Marketing & Communications Officer - Africa Volunteer Corps

Africa Volunteer Corps is a volunteer service fellowship for Africans to work in African-initiated development projects. Our mission is to foster leaders for African development by training and placing educated Africans to work for one year at locally-initiated social good projects in Africa.

The overarching goal of Africa Volunteer Corps is to harness the power of motivated, educated Africans and put it to use for locally-initiated development projects in Africa, opening doors for Africans to leverage their own resources and strengthening grassroots development efforts. Creating a springboard for future leaders and bolstering ground-up social change efforts, we position Africans to control development on their own continent.

Marketing & Communications Officer

The Marketing and Communications Officer will lead all aspects of marketing, communications, and media relations, including both strategy and implementation. Their role will be to develop the strategy and lead the logistics for building our brand across all communication outlets; building, inspiring, and energizing our supporter base; raising the funds necessary to make our organization truly great and positioning ourselves as a paradigm-shifting movement for social change. The Marketing and Communications Officer will work closely with all staff and Directors. This position will be located Tanzania.

We are seeking a passionate, enthusiastic, and innovative thinker to raise the profile of our movement. The Marketing and Communications Officer will work with the Business Development Officer to communicate with donors and target groups including potential partners, potential Volunteers, donors, Africans on the continent and Africans living in the United States; ensure that donors know they are a part of the movement and feel appreciated.

This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new, growing, and game-changing organization. The right candidate will have an opportunity to take a leading role in shaping the future of the organization as well as the future of Africa. Since we are a start-up, interns take on real responsibility within the organization.

Duties include:

• Developing marketing & communications strategy and plan
• Developing media/PR strategy and plan
• Drafting press releases
• Finding appropriate media outlets and circulating the press releases
• Creating and maintaining the editorial calendar , which includes a schedule for email blasts, social media posts posts, blog posts, mass mailings, etc.
• Drafting & sending email blasts
• Maintaining and segmenting a healthy email list
• Blog planning, including coming up with topics, working with AVC Staff & Volunteers to write timely/interesting material, creating and maintaining the blog calendar/schedule, and finding guest bloggers
• Developing social media strategy
• Creating calendar/schedule of social media posts
• Drafting social media content
• Interacting with supporters on social media
• Planning and strategizing photo and video content
• Shooting photo and video content to be used in a variety of marketing and communications projects
• Regularly updating the AVC website
• Writing new content for the website as needed
• Drafting marketing & communications materials for AVC such as brochures, postcards, posters, etc.
• Getting marketing and communications materials printed as needed
• Drafting gift acknowledgements to all donors
• Assisting the Business Development Officer with grant-writing
• Oversee interns and student ambassadors working on social media and communications

We are looking for someone with passion, enthusiasm, and a burning desire to change the world -- a creative and innovative thinker. The ideal candidate is self-directed and well-organized, has excellent time-management skills, can easily navigate multiple cultures, and is able to thrive in a start-up environment which involves some risk taking and much learning as we go. They must be able to work effectively both independently and with a team and with minimum supervision. We are seeking a person who wants to shift the paradigm, who wants an ownership stake in this movement to create massive change.

Must have:

• Demonstrated experience with marketing, communications, and social media
• Excellent proficiency with Microsoft Office and Google applications
• Willingness to learn, share ideas, and show initiative
• Demonstrated understanding of web 2.0 and experience creating effective, inspiring social media engagement
• Deep understanding of AVC's mission and brand
• Exceptional writing, editing and proofreading skills, including ability to communicate effectively in the tone of AVC's brand and to adapt tone and style for various audiences and purposes
• Excellent proficiency with MailChimp or other HTML email-generating programs
• Understanding or ability to develop understanding of AVC's target audiences
• Experience with Africa and International Development
• Native-level fluency in written and spoken English
• Written or spoken Swahili a plus
• Ability for both big-picture thinking and detail-oriented thinking
• Ability to thrive in a start-up environment
• Ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously
• Ability to work independently and with a team
• Ability to manage people and to delegate
• A fire in your belly to create big change in the world
• Resourcefulness
• A no-matter-what attitude and an ability to overcome challenges
• Ability and desire to blaze a trail and think beyond business-as-usual
• A sense of humor
• Strong writing and verbal communication skills

Although professional experience and a proven track record are valuable, for the right candidate, the ability to learn quickly, a talent for innovation, and a passion for building our movement from the ground up may be weighed more heavily than experience.

How to apply

Please submit a resume, a cover letter, and a sample of professional writing relevant to our work (such as a press release, blog post, grant application, or position paper on Africa or international development) toeva.weber@africavolunteercorps.org.

We will review applications on an ongoing basis.

Final deadline to apply: August 15, 2014.

Start date: September 15, 2014 (flexible)