United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Director of Advocacy and Communications (Maternity Cover)

Background:
War Child is striving for a world where no child’s life is torn apart by war. Our mission is to
protect, educate and stand up for the rights of children caught up in conflict. We aim to reach
children as early as possible when conflict breaks out, and stay to support them through their
recovery - helping to keep them safe, give them an education, and equip them with skills for
the future.
We understand children’s needs, respect their rights, and put them at the centre of the solution from supporting Syrian children to access education, to reintegrating child soldiers in the Central African Republic and promoting justice for young people in detention in Afghanistan.
We also work with children and young people to change systems and practices that affect
them – campaigning on the root causes of conflict and demanding that children are at the
centre of humanitarian response.
The Advocacy and Communications department plays a crucial role in this endeavour –
making sure we are communicating with impact about the children and young people we work
with, and calling on those in power to do the right thing to ensure children in conflict get the
support they need. From running hard-hitting campaigns to get important issues on the political
agenda, to developing media and digital strategies for our incredible music gigs, the Advocacy
and Communications team is at the heart of our efforts to increase War Child’s profile and
impact.
Overview of the Role:
The Director of Advocacy and Communications is responsible for leading a department that
consists of three teams – Policy and Advocacy, Press and PR, and Digital. The department is
responsible for three major objectives in delivering War Child’s strategy to 2019:
 To secure greater political and financial support, and influence policy change,
for children affected by armed conflict at national and international levels
 To significantly raise War Child UK’s media profile and brand awareness in
the UK and internationally to enhance our reputation, credibility and impact
 To considerably enhance War Child’s digital footprint to increase supporter
mobilization across fundraising and campaigns
War Child
Job Description & Person Specification
In achieving these objectives, the department will be driven by a number of cross-cutting priorities that the Director of Advocacy and Communications is ultimately accountable for:
 Building and measuring our profile – whether increasing the quantity and diversity of our media coverage, expanding our digital reach, securing the attention of decision-makers, or increasing the number of high-profile supporters for War Child, we will strive to constantly increase our profile, and develop indicators and metrics to measure how well we are doing.
 Understanding our supporters and audiences – so that we can better target our communications across both media and digital channels for both fundraising and political impact, we will invest in better understanding those who engage with War Child, the kind of content that drives engagement and the journeys people take to get to us. This will help us to optimise our brand and our external-facing content to improve our impact, and develop best practice for the rest of the organisation.
 Creating better and consistent content – as we grow and professionalise, the standard of our communications content will also need to constantly improve, following a clear set of guidelines to ensure quality and consistency, and creating the internal systems and architecture to gather, store and use content to maximum affect.
 Increasing our responsiveness – we will seek to improve the responsiveness of our advocacy and communications across everything we do – whether rapidly reacting to major political events through media or lobby; being quicker to respond to the news agenda; or spotting opportunities for digital engagement.
 Becoming a force to be reckoned with – in order to achieve our objective of securing policy change for children in conflict, we need to ensure our voice is heard and that we are bold and ground-breaking enough to become a force to be reckoned with in political debates globally and nationally. We will develop hard-hitting campaigns which secure strong media interest, being prepared to speak out when the situation demands it, whilst also enhancing our credibility in the policy arena with rigorous analysis and sophisticated lobby strategies.
 Promoting the voices and demands of children and young people – we will ensure that we are creating further opportunities for children and young people we work with to become their own advocates in their own contexts, as well as working with them as part of our global advocacy work. We will strive for this to be an objective across all our communications.
The Advocacy and Communications Director is also a member of the Senior Management Team and so is responsible for wider organisational objectives, ensuring that we stay true to the five core principles that govern our strategy to 2020:
 We reach children early in the conflict cycle and we stay to support them through their recovery
 We are a specialist organisation focussed on high impact and sustainable interventions
 We champion the voices of children and mobilise others to take action in support of them
 Our values define our actions and drive us to continually improve our work and our systems
 We are part of an effective global family.
This role is a maternity cover which will deliver to the agreed strategy to 2020 and the priorities identified for the Advocacy and Communications team.
A) JOB SPECIFICATION: TASK AND RESPONSIBILITES:
In line with War Child’s five-year strategy and following the core priorities for the Advocacy and Communications Department, the Director will deliver the following tasks and responsibilities:
Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns
 Oversee the delivery of War Child’s two core campaigning priorities – stopping the targeting of children in war; and ensuring children who flee war are protected.
 Provide guidance and oversight for the development of advocacy strategies that deliver changes in policy and practice for children in war.
 Provide thought-leadership for War Child’s policy work, ensuring that our analysis is timely and adds value to current policy debates.
 Ensure that our advocacy and campaign objectives are supported with excellent communications across media and digital
 Promote collaboration across departments and teams to ensure our policy, advocacy and campaigns draw on our programmatic experience and complement our fundraising efforts.
 Represent War Child’s advocacy priorities at a national and global level – at events and meetings with decision-makers, and with our supporters.
