Manager, Content

About this position

Manager, Content
Full-Time Permanent
Hybrid Eligible
Vancouver Foundation acknowledges that we carry out our work on the lands of Indigenous nations throughout colonial British Columbia. Our office is located on the unceded, ancestral, and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

About Us
Vancouver Foundation is a community foundation that serves Vancouver and all of BC. We bring together the generosity of donors with the ideas and energy of people and communities across the province. Every year we fund a diverse mix of grants, both large and small, that help to build healthy, vibrant, equitable, and inclusive communities. Considered a leader in responsive grantmaking and systems change, Vancouver Foundation is the most significant funder of charities in BC outside of government.

As a community foundation, we’re committed to ensuring everyone has a place in our mission. We are on a journey to actively align all aspects of our work — both internally and externally — to our commitment to equity, inclusion, and a more just society.

For a view into our world, please visit: www.vancouverfoundation.ca

About You             
You’re someone who thrives in a collaborative team. You have experience writing inclusively to inspire social change and a strong understanding of today’s pressing social and environmental issues. You’re a creative who advocates for the reader’s experience of your works. You are diplomatic in how you resolve competing priorities or perspectives. You’re passionate about telling stories that focus on the subject’s strengths, complexities, and authentic self.

You’re looking for a team that values learning, and growth. You have experience in most of these areas and are keen to grow into the others.

You’re ready to join us as we explore and shape how Vancouver Foundation might do even more to align justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion with our culture and our mission.

About the Position
The Manager, Content is our resident storyteller. This role supports the brand voices of Vancouver Foundation and our sub-brands, including LEVEL and Neighbourhood Small Grants. This role will contribute to and execute our content strategy and marketing strategy and supports us in engaging new and diverse communities to join our work with engaging, informative, and inspiring copy.

You will be focused on maintaining our brand voice as you create content. Your day-to-day will be writing-intensive, though you’ll also collaborate with the team to develop creative concepts and ensure content is cohesive as a whole. You’ll help our team make smart decisions about content and oversee a roster of contract writers and brand strategists to achieve our goals.

Main Responsibilities

• Collaborate with project leads across the organization to determine what kind of copy and content they need and how we start gathering source material.
• Plan, produce, and publish content that informs and inspires our readers to join our work, and maintain systems for governing content after it’s published.
• Manage our brand copy guidelines and related resources, like a glossary.
• Develop an editorial calendar for Vancouver Foundation and its sub-brands that supports our goals and keeps pace with our emerging purpose.
• Works with the team members to analyze our audiences and use insights from research and testing to inform your future content.
• Contribute to and execute on our content strategy and marketing strategy
• Create copy for a wide range of projects and products, primarily: profiles of grantees, website copy, content marketing articles for donors, e-newsletters and email funnels, alt text, UX writing.
• Oversee contract writers and brand strategists to support your workplan.
• Develop a deep understanding of our products and programs by working with our Donor Services and Grants & Community Initiatives departments.
• Coach the Coordinator, Communications on writing compelling copy.
• Support with some website content updates.
• Continue building on the communications team’s abilities to write and edit well through creating resources, coaching, or coordinating external professional development.

Desired Experience/Education/Skills

• Minimum three to five years of progressive experience in roles related to brand copywriting, content writing, brand management, or content creation.
• Strong writer, editor, and communicator, with the ability to adapt writing to plainer language for non-technical audiences.
• Ability to create content in line with web content accessibility guidelines (we follow WCAG 2.1 AA).
• Experience negotiating with stakeholders with competing priorities to arrive at a good outcome.
• Strong ethics. Ability to bring an understanding of power and power dynamics, cultural safety and sensitivity, ethical storytelling, and inclusive communications practices.
• Experience with audience analysis and tailoring content to different audiences is an asset.
• Familiarity with uploading content to Wordpress and posting to social media channels via Hootsuite is an asset, with a willingness to learn just as important.
• Some UX writing skills are an asset

We know that there is rarely an ideal or perfect candidate for a job, and we are actively working to eliminate barriers in our employment process. If you have experience similar to what is described above—or if the core activities in this role are exciting to you, but you do not meet the above exactly—we encourage you to apply and elaborate in your cover letter.

Core Competencies
Advances Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

• Experience in anti-oppression, decolonization, anti-racism, feminist theory, rights-based frameworks, etc.

Accountability/Responsibility

• Models our values. Builds trust by being reliable and authentic. Follows through on commitments. Demonstrates a positive attitude and energy. Maintains confidentiality of personal and/or sensitive business information. Is dependable and reliable.

Creativity

• Thinks of different or new ways to complete a task or project. Able to lean into imagination to envision different possibilities in a project, task, or approach to work. Discovers ways to share new ideas in collaboration with others.

Client Focus

• Provides quality service to both internal and external clients.  Proactively seeks to understand and strives to address client needs and/or issues. Seeks feedback from clients to identify opportunities for enhanced service. Maintains integrity even in challenging client situations.

Initiative

• Acts proactively to address opportunities and challenges. Looks for ways to improve work practices. Respectfully challenges the status quo and current practices to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Ensures that errors or unsuccessful initiatives are reviewed, and action is taken to avoid future challenges. Acts as change agent.

Self-Motivated

• Able to work independently with little direction. Ability to break down projects, knowing when to communicate with colleagues as needed. Ability to assess projects that have flexible deadlines and prioritize appropriately.

Teamwork

• Actively collaborates with others to produce desired results. Actively engages and contributes to team meetings and discussions. Shows respect for other team members by being open to and supportive of the thoughts, opinions, and contributions of others. Resolves conflict effectively. Supports and stands behind organizational and team decisions. Accepts and provides feedback in a constructive and considerate manner.

Accountability
Reporting to Director, Communications

Salary
$82,800 annually plus pension and a generous and comprehensive benefits package. 

Hours of Work
35-hour work week, Monday – Friday

Location
Our head office is located in downtown Vancouver. Through our hybrid working policy there is an opportunity to work from home. If interested, please identify your requested location during the hiring process and we can discuss the conditions required under our policy.

Accessibility
Vancouver Foundation’s office is located on the second and third floors of a building with an elevator for access to the office, and an accessible, single-stall, gender-neutral washroom that includes a shower. Vancouver Foundation has a hybrid working model, with both work-from-home and in-office options available to staff. These options are position dependent.

We are committed to the principles and practices of an inclusive and equitable employment process. Our goal is to be representative of the communities we work with, and we encourage applicants from communities which are structurally marginalized based on race, colour, religion, nationality, social or ethnic origin, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression. We consider qualified candidates regardless of criminal convictions and those who have employment gaps or employment in historically stigmatized industries. We welcome applicants from all communities.

We kindly ask for no phone calls please. Applicants will receive an emailed response confirming receipt of their resume submission. Due to the high number of applications Vancouver Foundation receives, only candidates who are selected for an interview will be contacted. Periodic updates regarding recent postings are published on our career page after the application deadline has expired. We thank all applicants for their interest in the Vancouver Foundation.