Director of Media Relations - 2025371
Towson, MD
Home Office – Advocacy /
Regular, Full-time /
Remote
Are you a person of compassion? An advocate for justice? Someone who stands up for the rights of the vulnerable and speaks out for the marginalized, the exploited and the forgotten? Do you believe in our calling as Christians to welcome the least of these and love our neighbor?
If you answered ‘yes’, to any of the above, World Relief, and millions of people around the world need you.
At this pivotal moment in time, we are rapidly expanding and growing our team to meet the increasing needs of our world. We are looking for people who want to use their gifts and talents to make a real and tangible difference in our world and the lives of the suffering.
If you’re looking for a purpose-driven career in which you can grow your talents, while also standing up for the rights of the vulnerable, we want you to join us today.
ORGANIZATION SUMMARY
World Relief is a global Christian humanitarian organization whose mission is to boldly engage the world’s greatest crises in partnership with the church. The organization was founded in the aftermath of World War II to respond to the urgent humanitarian needs of war-torn Europe. Since then, for 80 years, across 100 countries, World Relief has partnered with local churches and communities to build a world where families thrive and communities flourish.
Today, organizational programming focuses on humanitarian and disaster response, community strengthening and resilience, and refugee & immigrant services and advocacy.
This position is reliant upon funding and may be subject to modification or termination based on resource availability.
POSITION SUMMARY:
The Director of Media Relations is responsible for representing and coordinating World Relief’s presence in earned media. This position plays a critical role in developing and executing a strategy to maximize positive media exposure for World Relief and drawing attention to the great crises at the center of our mission, particularly the crisis of global displacement. This individual will serve as a spokesperson for the organization, respond to media inquiries and pitch press releases, Op-Eds and media availability for World Relief staff around the world. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in public relations, a deep commitment to World Relief’s mission and the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment, while maintaining a high degree of professionalism and confidentiality.
ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Development of Media Strategy
- Develop a media strategy to amplify the cause of refugees and displaced people around the world as a top issue of concern, particularly for U.S Christians
- Ensure that World Relief is looked to as an expert on global displacement issues as well as U.S. refugee and immigration issues, with a strategy to be featured in various media ecosystems (mainstream, Christian, conservative, etc.)
- Equip and train World Relief staff, including staff in U.S. offices who may interact with local media, to respond strategically to media inquiries and to generate media coverage that advances World Relief’s mission
- In coordination with both the Marketing and Advocacy teams – and in some cases in coordination with partner organizations or research consultants – lead development on reports that establish World Relief’s thought leadership on issues related to our mission
- Partner with government relations team to design strategic communication support that advances advocacy agendas Executive/Subject-Matter-Expert positioning & development of positioning and thought leadership strategies for selected individuals
- Crisis preparation & management
- Internal coordination to proactively identify emerging stories, internal story sourcing & database management
- Internal coordination with social media/marketing team to provide earned media clips to feature on owned channels
- Press page maintenance
- Public Relations
- Respond promptly to media inquiries, either responding directly on behalf of the organization or by connecting journalists to appropriate colleagues
- Promote and coordinate availability of key World Relief staff for interviews
- Prepare and distribute press releases
- Write, edit and pitch Op-Eds from World Relief staff and partners whose writing helps advance our mission
- Assess and escalate brand risk and partner with Executive Committee and Marketing Team on mitigation strategies
- Work with other staff and/or external services to ensure that press hits are tracked
- Periodic organizational goal syncing with comms/PR channel strategy
- Translation of organizational goals to relevant messaging
- Identifying potential brand or performance campaign concepts based on organization goals
- Integrated Storytelling: Cross-channel planning integration in coordination with the Marketing/Content team
- Fundraising story support (identifying needs for 3rd party advocacy stories & proactively providing case studies & clips)
- Program storytelling support (e.g. equipping field teams to identify proof points and motivated individuals to share their stories for press)
- Assisting with production of Annual Report and other externally-focused, World Relief-produced reports
JOB REQUIREMENTS:
- Mature and personal Christian faith
- Committed to the mission, vision, and values of World Relief
- Desire to serve and empower the Church to impact vulnerable communities
- Able to affirm and/or acknowledge World Reliefs Core Beliefs, Statement of Faith, Christian Identity and National Association of Evangelicals' For the Health of The Nation document
- At least 5 years’ experience working with public relations or in journalism
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and Google Workspace
- Ability to manage multiple tasks and deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
- Highly collaborative, team-oriented and mission-minded
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Comfortable using SharePoint for cross-team communication and document management
- Written and verbal communication skills in Spanish
$90,000 - $97,000 a year
World Relief offers a competitive benefits package and employee discount program for full-time and part-time employees.
World Relief is honored to be recognized with the Gold-level Cigna Healthy Workforce Designation for exceeding the core components of our well-being program including leadership and culture, program foundations and execution, and whole person health.
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Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
We are proud to be an EEO/AA employer M/F/D/V. We maintain a drug-free workplace and perform pre-employment substance abuse testing.
For World Relief staff, strong commitment to the mission, vision, and values of World Relief is essential, and Christian faith is a prerequisite for employment, based upon United States federal guidelines provided in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
