Position Title:    Interim Public Engagement Manager

Terms:     Temporary part-time contract: approximately three days/week, September through November, 2011, based at our Vancouver office.

Reporting:    The Interim Public Engagement Manager reports to the Public Affairs & Communications Director (“the Director”).

Description:    The Interim Public Engagement Manager is a member of the Public Affairs and Communications Department and is responsible for managing and supporting the Public Information team and other Public Engagement staff to meet planned work objectives. Working with the Director, the Interim Manager will work with this team to engage their expertise effectively in a strategic planning project this fall. This role and the team’s structure is under review over this interim period.

Responsibilities:

1. Team Leadership: supports and coaches public engagement team members to maintain performance and champion the team’s contributions to strategic planning this fall. Collaborates with Director on strategic planning to strengthen public engagement initiatives across the organization.

• Leads effective change management: involves team members effectively in organizational strategic planning. Champions team contributions to organizational development. Advises the Director on evolving communications team structure and management roles.
• Manages team meetings and team building activities to sustain connection & engagement of team members. Attends departmental team lead meetings and encourages a transparent flow of information internally to build departmental team and its effectiveness..
• Manages team performance: Working with all team members and guided by the annual departmental plan, takes time to support each team member’s annual work and performance planning. Maintains an “open door” for feedback from team members and provides individual performance feedback at least monthly;
• Supervises triage of opportunities and potential partnerships for public engagement team.
• Collaborates with Director on implementing and monitoring planned public engagement Pilot Campaigns;
• Provides expertise on public  engagement strategies and methods for DSF projects and teams;
• Working with the Director and in collaboration with our Communications and Community Giving teams, contributes to ongoing refinement of our audience segmentation strategy;

2. Manages delivery of planned public engagement work, sustains integration and evaluation processes:

• Manages team and allocation of teams’ resources: reviews department’s annual plan and public engagement project plans; oversees ongoing service demands, and aligns work with priorities and processes in support of planned work. Supports Public Information Team Lead and Community Leadership Manager in this work as needed. Consults with Director as needed to confirm team priorities.
• Ensures public engagement work commitments are captured in shared communications calendar;
• Where necessary, works with Project Leads to execute public engagement elements of communications plans for individual projects.
• Manages team performance: Working with all team members and guided by the annual departmental plan, takes time to support each team member’s annual work and performance planning. Maintains an “open door” for feedback from team members and provides individual performance feedback at least monthly;
• Collaborates with team to monitor, build evaluation tools and report on public engagement strategy and impacts within DSF’s planning & reporting processes;
• Supports Team Leads to manage team budgets according to plan;
• Coordinates team administration: ensures HR and finance responsibilities are met;
• As appropriate, collects and communicates public engagement learning within DSF, and beyond its walls, to improve approaches to this work;
• Facilitates collaboration between the Communications and Public Engagement teams to develop and implement stewardship strategies for DSF supporters;
• Coordinates development of an acquisition strategy that identifies and consolidates information on methods and metrics for growing our supporter base (online and in-person)

3. Specialist

• Contributes public engagement expertise on select projects and services.

Other related duties as required.

Reporting staff:
1.    Public Information Team Lead
2.    Community Leadership Manager
3.    Public Engagement Specialist (Queen of Green)

Qualifications & Skills:

Education and Experience
An undergraduate degree in marketing, communications, community development or a related discipline is required. A graduate degree with a focus on building social change is preferred. At least five years leadership experience in a community outreach or engagement or related function with demonstrated success in leading a team. Non-profit leadership experience preferred.

Skill sets

• Strong values fit with DSF’s mission: demonstrated through your work or community involvement to date;
• Successful team management experience required: preferably including strategic services within a matrix (project and department) organizational structure; collaborative management style required;
• Change-leadership experience: navigating and leading change successfully from a middle management position. You understand and respect individual work styles and adapt your leadership style to collaborate with a variety of individuals;
• Empowering attitude: you are a positive team player who thrives and works well in a busy, dynamic and information rich work environment;
• Sound public engagement knowledge and experience: you understand what it means to “put people at the centre” of an organization’s work in ways that are efficiently scalable and maximize social change impacts. You are a systems-thinker with proven strategic planning skills;
• Professional consulting experience is an asset: you can hit the ground running and quickly generate team results.
• You have excellent communication skills; interpersonally and in public. You have confident negotiation, facilitation and/or conflict management skills;
• Superb written and spoken English language skills required. French language skills are an asset;
• Advanced writing skills – able to write quickly, clearly and strategically, with appropriate styles for different audiences;

Performance Expectations & Deliverables for this contract:
1. Team building: Team members report feeling confident in the alignment and significance of their work.  Team Leads feel mentored and supported in their management functions.

2. Strategic planning: The Director is well supported to lead effective strategic planning and change management on behalf of the Public Engagement team. The team’s voice is reflected in strategic planning and structure decisions.

3. Public engagement: The annual departmental plan is being effectively implemented; public engagement plans for projects & services are being well executed. Internal clients are satisfied with support received. Note: our fiscal year runs September through August.