Partnerships Specialist at Nguvu Collective

About the role

• Nguvu Collective envisions a world where more women are in positions of social power, driving systemic change for their communities and countries through the consolidated power of their collectives.
• We facilitate movement-ready collectives of women change leaders from marginalised communities in India, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa that have the power to drive large-scale social impact, shift power and result in systemic changes.

Job Responsibilities

• You will work with Change Leaders to support in driving impact on their campaigns by contributing to the following:

Oversee the quality and impact of all campaigns

• Find great campaigns, both organically created and by reaching out to communities working on social issues who may be unaware of the potential of working with Nguvu Collective.
• Track compelling issues and news stories to identify good opportunities for impactful campaigns and find Change Leaders or others to lead these campaigns.
• Ensure campaigns are optimised and fact-checked before mobilising on them. 
• Spot moments of leverage and momentum for the campaigns, and proactively suggest prioritising support on them.

Engage with decision-makers for Impact

• Power map campaigns to guide Change Leaders to identify DMs correctly and what/who might influence them. 
• Exhibit a good understanding of how government and bureaucracy are organised at the local, state & national levels. 
• Show evidence of strong networks within the government and bureaucracy, OR shows the spark to build these networks quickly.
• Exhibit an understanding of decision making in the corporate world, and apply this to corporate campaigns..
• Facilitate meetings between Change Leaders and decision-makers to ensure their campaign ask is given maximum attention at the highest levels of power. 

Managing relationships with Change Leaders

• Reach out to Change Leaders proactively to support them, tracking updates and information from their campaigns and coordinating our support with them.
• Encourage and coach campaigners on how to run great social change campaigns, coming up with powerful tactics and helping secure meetings with decision-makers to take campaigns to victory.

Research, engage media, and drive campaigns to Impact

• Research campaigns you are supporting so that you know everything you need to know to coordinate with partners, the media, internal staff and external stakeholders (including decision-makers and their staff).
• Find reliable sources, track information and organise facts well on external notes (including press notes, DM letters and outreach to partners)
• Work with Change Leaders, partners and contractors to maximise media coverage for their campaigns, and to use media coverage as leverage for Decision-maker responses and campaign escalation. Create convincing pitches tailored to journalists’ interests. Strategically build a rapport with journalists and prepare Change Leaders to ask journalists to pose questions to the Decision-maker.

Amplify campaigns through innovative tactics

• Come up with creative  amplification tactics or facilitate Change Leaders to do so. 
• Execute well on the tactics - including responding to a changing environment - to ensure maximum impact and/or media coverage.
• Support campaigners to optimise their campaign text (if in a petition or published in a different medium), implement smart tactics, and amplify these campaigns to reach potential supporters and keep the pressure up until victory.

Collective campaigns and partnerships

• Reach out to communities, organisations, movements or other groups working on social issues who may want to support campaigns run by ChangeLeaders.
• Work with partners to build joint goals, clear responsibilities and escalate campaigns.
• Support ChangeLeaders to discuss, organise and launch collective campaigns - where ChangeLeaders organise together to achieve a goal in a coordinated way. This may include attending calls, helping Change Leaders build relationships and set roles/processes, reflecting on learnings together and advising on strategy.

Skills required

The ideal candidate for this role will have many, if not all of these experiences and skills:

• You have a minimum of 3-5  years of experience in:
  • Developing a campaign strategy and managing a project from inception to delivery
• You have a demonstrated commitment to social justice, especially to the gender and justice dimensions of social change, and the ability to critically engage with issues of power and privilege inherent in the space.
• A grasp of politics, the political process and current social justice issues nationally, continentally and globally. 
• You’re comfortable working in a flexible, experimental framework - An agile skill set and attitude, enjoy talking to change leaders from diverse backgrounds and multitasking while working on a range of campaign issues. A willingness to take risks, fail, adapt and learn. 
• You’re emotionally intelligent. You can empathise and relate to the people you work with and maintain positive relationships with a focus on wellbeing. You have strong rapport-building skills across diverse cultures.
• You’re a confident communicator. You have experience speaking to groups and conducting meetings, with excellent writing ability and strong attention to detail. You can drive processes and support colleagues to grow at all levels of the organisation.
• You are self-driven and organised. You know how to create and work to a timeline and plan, and how to keep others on track to meet deadlines and goals. You enjoy bringing each element of a project together and know how to problem-solve.
• You have a good level of proficiency in both written & spoken English.
• Strong proficiency with key workplace tools such as Google apps, Slack etc.