• Department: Communications
• Job title: Stories Manager
• Responsible to: Head of Group Communications
• Grade: F
• Purpose of the job: Communications and Marketing Assistant

Purpose of job

Responsible for the development and delivery of an integrated, diverse stories strategy and framework to support Family Fund’s overall strategic priorities in line with charity sector best practice. Compelling and powerful stories across multi-channels will showcase and promote Family Fund’s work and impact. Giving a voice to families raising disabled or seriously ill children. Drive and support our fundraising ambitions, generate grant applications and raise brand awareness – across digital, print and media channels.

There will be a strong focus on written stories to meet the needs of funders, corporate partners and other stakeholders.

Duties and responsibilities

Family voice

• Liaise with organisational teams including research, fundraising, grant services and the wider communications and marketing team to understand the need for stories across the organisation.
• Maintain robust story gathering systems and processes to identify and support families who have actively opted to share their stories.
• Implement robust consent, safeguarding and risk assessment procedures to facilitate families in sharing their stories.
• Promote family voice internally – regularly sharing new stories in wide-ranging formats via the intranet and ensuring there are ‘no numbers without a story’ in our reporting to funders.
• Ensure diversity of voices across all storytelling, in line with Family Fund’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity Strategy.
• Support Family Fund’s fundraising strategy, with compelling storytelling, to drive and support fundraising campaigns and initiatives.
• Ensure GDPR regulations, safeguarding and best practice are adhered to at all times, creating and maintaining policies and processes that reflect the regulations and are empathetic and supportive to a family’s needs.
• Research, gather and write stories and copy for placement across channels, in a variety of different formats including written, video, animation and photography.
• Respond to briefs from teams/project groups to gather and write stories to respond to specific objectives.
• Lead video production related to family stories. Direct and plan shoots, source film locations, set shoot schedules, film or supervise filming on the day, and plan final distribution. Ensure a thorough editing/post-production process, working with the Communications and Marketing Manager, and wider team, to deliver final video/animation to standard.
• Manage external agencies, photographers and videographers producing video or animated content featuring families.
• Lead on ensuring high quality Family Fund photography, related to all family stories. Work with external photographers, direct shoots and manage our database of family imagery, making sure Family Fund adheres to legal periods of consent.
• Develop and advise on original content from family stories using text, photography, illustration, video and animation. Ensure all content is accessible, mobile-first and adapted for different platforms, using analytics and data to inform content development, to ensure impact and engagement with target audiences.
• Keep informed of trends in content and storytelling, in the voluntary sector and beyond, to inform and develop new approaches to content creation and ways to share family voice.
• Keep informed of the wider social, political and economic issues relating to Family Fund’s work, particularly in the areas of disability and hardship, to identify new stories, trends and issues that need to be reflected in our storytelling.
• Manage a database of stories and track their use across Family Fund to ensure we maximise their potential across our channels and events.
• Lead on organisational language related to disability, financial hardship, and equity.

General

• Manage budgets related to Family Fund’s stories strategy and implementation, online and offline.
• Contribute to the planning of all communications and marketing objectives and strategy development.
• Work with Communications and Marketing Manager and wider team to effectively plan, schedule, deliver and evaluate content schedules.
• Work as part of Family Fund’s out of hours on-call function for marketing and communication, to ensure business continuity on urgent issues.
• Carry out other appropriate duties as required.

Person specification

Experience

• Dealing with a wide range of external and internal stakeholders, including people from a wide range of backgrounds
• Promotional and marketing experience
• Experience of creating written and video content for different audiences
• Experience of interviewing people, including those where sensitivity is required
• Budget and line management experience

Desirable:

• Experience within a third sector environment

Skills, knowledge, and abilities

• Strong digital communication skills
• Creative skills, particularly in creating adverts for a variety of digital channels
• Experience of using content management systems (CMS)
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Ability to engage and build relationships with a wide range of stakeholders
• Ability to think creatively and develop original concepts/thoughts
• Ability to work as part of a team
• Proven use of initiative
• Ability to deal with confidential information
• Excellent organisational and time management skills – planning and managing diverse workload with the ability to meet deadlines
• Understanding of best practice with relation to consent processes and data protection

Desirable:

• Experience of image and film editing software, such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Premier Pro

Education / training

• Degree or equivalent in communications and marketing related subject
• Able to demonstrate relevant training to develop skills outlined above

Personal attributes

• Clear and open communicator; confident in directing groups of people
• Flexible, adaptable and resilient to work demands and change
• Open and participative working style
• Motivated self-starter
• Willingness to travel and work outside of normal office hours when required
• Commitment to Family Fund’s values
• Commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion and fairness for all
• Commitment to safeguarding

Stories Manager – job description