Communication & Marketing Manager

Ambitious Impact (AIM) is a growing nonprofit organisation running training and incubation programs aimed at establishing and supporting a flourishing high-impact, effectiveness-focused philanthropic ecosystem, with a lively community office in East London.

We are looking for a talented Communication and Marketing Manager to join our Recruitment team to increase the quality of AIM’s communication, and our identification of exceptional talent to join our high-impact training programs. In this role, you will create, execute, and evaluate multi-channel marketing and communications strategies and continuously evaluate and improve them for the next iteration.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Recruitment team currently consists of ~three FTE and fulfils the two key functions of attracting and selecting top candidates for our Charity Entrepreneurship incubation program  - as well as possible support for other programs AIM runs or may run. As such, there are two 3-4 month sprints each year that are very execution focused for identifying and then selecting top candidates. The recruitment team also carries out broader communications work for AIM, such as by supporting AIM’s Impactful Grantmaking Program, on outreach for staff roles at AIM, and helping our incubated charities with their initial communications.

As Communication and Marketing Manager, you will chiefly be responsible for the attracting function on the team, presenting AIM’s work in a consistently high fidelity, compelling, and engaging manner. You’ll bring a strong focus on implementation, efficiency, and strategic improvement to help us maximise the value of AIM’s communication efforts.

The role could be more junior or more senior depending on the successful candidate: A more experienced hire will take more of a lead on designing the strategy they will execute, while a more junior hire will focus more on contributing to and learning strategic planning for the tasks they will execute at first.

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES

(The exact % split may change based on updates to AIM’s strategy and the number of programs we are running.)

Executing Marketing & Communications Activities - 40%

• Implementing and (co-)designing integrated multi-channel marketing campaigns across digital, traditional, and in-person channels (such as our website, newsletter, LinkedIn, job boards, and conferences)

• Identifying and persuading top talent to apply for our programs through 1:1 engagement - such as through LinkedIn, email, and online calls 

• Soliciting and collating referrals for potential top applicants to our programs, especially from members of our community and affiliated organisations

• Managing communication with candidates before, during, and after the application phase, handling special cases and queries about our processes

• Ensuring target audience-adjusted, brand-consistent messaging and positioning in all our communications materials, adapting to diverse international target audiences and backgrounds where useful

• Ruthlessly prioritising the activities with the highest ROI

• Potentially attending conferences and other professional events to represent AIM, conducting talks, workshops, and 1 on 1 meetings

Evaluation and Systems Improvement - 30%

• Performance tracking and reporting: Set up and improve systems for collecting data on the cost-effectiveness of different communication methods for finding high-quality applicants to our programs

• Use available data to identify areas for increased efficiency and effectiveness in the communication of our work

• Identify and implement opportunities for automation

• Testing potential new communication avenues, such as digital advertising or pitching articles to major publications

Communication Asset Management and Development - 20%

• Manage communications content and assets: Create and improve materials for AIM, such as our websites, newsletter, blog, photos, and video content from our programs

• Write and edit copy across the spectrum of our communications assets

• Take up ad hoc asset-focused tasks for other departments, such as copy editing research reports for the research team, capturing footage of the in-person weeks of our programs, and providing initial design support for new charities we incubate

Planning Marketing & Communications Strategy - 10%

• Co-designing our marketing and communications strategy on the basis of collected data

• Working with our Senior Selection Manager Bret on aligning our marketing efforts with our selection processes and optimising both for successful applications

• Refining our marketing models from initial exposure to application, improving existing steps and identifying new high-potential opportunities

• Market research and analysis: Updating internal models of our target audiences and identify the best ways to reach them

FUTURE GROWTH TRAJECTORIES

Future growth trajectories for excelling hires could look like:

• Taking more, up to full responsibility for the entire attracting function of the Recruitment team

• Learning more about the selection function of the Recruitment team and splitting the role into combining work on the attraction and selection functions

• Leaning into a less executing-focused and more people management-focused position as Director of Recruitment as we will most likely hire or internally promote someone to this position in mid-2025

ABOUT YOU

This role will likely suit early-stage and mid-level communications/marketing generalists or specialists (0-5 years of experience) and could be tweaked significantly in responsibility to suit a senior communications/marketing specialist. At minimum, you should already be able to execute high-quality work across a range of communications tasks, combining some existing skills with an excitement to grow in new areas and contexts which may be less familiar. You will likely consider yourself as a communications-focused generalist to some degree, able to quickly learn and improve at tasks you have little or no previous experience with.

