Job Description

Michael & Susan Dell Foundation

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (www.dell.org) is dedicated to improving the lives of children living in urban poverty around the world. With offices in Austin, TX, New Delhi, India, and Cape Town, South Africa, the Dell Foundation funds programs that foster high-quality public education and childhood health and improve the economic stability of families living in poverty. To date, the foundation has committed more than $2 billion to global children\xe2\x80\x99s issues and community initiatives to accelerate opportunity for low-income families.

Our mission demands that we seek out and embrace many different voices because bringing together a diversity of ideas and experiences is the most powerful way we know to ensure the people we serve have opportunities to succeed. To achieve this vision, we must create a diverse team and inclusive culture, listen to the people we serve, and build authentic and trusting partnerships. We work to overcome both the causes and the consequences of major inequities and systemic racism by ensuring that resources and opportunities are fairly distributed.

Current Opportunity: Communications Officer \xe2\x80\x93 New Delhi, India

The Position

The Communications Officer will be part of a collaborative and high-performing team that works to tell the stories of the foundation and our partners in the most compelling way possible. Besides being a strategic thought partner on key messaging and campaigns, the team is heavily focused on content creation and distribution, and it functions as an agency within the foundation. This role will work closely with the programs teams to uncover and tell those stories, and tasks will include everything from strategic planning to tactical implementation.

The primary duties for this role will be two-fold \xe2\x80\x93 general communications support for the India programmatic work, and more specific support for our University Success Program- which includes, but is not limited to:

General Communications Support, India:

Strategic planning (20%): This role is responsible for developing communications goals and strategies to advance programmatic outcomes and foundation initiatives. This includes proactively identifying opportunities to innovate and transform our communications approach for greater impact, as well as issues management.

Content creation (30%): This role will be responsible for planning and developing content for the India programs team. This includes the creation of both written and visual content. This requires excellent written communications skills and an ability to synthesize information for storytelling purposes.

Content promotion (15%): This role will work directly with the digital team in the US to identify key themes, stories, and highlights to amplify on the foundation\xe2\x80\x99s owned-channels. Additionally, this role will assist with drafting social media, paid advertising, and email distribution, as well as monitoring key performance indicators with digital agency partners and digital team in the US to ensure campaign quality and effectiveness.

Marketing campaigns (15%): Marketing is a key component of our work, and this role will lead those efforts to help drive the work forward. The work includes planning and implementing email and social media marketing campaigns, PR/media relations, webinars, speaking engagements, event marketing, and industry partnerships.

Project management/collaboration (20%): With several program teams to manage, this role requires strong project and time management skills. We work very closely with our program teams, so it also requires a great amount of collaboration and teamwork. This role will require strong working relationships with vendors, industry partners, grantees, and investees.

University Success Communications Support, India:

Campaign Management: This role will be a dedicated communications support to the University Success team and will be responsible for the design and management of student- and alumni-facing campaigns from concept to execution, measuring and reporting on performance of all efforts.

Student Communications: This role will work closely with the programs team to identify and draft student communications aligned to student campaigns and the academic calendar year.

Vendor Sourcing: This role will source vendors and creative partners to execute overall communications goals and activities of the University Success portfolio and oversee outcomes aligned to Foundation brand guidelines.

Communications Strategy: This role will create a long-term vision for the content and communications strategy of the portfolio.

What does a typical day look like?

• Using strategic communications plans to execute communications activities for teams.
• Attending meetings with program teams to identify stories to tell through one of the foundation\xe2\x80\x99s owned- channels.
• Writing and editing blog, video, and social media content for external audiences.
• Supporting key foundation grantees with communications counsel and execution.
• Scanning of news each morning to ensure we are staying up to date on the landscape.

The Person

The successful candidate will bring experience, wisdom, and energy to this role, along with a strong passion for the mission of creating opportunities for children living in urban poverty. They will have the utmost integrity and a reputation for doing things the right way. The candidate will be a team player, consummate multi-tasker, and have the capacity to get up-to-speed quickly. They will be a self-sufficient professional who is both bottom line and results- oriented.

Other qualifications include but are not limited to:

• Bachelor\xe2\x80\x99s degree or higher in communications, journalism, or marketing with 10-12 years of relevant work experience
• Strong written and verbal communication skills (including optimal balance between brevity & detail)
• Commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Strong attention to detail and demonstrated project management skills
• Can work independently and as a collaborative member of a fast-paced team
• Can work among time zones and with both an India and US-based team
• Flexibility and ability to adapt to new directions and assignments and complete challenging projects within set parameters and timelines
• Proficiency with social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn
• Advanced user of Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook
• Experience navigating content, social media, and digital asset management software
• Typical amount of travel required to perform this role successfully: 4 weeks per year

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation has adopted a hybrid working model combining in-office and virtual work.