The Organization
The Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice raises funds and makes grants to organizations working at the intersection of climate, gender, and racial justice crises in the U.S. that have historically lacked access to funding. Founded in September 2019, we spent our first year cultivating community and co-creating values and practices that position us well to bring on our first full-time team members to work with the founding co-directors. This is an exciting time for a collaborative partner with relevant lived experience in the South to take our work to the next level.
The Hive Fund supports groups advocating for strong policies; building social movements to intensify public demand for change; facilitating civic engagement to build political power and hold decision-makers accountable; and conducting creative communications efforts to move hearts, minds, and imaginations. The Hive Fund supports grantee partners with significant amounts of multi-year general support and trust in their expertise. A majority of our funding is awarded to groups in the South, where pollution levels are higher and philanthropic funding levels are lower than elsewhere in the country.
We approach grant-making differently, with a vision of resources rooted in abundance, not scarcity, and a recognition that relationships, trust, and integrity are essential and invaluable assets to propel social change. As a re-granting organization, the Hive Fund is in relationship with funders and grantee partners: we operate in a space between movements and money that is rich with the possibility of individual, organizational and systemic transformation. We move toward a more equitable and just future, in part, by unlocking resources and returning them to the communities from which they were extracted. We are accountable to and make all major decisions in consultation with key advisors, participatory working groups, and grantee partners. We foster collaborative relationships with funding partners and allies to challenge and change harmful practices in the philanthropic sector that reflect and reinforce white supremacy and misogyny.
More information about the Hive Fund can be found at www.hivefund.org.
Position Overview
The Strategic Communications Director is a visionary leader who will be the designer and caretaker of Hive Fund’s brand and amplifying grantee partners’ stories of collective impact. The director is a skilled storyteller who can help weave and translate the qualitative and quantitative outcomes of grantee partners’ work into compelling narratives that inspire funders to value true metrics of progress and move money in new ways. Effective storytelling will attract increased resources for multi-dimensional work to address climate, gender and racial injustice —whether through the Hive Fund, other grant-making entities, or to grantee partners directly. The ideal candidate for this role is an inclusive bridge-builder who approaches new situations with humility and faces challenges with patience and humor.
The director will report to and collaborate closely with Hive Fund co-directors on two equally important key priorities:
– Communicating Collective Impact: The director will work with grantee partners to gather, synthesize, and disseminate data, stories, and other evidence of successes and impact to shape funder decision-making and inspire others. All of these communications and storytelling efforts will help inform co-learning experiences with grantees, support fundraising efforts for grantees and the Hive Fund, influence the field of philanthropy, and spark imaginations about the kinds of solutions that are possible and necessary.
– Brand and Thought Leadership: The director will help develop a national and regional presence for Hive Fund among key audiences, refining the Hive Fund’s voice, building the organization’s credibility, and promoting the thought leadership of the organization’s staff, grantee partners, and advisors with the aim of sharing lessons and to influencing the field of philanthropy. The director will help cultivate and engage a community of funders, supporters, and grantee partners through regular communications, special events, and other community-building efforts.
ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS
This is an opportunity for the director to co-create a new role. Examples of core responsibilities include:
Strategy
– Partner with the co-directors to develop and implement a comprehensive communications strategy to address the Hive Fund’s communications priorities, including short- and long-term goals, key audiences, and success metrics.
Collective Impact Storytelling
– Explore options for designing and running a collective impact tracking and storytelling effort in collaboration with grantee partners and other funders.
– Convey complex, intersectional work in clear, compelling, and inspiring ways.
– Co-create and normalize the use of new metrics of progress and success toward addressing long-standing systemic challenges.
– Help share stories about healing justice and holistic security practices.
Channels & Content
– Serve as the chief writer, editor and storyteller, helping create compelling content for emails, websites, social media, Learning Lab (an online hub where we share insights, ideas, challenges and learnings from our grantee and funder communities), slide decks, talking points, reports, grant reports, and other materials.
– Develop and manage Hive Fund’s communications to key external stakeholders, including a quarterly newsletter.
– Manage Hive Fund’s website and social media identities, leveraging these platforms for ongoing community-influencing and movement-building efforts, as appropriate.
– Explore, test and iterate new communications technologies and platforms.
Thought Leadership & Media Relations
– Partner with Hive Fund’s co-directors to ensure the organization’s brand and value proposition resonate with and inspire increased investment and engagement of funders and prospective funders to support intersectional work.
– Develop Hive Fund’s messaging architecture, talking points, and specific messaging for distinct internal and external audiences.
– Lead relationship development with journalists, bloggers, and other influencers to enhance the Hive Fund’s and grantee partners’ position as climate, gender, and racial justice experts.
