Kubatana.net

Deadline: 7 February 2021

Are you the first to know when the important news breaks, and always trying to keep on top of what’s going on in Zimbabwe? Do you know who’s who in the NGO community, and do you have a good idea of where to turn when you need to get verified and credible information on a specific civic issue? Do your friends turn to you when they want something fact checked, or when they just want to understand what on earth is going on at a national policy level?

If you are an experienced communicator who is passionate about using information in creative and dynamic ways to help Zimbabweans understand and exercise their rights, we are looking for you.

Kubatana is a Harare-based media activist and civil society information hub. We have a reputation for sharing funky, balanced, credible information, and we’ve got a vibrant, robust membership across email / WhatsApp / Twitter / Facebook and our website. We love feedback, two-way communication and sharing "ordinary people's" voices, as well as drawing content from more established news sources, commentators and NGO publishing.

The Strategic Communications Manager role is a senior position in a small team, and involves visioning, developing, leading and implementing Kubatana’s core work: informing and inspiring Zimbabweans for civic action. The Strategic Communications Manager takes the lead on developing, implementing and adapting Kubatana’s communications strategy, campaigns and products, in consultation with the Programme Director. If you are passionate about using information to promote civic participation, and love working with a small team to turn vision into action, we want to hear from you!

Tasks

Development and implementation of an iterative communication strategy that responds to the changing Zimbabwean landscape through empowering citizen voices, developing thought provoking analysis and engaging multi-media campaigns; On-going contextual analysis - Reading news, reports and research from Zimbabwean media and civil society organisations in order to help the organisation stay informed, and developing communications strategies, campaigns and products from this context; Content curation - Includes sourcing original content, managing staff on content development for multiple platforms and curating content for Kubatana’s publishing platforms; Lead in the development of the outline and content of the weekly newsletter including topics, content, text and graphics; Manage staff support in the production of the newsletter; Social media engagement through the development of infographics, engaging in trending topics across social media platforms, simplification of complex yet pertinent civic information and repackaging of news and current affairs; Oversee online interactions including responding to comments and DMs across social media and email; Spearhead awareness building and membership growth through advertising and marketing interventions; Development and collection of communication Monitoring and Evaluation metrics. Coordinate weekly, monthly and quarterly reporting activities across the organisation’s communications programmes and oversee external evaluations where required. This may include overseeing narrative reports to donors, the board, stakeholders and others as required by the Programme Director; Attend meetings, trainings, events and public meetings on behalf of Kubatana, including live tweeting at events and developing event briefs / reports for internal and external publication; Oversee Communications Officer and communications support resource persons / contracts.

Qualifications

Communications, journalism, politics, law, development or other related degree desirable; Strong writing ability, computer skills and communications experience are a must; A passion for understanding and explaining human rights, civic and governance issues is essential; Minimum 3-5 years experience managing and implementing communications programmes – ideally in an NGO setting or media house; Experience with WordPress, Mailchimp, and / or graphic design a plus; An informal, hands on, down to earth style (and sense of humour!) is great; Bi- or tri-lingual (e.g. English / Shona / Ndebele) would be very valuable; The ideal candidate is a bit of a hybrid: someone who is both comfortable analysing the big picture and able to pay attention to details - someone who is both confident developing strategy and campaigns, and willing to do the less glamorous daily work of executing these campaigns.