Job Title: Communication, Advocacy & Media Coordinator
Contract Type: Full Time, permanent
Salary: £46,000.00 – £54,000.00
Deadline: Friday 7th July 2023
Location: Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, UK (location flexible for the right candidate, including hybrid working arrangement)

We are looking for someone with experience working with indigenous and forest peoples and a commitment to social justice to coordinate supporting the communications, advocacy and media requirements of our programmes, and meeting our organisational communications needs.

You will work closely with programme teams and our partners to co-develop strategies to amplify the voices of the indigenous and forest peoples we work with, equip them with tools to support their advocacy struggles, give international visibility to advance those struggles for justice, and highlight their grassroots solutions for confronting the current and interconnected global human rights, ecological and climate crises. You will lead the communications team in delivering core communications functions across the organisation, including publications, website functionality, general media and social media engagement, in support of these programme and partner strategies.

About us

Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) is an international human rights advocacy NGO that supports forest peoples to assert their rights to control and manage their territories and forests. Our work is rooted in long-term relationships with indigenous and forest peoples, their organisations, and other civil society support organisations. We work in partnership to create political and legal space for forest peoples to secure their rights, control their lands and decide their own futures.

We work with forest peoples in South and Central America, Africa, and Asia, to support them to secure their rights, build up their own organisations, and negotiate with governments and companies to ensure that any economic, conservation or other activities on their lands respect their rights, including their right to self-determination.

Our main target audience are forest peoples themselves, and in addition, the panoply of international bodies, national governments, multi-national companies, policy makers, donors, national and international NGOs, academics, and others occupying positions of influence, challenge, and/or support to this vital cause. As an advocacy organisation, the communications function at FPP is different to many other organisations, in that our mission entails prioritising the voices and profiles of the peoples and partners we serve, if necessary at the expense of our own organisational profile. This requires a careful balancing act since fulfilling our role of helping to create political space can depend on us having sufficient organisational profile and credibility among target audiences. For more information see our website www.forestpeoples.org

Context for the role

Consistent with our Theory of Change, FPP’s advocacy and communications strategies are diverse and decentralised, generated in a largely bottom-up way with our partners via our programme staff (at the level of country and thematic teams) in order to be sensitive to local social, political and legal contexts and partner priorities.

FPP has a central communications team, which successfully supports the advocacy and communications capacity requirements of our programmes via a fully collaborative approach, whereby advocacy and communications practitioners are fully integrated into programme and country team planning and operations.

The communications team retains a core function meeting our central/organisational communications needs, alongside this larger, programme-integrated advocacy and communications support function. To achieve both, the Communications, Advocacy and Media Coordinator role (and most communications team members) are fully embedded in specific allocated thematic programmes and/or country teams. By gaining intimate knowledge of the specific contexts in which those teams are focused, they will be able to provide hands-on support as part of the wider strategic response, led and coordinated by programme coordinators and country team leads.

The role is accountable to the Director, with an added operational accountability to those programme coordinators and country team leads in whose teams the Communications, Advocacy and Media Coordinator and other communications team members are embedded. Fundamentally of course we are accountable to the indigenous and forest peoples we work with and for.

Working closely with the FPP team across all programmes, the specific components of the position are detailed below.

The role

• Coordinating our strategic communications and media engagement function, integral to the advocacy role centred on and led by FPP’s thematic- and country-focused programme teams
• Coordinating the meeting of FPP’s central/organisational communications needs
• Support the engagement of diverse audiences, and enhance and monitor the impact of our advocacy and media work at national, regional, and global levels
• Strengthen FPP’s communications platforms and tools to better advance our mission, and deepen the collective impact of the work achieved together with partners
• Ensure FPP’s communications and media outputs effectively influence and inform policy, and support information sharing with our partners and across new and existing networks
• Supporting the identification and design of effective multimedia and multilingual communications plans, as well as the implementation of these plans throughout the duration of forest peoples’ initiatives and FPP projects
• Coordinate and contribute to the writing, editing, and publishing of content across various channels, including online, social, print, and audio/video
• Use expert communication and advocacy skills and attention to detail to support staff to produce high quality content, and to create spaces for the voices of indigenous and forest peoples, and their community-based organisations and other support organisations
• Being guided by FPP’s core principle of the right to self-determination, and therefore ensuring that FPP’s own communications ‘voice’ complements and amplifies, but does not diminish or eclipse, the voices of forest peoples and is consistent with their priorities and aspirations

