Senior Communications Officer

Full Time: 35 Hours Per Week

One Year Full Time Fixed Term contract

Closing Date for Applications: 27 March 2022

First Interview: 4 April 2022

Second Interview: 12 April 2022 (Provisional Date)

Can you tell the stories that demonstrate impact on individuals and communities and inspire others to get involved?

We are looking for a talented senior communications professional to work with The Wildlife Trusts on two major grant programmes.

Our Bright Future is a partnership led by The Wildlife Trusts which brings together the youth and environmental sectors. This £33 million programme, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund has engaged more than 128,000 young people across the UK and improved more than 3,000 community and wildlife spaces.

Biffa Award gives grants to projects that seek to improve their local communities. It puts new roofs on village halls, creates biodiverse habitats and gives children a place to play. Biffa Award has distributed more than £185 million in funding over the past 24 years to community and environmental projects  across the UK as part of the Landfill Communities Fund.

If you have a knack for creating compelling content for a range of audiences across different platforms, have an eye for a good story that will engage the national media, and would like to work for one of the UK’s best-loved nature charities, then we have an exciting opportunity for you.

About us

The Wildlife Trusts are a federated movement of 46 charities, supported by a central charity, the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts. Together we have 870,000 members, 38,000 volunteers and 3,400 staff across the UK. We are at an exciting moment in our 110-year history, with the development of an ambitious new strategy, setting out a vision of nature in recovery, with abundant, diverse wildlife and natural processes creating wilder landscapes where people and nature thrive.

Wildlife Trusts have restored and care for some of the most special places for wildlife in the UK. Collectively we manage more than 2,300 nature reserves, operate 123 visitor and education centres and own 29 working farms. We undertake research, we stand up for wildlife and wild places under threat, and we help people access nature.

The next few years will be critical in determining what kind of world we all live in. We need to urgently reverse the loss of wildlife and put nature into recovery at scale if we are to prevent climate and ecological disaster. We recognise that this will require big, bold changes in the way The Wildlife Trusts work, not least in how we mobilise others and support them to organise within their own communities.

About you

You will be a motivated, resilient self-starter who also thrives as part of a team. You will be experienced in working in a communications team, developing, analysing and evaluating impactful and strategic  content across different channels to drive action. You will be adept at communicating with mass audiences from a diverse mix of backgrounds, including young people, with a creative flair and ability to create and land clear and simple messaging that educates and inspires people to act.

You will be adept at identifying and writing stories that generate national, regional and sector media interest, with a good understanding of the news agenda and ability to keep abreast of current affairs.  You will be a strategic and creative thinker with a keen eye for detail, used to balancing multiple priorities and using your initiative, whilst working against tight deadlines. A talented and creative team- player, you will need to work with a number of teams across the central charity, RSWT, including communications, press and media and community organising, as well as colleagues from across the 46 Wildlife Trusts and individuals within the community as we build a mass movement of people taking action for nature.

We value courage, respect, integrity, trust and responsibility. Whilst we are passionate in promoting our aims we are not judgemental and are inclusive. We want our people to be as diverse as nature, so we particularly encourage applications from people who are underrepresented within our sector, including people from minority backgrounds and people with disabilities. We are committed to creating a movement that recognises and truly values individual differences and identities.

As a Disability Confident employer, we are committed to offering an interview to anyone with a disability that meets all the essential criteria for the post. Please let us know if you require any adjustments to make our recruitment process more accessible.

DBS Clearance will be required for this role