– Identify opportunities to boost the Hive Fund’s and grantee partners’ leadership and impact through writing and speaking opportunities such as editorials, keynotes, and panel participation.
Team Management
– As part of the Hive Fund’s leadership team, coach and mentor staff, advisors, and grantee partners in order to build a culture of communications savvy.
– Promote a culture of high performance, continual learning, and commitment to excellence.
– Develop the organizational systems and practices that support strong communications.
– Select and manage consultants, graphic designers, data visualization specialists, video producers, and others as needed.
QUALIFICATIONS & CHARACTERISTICS
Core – Ideally, the director will have a mix of these core experiences and skills to support their ability to thrive in the role:
– Lived and work experience relevant to climate, gender, and racial justice in the U.S. South reflected in a clear commitment to the mission and growth of the Hive Fund.
– 8+ years of relevant communications and storytelling experience; familiarity with climate, gender, and/or racial justice nonprofit and/or foundation landscapes.
– Effective oral and written communications skills and demonstrated ability to integrate data and stories into insights and persuasive narratives about impact that can shift societal norms and philanthropic practices.
– Highly collaborative work style with outstanding relationship-building skills, experience contributing to a positive organizational culture, and the ability to operate as a peer and thought partner to the co-directors, grantee partners, funding partners, and external constituents with the highest levels of integrity.
– Experience designing and executing communications strategies that generate credibility.
– Proven project management abilities to ensure that priorities are clearly understood by the entire team and the work advances on time and on budget.
Preferred – Preferably, the director will also have some of these desired experiences and skills to enhance their thought partnership in the role:
– Ability to translate a powerful vision into actionable strategies, with an understanding of philanthropy’s role in social change.
– Understands the intersection of quantitative and qualitative data in measuring and communicating impact.
– Track record of working effectively behind the scenes, putting forward voices and perspectives of others.
– Experience supervising and/or working with consultants.
– Social media savvy with understanding of how to integrate social into comprehensive communications strategies.
WORK ENVIRONMENT, SCHEDULE & TRAVEL
The Strategic Communications Director will be an employee of the Hive Fund’s fiscal sponsor, the Windward Fund. This is a full-time salaried position with comprehensive benefits. As a distributed organization, our team members currently work remotely embedded in key regions across the U.S. and will mainly work from home or in co-working spaces post-COVID. The Hive Fund will provide necessary office equipment and supplies for remote work and work in co-working spaces. Approximately 10-20% travel, mainly regional, is ideal to support an intentionally distributed workplace, to build trust and relationships by meeting grantee partners in their communities, and to attend and other learning and networking events. Reasonable accommodations will be made for individuals with disabilities, caregiving responsibilities, and those who reside in rural areas.
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
The Hive Fund’s compensation practices support staff in thriving and are part of living into the just, equitable world we are actively creating. These practices are guided by the Fund’s six core values, especially transparency, equity, and healing & security. The salary range for this position is $150,000 – $200,000, commensurate with qualifications, plus access to professional development resources and the competitive benefits package provided to all Windward Fund employees including health coverage, retirement benefits, paid sick leave, vacation and holidays.
How To Apply
The Hive Fund is partnering with Walker and Associates Consulting – a Black woman owned and led strategic consultancy. Email a cover letter, resume and two short (1-2 page) writing samples by April 1, 2021 to hivefund@walkeraac.com. We invite you to lift up relevant qualifications not specified in this announcement that might make you ideal for this role in your cover letter. Use the subject line “Strategic Communications Director.” One combined PDF file is preferred. Candidate review begins immediately. Beginning in April, advancing candidates may be invited to participate in two rounds of interviews with a diverse set of Hive Fund staff and partners. Finalists may also be asked to respond to an advanced assignment related to a real-time challenge that the director would face in this role. We hope to have a new director joining our team by late spring or early summer.
COMMITMENT TO EQUAL EMPLOYMENT
In alignment with our core values and approach, Hive Fund is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse, collaborative, and sustainable work environment. We believe that White supremacy, misogyny, and economic systems that make pollution profitable are intimately intertwined. Addressing the climate crisis at a scale and in the time needed to avert disaster will require transforming the systems of power governing who pollutes, who profits, and whose lives are valued. We therefore recruit and hire with the understanding of systemic oppression and of the lived reality of people with marginalized identities and strongly encourage all to apply, especially Black, Indigenous and People of Color; lesbian, bisexual, queer, trans and gender non-conforming people; intersex people; people with disabilities; and formerly incarcerated people. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, sexual identity, age, religion, creed, disability (actual or perceived), medical condition including genetic characteristics, marital status, domestic partnership status, citizenship, military service, height, weight, HIV/AIDS status, or any other characteristic protected by state or federal law or local ordinance.