Duties and Key Responsibilities

• Oversee and support the use of communications tools as a key element in advancing the advocacy priorities of our partners. This will include enabling members of the communications team to be fully embedded in the various country and thematic teams, so that they can understand local contexts and partner priorities, be part of the development of targeted strategies, and help spot communications needs and audiences in support of those strategies
• Advise and oversee the provision of advice on the use of strategic communications for strengthening our partners’ work, messaging, outreach and impact
• Maintain close coordination between FPP’s communications team and FPP’s programmatic and country teams through an inclusive and collaborative approach
• Attend meetings and events, including overseas communications activities, in support of the collaborative work of forest peoples, FPP and partners as required
• Enable development of FPP’s media offering, identifying strategic opportunities for using the press to further partners’ priorities, needs and messages
• Build relationships with key journalists and media outlets to become a trusted voice on indigenous, human rights and conservation issues
• Support country teams to build relationships with national level media
• Oversee and support the development of creative communications and accessible resources and tools for informing and empowering indigenous and forest peoples, community-based organisations, and other in-country civil society support organisations
• Line-manage and oversee the work of the members of the communications team including the Communication Officers and Publications Coordinator
• Review, implement and monitor FPP’s communications strategy, working with FPP’s senior staff and Board, and leading development of new communications strategies in future, in concert with organisational strategy processes
• Recommend and implement operational improvements to our communications work with communities and partners and to external actors
• Coordinate and oversee the production of FPP’s key communication outputs, including publications, films, annual reports, internal and external communications
• Oversee and manage a communications budget, and supporting those involved in grant proposal development to ensure communications needs are planned, programmed, and budgeted for
• Oversee and support invigoration of FPP’s digital offering, including the website, the monthly news update (FPP Newsletter), and social media
• Coordinate the delivery of FPP’s other organisational communications functions, including the internal FPP staff Fortnightly bulletin and annual report
• Support FPP’s fundraising efforts, e.g. by bringing our creative communications strategies and outputs to the attention of current and potential new donors, and supporting better articulation of impacts resulting from the collective endeavour of FPP and its partners
• Oversee outsourcing and strategic partnerships for effective communications and publications.
• Lead on forward planning and dissemination of press releases, articles, and blogs across a variety of channels
• Monitor and report on relevant press coverage, including news stories which would benefit from indigenous peoples’ perspective

Principles

• Respect and promote indigenous and forest peoples’ right to self-determination and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in all communications activities and outputs. One example is photography and film, where it is vital to ensure images are not used without the FPIC of those pictured. Furthermore, FPP’s work is geared towards ensuring strategies for advancing the rights of forest peoples – whether using legal or communications tools (or more often a mixture of various approaches – are generated and owned by communities themselves according to fully participatory processes in which FPP’s role is one of solidarity, support, accompaniment and advice
• Prioritise making space for ‘local voices’, ensuring FPP communications functions are deployed in a way that complements and supports (but does not replace, dominate or subsume) the voices of our partners, especially indigenous and forest peoples themselves

Skills and Experience

Essential requirements

• At least 5-7 years’ experience in work related to indigenous and/or forest people’s rights that has involved communications and media engagement, ideally within an indigenous peoples’ organisation, or NGO, advocacy or international context
• Experience of work in multilingual and cross-cultural contexts and environments, preferably with indigenous peoples or local communities
• Strong alignment with FPP’s vision, mission and values, including commitment to human rights (in particular the rights of indigenous and forest peoples) as well as interest in the interface between the rights of indigenous and forest peoples, biodiversity and climate protection, political economy, and international affairs
• Qualification/s in one or more of the following: communications, media, journalism, writing/editing/publishing; or equivalent experience
• Excellent written and spoken English, with demonstrable experience of writing copy, editing and publishing for print and digital media
• Demonstrable experience of strategic thinking regarding advocacy, communications and media, and in planning and implementing projects in a collaborative way
• Experience of communicating complex advocacy issues and grassroots experiences in compelling, creative ways, to a wide range of audiences across a wide range of media
• Ability to work effectively as part of a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, dispersed team of FPP staff and partners to achieve shared objectives
• Excellent people skills, organisational skills, a positive attitude, the ability to work under pressure, and to be sensitive, flexible and adaptable to changing contexts and evolving strategies
• Familiarity with a range of digital communication tools and platforms, including social media, content management systems and standard communication tools

Desirable requirements

• Experience of producing materials communities can access in different formats
• Experience in using a range of digital communication tools and platforms, including social media, content management systems and standard communication tools
• Previous experience in a relatively senior role involving media and communications
• Degree in subject relevant to FPP’s work (e.g. social science, law, anthropology)
• Fluency in, or good knowledge of, French or Spanish
• Previous experience of managing a team, especially a communications and/or advocacy-oriented team
• Excellent photography and/or videography skills, including video editing, Adobe InDesign and/or Photoshop experience
• Experience of creative communications such as creative storytelling, producing film/podcasts

Terms

• Salary in the range £46,000 – £54,000 p.a. subject to qualifications and experience
• Full-time, ideally including 2-3 days a week in the Moreton-in-Marsh office, Gloucestershire, UK (location flexible for the right candidate, including consideration of hybrid working arrangements)
• Existing right to live and work in the UK essential
• Benefits include 25 days leave per year, plus all public holidays, and the week between Christmas and New Year when the office is closed
• Reporting to: FPP’s Director
• Direct reports: Communication & Media Officer; Digital Communication Officer; Assistant Communication Officer; Publications Coordinator, subject to comms team composition

To apply for this post:

Please send the following three pieces to info@forestpeoples.org by 23:30 GMT, 7 July 2023. Please include ‘Communication & Media Coordinator’ and your name in the email subject line.
1. a cover letter (2-pages max);
2. a CV; and
3. a 1 page (max 500 words) piece:

• Please write a short press release based on a recent event/issue highlighted on FPP’s website or relevant to FPP’s work. We would also like you to include a sample Facebook post and tweet to promote the piece.
• The piece will be used to assess your writing skills – please refer to www.forestpeoples.org for ideas/examples. You are free to rewrite an existing piece.

If you wish to discuss this role further, please contact info@forestpeoples.org.

Applications to be received by 7th July 2023 at 23:30.
Interviews will be held the week beginning 17th July 2023.

Candidates must already have the right to live and work in the UK.
We regret that we are unable to contact those candidates who are not short-listed

For more information, or to apply for this role, please visit the Forest Peoples Programme website.