We expect excellent candidates will meet many (but not all) of the criteria below. We encourage you to apply even if you do not meet all of the listed characteristics. In the past, we've offered positions to applicants who demonstrated strong overall potential, providing training to address skill gaps. We prioritise high general ability, a strong work ethic, and alignment with our values, methods, and approach to maximising global impact over specific prior work experience or backgrounds. We sketch a picture of potential ideal candidates to give a more concrete sense of what particularly strong candidates might look like, not to discourage interested readers from applying.

The Ideal Candidate is:

• A skilled communicator, both in writing and in-person:

  • Can create powerful, professional, and compelling written content that concisely conveys complex ideas

  • Comes across as confident and persuasive in person when delivering talks at a conference, hosting an online Q&A, or having 1:1 discussions with promising applicants

• Has experience with some (but not necessarily all) of our core communications channels (Wix, Mailchimp, LinkedIn, Google Search Ads; Canva)

• Puts the mission first - being willing to do more menial applicant-driven work during crunch periods of our application cycles

• Has some prior experience with marketing or communications work, bringing practical experience of optimising tools like Google Analytics and Phantombuster, and in executing paid digital advertising campaigns

• Is familiar with and ideally has connections within the evidence-based international development space, farmed animal welfare movement, Effective Altruism movement, and/or other relevant (entrepreneurial, nonprofit, philanthropic) communities

• Is a results-oriented, data-driven decision-maker excited to prioritise ruthlessly and leave less important things undone

• Leans towards quick iteration and testing, being able to learn new skills and processes quickly through doing 

• Is a team player able to both give and receive constructive feedback, while being able to independently progress on important tasks when necessary

Desirable but not necessary:

• Can create compelling digital media through high-quality photography and/or filming

• Experience working in fast-moving and/or startup workplaces

• 1+ years of experience in communications or marketing-focused roles

WHAT WE OFFER

• A job with a large, tangible impact on the world - your work will attract and select the founders of new field-leading charities and for-profit companies, as well as high-impact researchers and AIM staff

• High levels of intellectual challenge, autonomy, variety, and learning on the job

• An informal, fun, warm, and supportive work environment with high talent density. Our office in East London houses about 50% of our staff, dozens of charity founders and staff, and hosts a range of co-working opportunities and social events for the wider impactful entrepreneurship London community

• Become a part of our international network of ambitious, driven entrepreneurs and highly talented philanthropic professionals

• A true start-up culture, including low bureaucracy, a quick and collaborative work spirit, and high levels of talent density

• Significant opportunities to attend events and conferences to represent AIM, including international travel

BENEFITS

• A flexible working schedule, 30 paid days off per year, and unlimited sick leave

• UK visa sponsorship, if needed, as well as support with moving costs if relocating to London

• An annual costs-covered retreat to bring our whole team together to celebrate our achievements

• A workspace in our vibrant central London office, which is a hub for our program alumni and high-impact organisations/professionals 

• Parental, dependents, and compassionate leave schemes

• A range of other benefits, including a payroll giving scheme, staff tenure donation scheme, contributions towards professional development and IT costs, and a workplace pension

• We are open to discussing specific personalised perks or benefits that may enhance your work experience

APPLICATION PROCESS

Our application processes aim to be highly predictive, time-effective, and informative for you. Our process consists only of stages that our best evidence suggests are predictive of success on the job (such as test tasks) rather than more common but less predictive stages (such as cover letters). We only invite candidates to the next stage if we think they have a good chance of passing it, and take care to choose tasks and interview questions that will also give you a good sense of the role and our culture.

Applicants will be asked to complete the following stages:

1. Submitting our general application form (30 minutes to 1 hour),

2. A general test task (2-3 hours) with the top 10 to 30 candidates,

3. An initial interview (15 minutes) with the top 10-20 candidates,

4. A test task simulating the work you would do in your role (2-3 hours) with the top 5-15 candidates,

5. A final, more in-depth interview (~60 minutes) with the final 2-5 candidates.

We will also conduct a reference check before making an offer. Each stage typically takes 1-2 weeks from the end of the application deadline, and we hope to make an offer within ~8 weeks of the application deadline. Ideally, the candidate will begin onboarding as soon as possible after an offer is made. We strongly prefer candidates to join the team by January 2025, but we would consider a different date for an ideal candidate.