 Build and maintain high-level relationships with national and global decision-makers
Communications – brand, press, PR and digital
 Oversee and manage War Child’s brand – ensuring consistent messaging and communications, enhancing internal understanding of our brand identity and raising our external brand profile
 Oversee and provide strategic guidance and advice for our press and PR work, promoting both quantity and quality of coverage
 Work with the press and PR team to enhance our relationships with media outlets and journalists, building our reputation as a ‘go to’ agency to comment on children in conflict
 Act as a media spokesperson for War Child, representing the organisation competently and authoritatively for high profile media opportunities
 Promote and support enhanced digital and online reach for the organisation, providing guidance and support for impactful social media strategies, and investing in data and analytics to inform and refine our digital strategies
 Promote digital partnerships and innovations that enhance our reach and reputation
 Build relationships with War Child’s high profile supporters – including our Global Ambassadors – providing strategic advice and briefings, and planning collaboratively with them
Management
 Effectively manage a growing department, promoting and supporting a high-functioning team
 Build the skills and competencies of leaders within the department to take strategic decisions and embrace increasing levels of responsibility
 Promote collaboration and communication within the department, through regular team and management meetings
 Build excellent internal relationships with other teams and departments, and promote cross-team working
 Act as a core member of the Senior Management Team – setting and monitoring War Child’s strategy, scrutinising finances and accounts, and engaging in decisions on strategic investment
 Promote good governance and staff wellbeing across the organisation
 Actively engage with and take a leadership role on the design and development of War Child Global.
B) PERSON SPECIFICATION – ESSENTIAL CRITERIA:
You are a highly-motivated individual with a background of achievement in advocacy and communications, as well as significant experience of management and organisational development.
You have experience of campaigning for change through strategically overseeing and managing impactful advocacy strategies that harness excellent policy analysis to influence decision-makers, as well as mobilising supporters for the cause. Candidates will need to show that they have a strategic understanding of how excellent communications can enhance the power of our advocacy, our fundraising and our programmes – and the role that media and digital can play to help drive support and build our brand profile.
You are excellent at building relationships internally to deliver the best possible impact through cross-team collaboration, and are also a strategic operator, able to engage with issues of importance to the organisation beyond the immediate demands of the Advocacy and Communications team. A thorough knowledge of the international development sector and the humanitarian system would also be a major advantage. Most importantly, you have a genuine and deep-seated commitment to helping children in dire circumstances in conflict areas.
Experience and Expertise:
 Demonstrable experience of developing campaign concepts and overseeing strategic advocacy goals, with a successful track record of managing teams to achieve policy change through a range of advocacy approaches and tactics
 Experience of managing external communications across functions – on cause and campaigns, as well as to support and advance fundraising and wider brand objectives - and raising brand and external profile
 Strong track record of building an organisation’s media profile, and enhancing impact and reach through digital and online strategies
 Proven experience of building relationships externally with senior decision-makers, journalists, and other high-level sector allies
 Excellent track record of building strong internal relationships across departments and teams in an organisation, delivering collaboratively and across functions
 Extensive experience of leading and managing teams, building and supporting leaders within those teams, and driving excellence and improved results
 Experience of having operated at Director-level on a Senior Management Team, taking responsibility for wider corporate objectives and cross-organisational priorities, and managing and scrutinising departmental and organisational budgets
 Knowledge and experience of having working in an international NGO, navigated its internal governance, and engaged with an international Secretariat (Desirable)
 Knowledge of and experience of working in the development or humanitarian sectors (Desirable)
Competencies (Soft Skills):
 Ability to identify opportunities for influencing wider policy change to support War Child’s objectives, craft strategic advocacy goals together with a team, and oversee impactful campaigning across functions
 Strong expertise and insights into how to communicate with impact through media and digital channels, and raise brand profile and public awareness accordingly – for cause and campaigns as well as fundraising and brand priorities
 Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate clearly, concisely and persuasively with a range of audiences – decision-makers, journalists, public supporters, high-profile supporters and celebrity ambassadors
 Strong people management skills, with the ability to get the best out of a team and empower them to deliver, whilst also providing strategic steers and guidance
 Ability to consider and promote wider organisational objectives and priorities alongside departmental focus areas, and find ways to align both
 Strong budget management skills, with the ability to develop, plan and monitor budgets across a department
 Excellent written communication skills
Other Mandatory criteria
 Right to work in the UK
 Commitment to the aims and objectives of War Child
 Educated to degree level
 Willingness to travel
C) CONTRACT TERMS
Working Hours: Full-time (37.5 hours per week)
Probation: 3 months
Salary: £63,180 - £74,503 per annum (depending on experience)
Leave: 28 days pa pro-rata, increasing by one day for each year’s service up to a maximum of 5 additional days – for UK
Pension: All eligible employees are automatically enrolled into a Group Personal Pension Plan. Contributions will be made on a salary exchange basis as follows: employees contribute a minimum of 3% of basic monthly salary to receive a contribution of 5% from War Child.
Other: As defined in standard War Child contract terms

Download and complete the War Child Application Form from our website. All applications must reach recruitment@warchild.org.uk by 27 March 2017. CVs will not be accepted.
 Due to limited resources, War Child HR will contact only the shortlisted candidates
 First stage interviews will be held on w/c 03 April 2017.
 There may be a second stage interviews in the same or following week
 Any offer made post the interview will be conditional on receipt of 3 favourable written references, (from your most recent employer, any other previous employer and a character reference). War Child reserves the right to call the referees, in case clarification is required post the receipt of complete reference forms.
 The successful applicant will be expected to undergo a DBS Police check and/or international police check, a medical check for overseas travel purposes, be compliant and sign up to War Child’s Child Safeguarding Policy prior to a final offer being made.