Location: Primarily office-based in East Molesey, Surrey

Hours: 16 hours/2 days a week

Report to: Head of Marketing and Communications

Salary: £25-30k FTE dependent on experience

Background

Momentum Children’s Charity is a local organisation that supports families whose children have cancer or a life-challenging condition. The charity was founded 17 years ago by our current Chief Executive and has grown enormously over that time. We currently have partnerships with six local hospitals that refer families to us for our support, which ranges from therapies and counselling, to respite holidays and special family experiences.

It’s an exciting time to be involved with our ambitious and growing charity as we scale up and deliver new services and partnerships, which will deliver a real impact on the lives of seriously ill children and their families. To support this growth, we need to raise awareness and the profile of the charity, as well as substantial funds to deliver our support programme. Our Press and Ambassador Relations Officer will play a key role in helping us to achieve this and there’s a real opportunity to make your mark.

What we’re looking for

Are you a dynamic and enthusiastic communicator with strong media relations experience? We’re looking for a confident communication professional to develop and deliver our PR plans and ambassador engagement strategy to help put Momentum Children’s Charity on the map.

The post holder will help shape and tell our story and be great at building relationships both with press contacts and with our ambassadors to drive successful PR stories, projects, and campaigns across a range of channels. You’ll be a motivated self-starter, confident in building relationships and have a natural flair for creating compelling stories and reactive news hooks which help grow our brand presence.

Main Responsibilities and duties:

• Lead on creating media opportunities, writing press releases, and building and nurturing a database of warm press contacts in order to gain coverage across trade, local and national outlets.
• Respond to enquiries from journalists; organise media interviews, prepare verbal and/or written materials and provide spokespeople and case studies as appropriate.
• Implement and oversee our ambassador engagement strategy, acting as key contact for our celebrity ambassadors, nurturing the relationships, and scaling up support and presence.
• Steward and support ambassadors, family members and spokespeople undertaking media interviews, either in person or remotely.
• Work in partnership with colleagues and hospital communications teams to develop proactive media campaigns and events and respond to news stories as required.
• Organise, support and execute press events, such as filming or photoshoots at hospital units and other locations, overseeing media attendance and liaising with hospital Communications teams and Services staff.
• Lead on identifying and drafting responses to seize reactive media opportunities.
• Implement and oversee the delivery of a media training programme for key staff, ensuring the organisation has a range of confident media spokespeople.
• Ensure all output is data compliant and in line with the latest rules and industry guidelines, and that all photos and images used have full consent to do so.
• Act as a brand guardian, ensuring all internal and external stakeholders have the resources and support they need to meet brand guidelines.

Knowledge and skills

Essential

• Three+ years PR experience (ideally some at manager level).
• You’ll have a strong and demonstrable background in devising and delivering integrated communications plans that deliver activity against business objectives and KPIs.
• Experience of building and nurturing relationships with high profile individuals and celebrities.
• You’ll be super confident and happy to pick up the phone to everyone and anyone, with a natural ability to influence a wide range of individuals to support our cause.
• A meticulous, competent, and natural writer with a high standard of literacy and strong attention to detail.
• Proactive and highly organised with excellent communication skills, verbal and written.
• Self-starter. You’ll be a positive team member who flourishes working autonomously.
• Competent in use of IT including Microsoft Office packages.
• Working knowledge and understanding of Data Protection principles, rights and obligations.

Desirable

• Salesforce database experience.

Other requirements

• Willingness to work variable hours including evenings and weekends as needed.
• Flexibility to travel to meetings as required within Surrey, Sussex and South West London.

APPLICATION PROCESS

Please email CV and cover letter – stating the role that you are applying for in the subject line – to Amy Odaro, Office Manager and PA to the Founder CEO amy@momentumcharity.org. Please note, applications will be reviewed as they are received, and interviews will be held throughout the recruitment period.

For more information on working with us and our benefits, head over to www.momentumcharity.org/work-for-us