Strategic Communications and Board Liaison At ShelterBox

Salary: £25,000-£30,000

Grade: 6 – Senior Assistant/Officer

Position type: Full time, Permanent, 37.5 hours per week. Flexible working will be considered

Responsible to: Strategy & Planning Officer

Direct reports: None

Location: ShelterBox HQ, Truro, or remote with regular travel to ShelterBox HQ

Role purpose:

This is an exciting time at ShelterBox and as we grow, keeping our senior stakeholders informed, engaged and well-supported is crucial to reaching our ambitious targets of sheltering more and more families each year and delivering our organisational strategy.

The Strategic Communications and Board Liaison will work closely with the Strategy & Planning Officer and will be involved with the day to day running of the CEO’s Office and support of our Trustee Board and Executive Team. It is expected that the individual will be involved in a variety of tasks related to the delivery and implementation of our strategy, and should have an interest in promoting ShelterBox’s culture, values and mission through strategic communications of crucial leadership messages to our network of global staff, volunteers and senior stakeholders.

Who are we looking for?

ShelterBox is seeking a diligent, collaborative and proactive individual with strong attention to detail, excellent organisational skills and a knack for communicating in a dynamic environment.

We are looking for someone to fit into the forward-looking CEO’s Office as ShelterBox embarks on its next strategy. You should be able to confidently manage administration responsibilities whilst flexibly prioritising the simultaneous and competing tasks and deadlines of a varied and busy role. Experience in a role where a high degree of autonomy and highly developed planning and organisational skills are required.

To be successful you must have strong prioritisation and time management skills, excellent verbal, and written communication skills. You must have the ability to maintain professional confidentiality and stay calm under pressure while robustly solving problems.

Strong interpersonal, relationship management and influencing skills are also important, as is the ability to develop effective and positive working relationships with a variety of stakeholders.

The role requires a natural communicator, who understands the role that high-quality administration and effective strategic communications have in enabling participation and building trust and culture within an organisation. This is a great opportunity to get ‘behind the scenes’ of a busy emergency disaster relief organisation and be involved with senior stakeholder management and support various strategic activities, including reporting, governance and cascading communications.

Main role and responsibilities

Support the CEO’s Office, Executive Team and Board of Trustees with appropriate duties including executive administration, Board recruitment and governance, secretariat functions to the Board and Sub-Committees, maintaining and filing records, briefing strategic / leadership messages via the cascade communications system, and providing project and reporting support to the 2022-2027 strategy. Training will be given.

Duties will include but not be limited to:

Leadership support and planning

• Ensure quarterly Board and Sub-Committee meetings (the Fundraising and Finance Committee, People, Audit and Risk Committee and International Programmes Committee), meetings are arranged, including booking meetings, liaising to plan agendas, and collating and disseminating high-quality papers.
• Ensure fortnightly Executive Team meeting agendas are developed, and key matters are tabled for discussion.
• Ensure minutes are taken at key meetings (including Board and Sub-Committee meetings and Executive Team meetings), including capturing action items and monitoring follow up.
• Plan the annual meeting calendar of quarterly Board and Sub-Committee meetings, periodic Trustee Away Days, fortnightly Executive Team meetings, and monthly Senior Leadership Team and Full Staff Group meetings.
• Support Board recruitment, including arranging advertising, interviews and appointments.**
• Organise Board inductions, including creating induction plans, and support communication.**
• Ensure filing of required documentation and work with Legal, Human Resources, Finance and other internal teams on required compliance checks.
• Provide administrative support to the Chair and Board of Trustees as required to enable them to fulfil their duties for ShelterBox, including travel and accommodation.

Strategic internal communications

• Support identification of key leadership communications themes and messages from senior-level meetings you attend.
• Actively instigate senior stakeholders, including the CEO and Executive Team, to communicate frequently and with clarity to the wider organisation.
• Support timely and effective dissemination through cascade comms model, keeping all stakeholders across the ShelterBox network updated on delivery of our mission and strategy.
• Build key messages into internal agendas.
• Foster teamwork and communications among the Executive Team, Senior Leadership Team, and other key staff.

Strategy support

• Ensure that we are capably recording and tracking our progress on ShelterBox’s Strategy 2022-2027 with the right use of technology and updates from departments.
• Arranging meetings and communications for the strategy.
• Supporting future strategic reporting requirements.
• Strategic project support as required.

Other responsibilities

• Advise the CEO and Executive Team of matters requiring attention with associated deadlines, and preparing relevant documentation. Ensuring strictest confidence at all times.
• Any other duties as required which are deemed appropriate to the level and grade of the post