Communications Officer

Heifer International is an equal opportunity employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, status as a protected veteran, among other things, or status as a qualified individual with disability.  About Heifer International    In 1944, Heifer International’s founder, Dan West, began outlining a simple but groundbreaking plan to tackle hunger around the world. West, a farmer from the Midwest and Church of the Brethren member, had recently returned from feeding weary refugees during volunteer service in the Spanish Civil War.     He had seen firsthand that giving people food was a short-term solution, whereas providing them with animals offered a steady supply of nutritious food for an entire family. His philosophy still inspires Heifer’s work today. Partnering with farmers across a range of different livestock and crops, we create unique solutions to local challenges.       Today, Heifer International has operations in 19 countries around the world, working alongside local farmers, business owners and their communities, as they mobilize and envision their futures. Together, we build inclusive, resilient economies, so communities can develop effective ways to end global hunger and poverty in a sustainable way.       To date, we have supported more than 42 million farming families across Africa, Asia and the Americas and in the past five years alone, we have worked alongside 2.7 million families to close the living income gap or set them on a path to doing so. Between now and 2030, we will support an additional 10 million people to reach a living income by scaling up our signature programs. To achieve this, Heifer International relies on its passionate, committed and highly skilled staff.    
ROLE FUNCTION   As a member of the Global Communications team, the Communications Officer is a strong, accomplished writer who produces compelling storytelling and thematic content focused on Heifer’s rural development work with farmers and a range of other partners around the world. The content will be used on the Heifer website, in the Heifer Story Collections digital product and various other internal and external platforms, for direct and repurposed use by various Heifer departments.   Reporting to the Director of Communications, the Communications Officer also collaborates with Heifer colleagues across the organization, including the Vice President of Communications, to produce external articles, technical briefs, reports and collateral used by business development, partnerships and other departments to promote Heifer’s work and support the organization’s development.   S/he has strong writing and editing skills, familiarity with producing content for multiple platforms and demonstrated ability to collaborate on content projects with communications and technical colleagues. S/he is a self-starter and deadline-oriented, with experience in an institutional communications environment, preferably in the mission-driven sector.    RESPONSIBILITIES:  Research, produce, and deliver creative and compelling program-based stories in support of Heifer’s work for Heifer-owned and external channels (40%)  

• Build relationships and conduct interviews and meetings with country, program, regional and departmental teams to understand Heifer’s work and identify and develop story leads connected to Heifer’s core themes.  
• Contribute feature-length articles to Heifer News and Stories and Heifer Collections.  
• Work with Global Communications team members on the development of compelling multimedia elements and strong visual content in communications deliverables. 
• Integrates web and social media best practices. practices. 
• Collaborate on the planning (editorial calendar) and organization of stories to meet organizational demands, enhance traction in the marketplace and optimize for SEO on the web.  

Research, produce and deliver external-facing articles, briefs and collateral (40%)  

• In coordination with the public relations team and the Vice President of Communications, identify and produce op-eds and other external article types used to promote Heifer’s work through key external platforms and publications.  
• In coordination with business development and partnerships, programs and other departments, identify and produce content for briefs, reports and other collateral.   

Produce content for flagship Heifer reports (20%)  

• In coordination with the Vice President of Communications and the Director of Communications, lead content generation for flagship reports such as the Heifer Annual Report and ENDS report.  
• Contribute content to other key reports as and when they are developed.  
• May p