Marketing Communications Manager

At Youth Guidance, we believe that no matter what challenges a young person faces, they are more likely to succeed when they have caring adults in their lives. Our highly-trained staff guides kids to overcome the life and academic challenges facing youth. We meet kids where they are — physically and emotionally — to help them focus on their education, make positive choices, and remain on the right path toward life success.

Founded in 1924, and still relevant today, Youth Guidance is a leading provider of outcomes-driven programs serving more than 11,000 youth and touching the lives of more than 14,000 youth, parents, teachers, and community members.

The Marketing & Communications Manager is a new role for Youth Guidance that will bring additional capacity to the team as the organization has recently expanded to become a national organization. The MarCom Manager will execute marketing and communications goals within the strategic communications plan of Youth Guidance to generate awareness and visibility for the organization’s mission and impact in Chicago and in our expansion sites, including Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas, Kansas City, and Washington, D.C.

The Manager’s work will communicate agency core messages with consistency while working with all sites to tell the stories of our work that convey the potential of all youth while celebrating that all Youth Guidance programs, such as nationally recognized programs, Becoming a Man (BAM) and Working on Womanhood (WOW), meet youth where they are, develop trusting relationships and support young people to overcome obstacles. The ideal candidate will be a master storyteller on traditional and digital platforms, creating narratives that elevate youth voice and Youth Guidance’s impact as a practice leader in social and emotional learning.

Our Marketing Manager:

• Writes compelling, mission-driven content that emphasizes the potential of all youth through emotionally engaging storytelling and that amplifies the impact of our programs.

• Develops and execute strategies to increase organizational brand awareness and visibility, relentlessly pursuing external partnerships that highlight the work of the organization and develop a wider public awareness of Youth Guidance’s mission and impact.

• Creates high-impact print and electronic materials with consistent branding and amplification of core messages in communications across all programs and geographies.

• Identifies development and programmatic marketing needs and partner with appropriate staff to meet those needs with compelling collateral pieces, digital media and other strategies.

• Writes copy, direct design and layout with the MarCom Associate and manage print production of brochures and marketing pieces.

• Manages internal and external email marketing calendar, plans and implementation of emails to Youth Guidance on multiple platforms including Mailchimp and SharePoint. Develops processes to ensure email accuracy, accessibility, and deliverability. Manage email metrics as part of marketing dashboard.

• Assists with updating the website via WordPress, including blogs, resources, events. Aid in content audit to ensure accuracy across site of information.

• Streamlines communication for internal initiatives such as but not limited to recruitment, training/organizational development, employee retention and recognition programs, organization announcements and exciting new processes.

• Provides general support for the MarCom team, including communicating with inbound contacts, social media, and process improvement and analysis.

• Projects manage key initiatives and create efficiencies across the MarCom team and across the Youth Guidance organization.

• In collaboration with the MarCom team, manages the social media calendar and implementation of social posts across all channels. Track metrics of campaigns and make recommendations on future social plans based on real-time metrics.

• Provides assistance in capturing compelling visual content to enhance digital brand and marketing collateral through photography.

• Be an active and engaged member of the MarCom team, proactively participating in marketing planning and development of new ideas and approaches.

• Adhere to agency brand standards in all work products and support agency staff in adhering to a consistent visual identity.

Our Communications Manager has been equipped for this impactful work with at least:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, English or Communications or related field from an accredited college or university is required.

• Minimum of three years of experience in marketing and/or communications.

• Exceptional writing, editing, and communications skills that can easily flex to meet the needs of Youth Guidance’s various stakeholders.

• Proficient user of MS Office, including Outlook, Word, and Excel.  Expert proficiency with using Excel for analyzing data preferred.

• Preferred experience with SharePoint, OneDrive, Office 365 and WordPress

• Experience managing various social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more, and analyzing metrics.

• Experience designing clean, modern emails in MailChimp (or a similar email service provider) and analyzing metrics

• Experience with promoting and managing online events/webinars a plus.

• Must be tech-savvy and be able to adapt to and adopt new tools and software platforms quickly, effectively, and efficiently.

Our Communications Manager exemplifies:

Mission driven: Demonstrates commitment to the mission of the organization as a whole and alignment with organizational values

Communication: Uses effective written and oral communication with internal staff, teams, and community served; demonstrates empathy and listening

Client orientation: Recognizes needs of diverse stakeholders and approaches relationships with a service orientation, to ultimately maximize impact

Equity mindset: Understands and is committed to goals of equity; consistently brings an equity mindset to the organization’s work and workplace

Ownership and quality of work: Effectively manages own work, and work of teams when relevant, ensuring delivery of high-quality work

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to sit and stand for sustained periods of time, frequently talk, hear, use hands and fingers to feel, handle and operate objects or controls, and occasionally stand, bend, stoop, kneel and crouch.
• The employee is required to have close visual acuity to perform an activity such as: preparing and analyzing data and figures, transcribing, and viewing a computer terminal.
• The employee may occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

*The duties performed are primarily in an office setting, vaccination is required.

Youth Guidance is an equal opportunity employer and proudly values diversity. Youth Guidance does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law and is committed to creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity along all of these lines. People of all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.

EOE/M/F/D/V/SO