Communications and Outreach Specialist

Center for Agricultural Transformation (CAT)

Lilongwe, Malawi

Background:

Land O’Lakes Venture37 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping communities around the world build economies by strengthening agriculture from farm-to-fork, helping businesses grow, and linking farmers to markets. Since our start in 1981, we have been leveraging nearly 100 years of expertise in dairy, animal nutrition, crop inputs and agricultural insights from our close affiliate, Land O’Lakes, Inc., a farmer-owned agribusiness committed to fulfilling its purpose of feeding human progress.

Our team is made up of nearly 350 employees who are committed to market-led approaches, and passionate about collaborating locally to create lasting inclusive economic growth. By unlocking the potential of agriculture for the last 36 years, the lives of more than 3 million people have been transformed through nearly 300 programs in more than 80 countries.

Project Description:

Venture37 is seeking candidates for the Communication and Outreach Specialist position for the Center for Agricultural Transformation (CAT) funded by the Foundation for a Smoke Free World (FSFW).  Venture37 is a lead consortium member of the Center for Agricultural Transformation (CAT) initiative with support from the Foundation for a Smoke Free World’s (FSFW) Agricultural Transformation Initiative (ATI). The CAT is a consortium of four leading agricultural development and academic institutions: Land O’Lakes Venture37, the University of Minnesota, Stellenbosch University and the Malawi University of Science and Technology.  The goal of the CAT is to expand “ready-markets” for small-holder farmers to diversify in other value chains.

Position Summary and Primary Responsibilities:

This position executes the CAT’s public and industry stakeholder outreach, communications, and marking and branding activities. The incumbent prepares written stories, communication pieces, and social media posts featuring the successes and learnings about the CAT. The communications pieces will be distributed to a variety of outlets including media and targeted, stakeholder-focused events. The incumbent will make extensive use of written materials, photos, graphics, and other visual story-telling techniques while integrating technical content and data from the MEL system.

The main responsibilities include, but are not limited, to the following:

• Design compelling success stories, general communications, and outreach material in the form of reports, briefs, infographics, data visualizations, presentations, newsletters, multi-media pieces, and social media content based on data and findings gathered by the CAT MEL team.
• Participate in interviewing project partners, beneficiaries, stakeholders, staff, and volunteer and other consultants to create and develop stories, partner profiles, briefs and updates about activities as part of “telling the CAT story”. Most of this work will be in Lilongwe but an occasional trip may be requested to carry out this work another region in Malawi.
• Support CAT team members to develop presentations, publications, and/or print materials as required.
• Support, use, and manage a MS SharePoint software to organize and store communication materials, tools, documents, stories, and work plans.
• Support event planning and training facilitation for stakeholders and project team in Malawi.
• Contribute to developing scopes of work and content for short videos showcasing project impacts and activities; oversee contracted videographers and photographers.
• Support the implementation of the project Marking and Branding, CLA, and Outreach Plans.
• Prepare or draft quarterly and annual reports to FSFW, develop and present story ideas, and work with the technical teams to collect and compile information for the reports.
• To manage the CAT social media platforms on FB, Twitter and LinkedIn, ensuring latest content development is regularly updated.
• To produce the CAT quarterly newsletter with captivating outcomes and output stories with the sole intention of raising the CAT profile.
• To be the CAT face with all media houses in Malawi with the sole objective of working with them, where necessary, to flight CAT impact stories.

Reporting & Supervision:

This position reports to the CAT Executive Director.

Required Skills and Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in graphic design, journalism, multimedia or any related field.
• At least 5 years of professional experience in creative communications, preferably on an internationally-funded agricultural development project.
• Must be able to read, write, and speak fluent English.
• Excellent writing skills for clear and concise written products aimed at industry and the general public.
• Experience with setting up and managing social media platforms and content.
• Experience with event planning, group meeting facilitation, and management of display content at
• conference-style events.

Preferred Skills and Qualifications:

• Master’s degree preferred
• Familiarity in Venture37’s policies and procedures of branding is preferred.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. No phone calls will be accepted. Land O’Lakes Venture37 reserves the right to select no candidates applying to this solicitation. Land O’Lakes Venture37 never requests money or payment from candidates for any position type. Please report any such requests to Land O’Lakes Venture37.