Head of Communications and Community

UK Youth for Nature is recruiting for a Head of Communications and Community

About UK Youth for Nature

UK Youth for Nature is a youth-led organisation of 16-35 year olds across the UK. Our main objective is to create the political pressure needed, from young people, on governments and politicians to stop and reverse the nature crisis in the UK.

UK Youth for Nature has two main goals: develop and deliver creative campaigning activity with our volunteers to drive change for nature, and training and educating our team to give them the skills to campaign effectively.

Our organisation has grown exponentially over the last three years and we are in a significant scale-up period, including growing volunteer numbers, funding and volume of campaigning activity.

Over the last three years we have undertaken significant legal, financial, and organisational change to build the long term sustainability of the organisation both financially and at an organisational structural level.

Head of Communications and Community

Time commitment

• Start date: To be confirmed, for 12 months (including 8 weeks probation) with a strong likelihood of renewal
• Part time: 3 days (24 hours) per week with flexibility on when these working hours are used, our team operates different working hours
• Location: remote UK with occasional UK travel

Remuneration

• Salary: £35,190 (pro rata)
• Annual leave: 20 days annual leave with an additional office closure over Christmas and New Year
• 3% pension contribution

About the role

This is a newly shaped role that brings together three functions that have grown increasingly connected as UKY4N has scaled: external communications (traditional media, PR, and social media), community management (our wider online community), and our website. We're looking for someone who can be both our confident public voice and the person who keeps our digital presence, engaged, up to date, and growing.

Responsibilities

Communications and PR

• Develop and deliver UKY4N's communications strategy across traditional media and social media, ensuring our comms work supports and amplifies our campaigning priorities
• Build and maintain relationships with journalists and media contacts, securing press coverage, providing quotes, and being interviewed by the press
• Lead on the planning and production of social media content and campaign assets, including video
• Write and issue press releases, statements, and other media materials in response to policy developments and campaign moments
• Be one of UKY4N's confident public voices, representing the organisation in media appearances and public-facing moments
• Developing messaging and framing / narrative setting for comms and campaign actions, particularly with different audiences in mind
• Overall responsibility for maintaining consistent brand identity, and visual look & feel
• Measurement and evaluation of comms performance across different touchpoints, to be able to track progress of reach and engagement and other comms KPIs, but also to allow for learnings and make course corrections

Website management

• Manage and maintain UKY4N's website, including regularly publishing blog posts and campaign updates
• Lead on general comms-focused website improvements, keeping content current, on-brand, and aligned with active campaigns
• Ensure website content supports our media, social media, and fundraising activity (e.g. campaign landing pages, press pages, calls to action)

Community management

• Lead community management for our wider online community (social channels), ensuring people feel engaged with UKY4N
• Build and nurture UKY4N's online community beyond the organising team, growing engagement among supporters and followers

Leadership and strategy

• Act as a leader for UKY4N, contributing to organising team meetings and setting an example for volunteers and staff
• Be a confident decision maker, able to explain decisions to the wider team while managing volunteer expectations and enthusiasm so everyone feels heard and respected
• Manage the recruitment and work of any freelance or contracted communications support (e.g. designers, videographers, web developers)

Experience

We are looking for a candidate with experience in one or more of the following areas. If you have any questions about the experience listed for this role, please reach out via the email below.

Essential:

• Traditional media, PR, and press office experience (e.g. pitching journalists, writing press releases, securing coverage)
• Strong understanding of social media strategy and content, across multiple platforms
• Experience managing and updating a website, including publishing blog/content updates (e.g. via a CMS such as WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, or similar)
• Experience in community management, online (e.g. moderating community platforms, growing engaged online audiences) and offline (e.g. volunteer or member engagement)
• Working independently

Desired:

• Experience or interest in how communications can support fundraising, corporate partnerships, and grant relationships (e.g. contributing case studies or impact stories to funding applications, or supporting partner-facing comms)
• Experience managing or supporting volunteers, including onboarding, training, or recognition programmes
• Experience or interest in eventually line managing a team member
• A confident public speaker, comfortable being interviewed or representing an organisation publicly
• A good understanding of the environmental or youth policy space
• Basic design skills (e.g. Canva) for website and social content

Additional information about this role

• Occasional evening and weekend work is required
• Reports to: Neel Patel, co-director
• We operate mostly on Slack and Google Drive, so having a knowledge of these is useful
• You will be joining a core team of two co-directors, a Head of Campaigns, and yourself - as well as a large volunteer organising team
• This role is expected to line manage a future team member, once that position is resourced and hired

Deadline: E.O.D October 14th (23:55 BST)

We're particularly keen to hear from candidates from minority backgrounds.