spaces when applicable
• Provide ongoing media, spokesperson, and narrative-power training to the M4BL ecosystem members

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 7-10 years of strategic communications experience, preferably at a values-based organization, coalition, or formation

• Significant experience managing teams, remote and in-office

• Exceptional writing skills

• Ability to adapt to change, prioritize multiple tasks effectively, and meet deadlines

• Expert knowledge of narrative and communications strategy

• The ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and independently

• Time-management skills that allow the ability to quickly pivot based on current events and organizational needs

• Experience navigating and de-escalating team conflict

• A steadfast commitment to collective liberation and the ability to speak to and unite others behind M4BL’s platform

• Experience running high-level communications campaigns and previous experience working with policy teams to support legislative campaigns on a local, state, and/or federal level

• Awareness of movement-building work related to housing, health care, Black liberation, Queer justice, immigration, and abolition

• Can develop productive working relationships with various internal and external stakeholders and groups; ready to collaborate with people from various backgrounds

• Ability to create effective plans for staff growth and development, namely hard skills and political education

CORE COMPETENCIES

• Understanding of M4BL’s abolitionist, Black Queer feminist and anti-capitalist ecosystem;
• Passion for M4BL’s mission in support of Black liberation and joyful Black life;
• Exceptional interpersonal, communication, and relationship-building skills across diverse populations and partnerships;
• The ability to thrive in a collaborative, dynamic, fast-paced work environment where priorities are often evolving to adapt to the movement’s needs and emergent opportunities;

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY WORKPLACE

The Movement for Black Lives is proud to be an equal employment workplace. We welcome and encourage job applicants motivated to partner with us in addressing social injustice and those with personal experience around injustice. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on any of the following factors; race, color, religion (including religious dress and grooming practices), age, sex/gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and/or related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition (genetic characteristics, cancer, or a record or history of cancer), military or veteran status, national origin, ancestry, disability (mental and physical, including HIV/AIDS, cancer, and genetic characteristics), and genetic information.

Keywords

CommunicationsStrategyNarrativeLeadershipManagementCrisisPolicyCampaignsPartnershipsTrainingTeamwork