Director of Communications

Fines & Fees Justice Center
Director of Communications
Remote, USA

 
Fines and Fees Justice Center
Fines and Fees Justice Center is the only national organization focused exclusively on the fines and fees imposed in the justice system. We work together with affected communities, advocates and justice system stakeholders to eliminate fees in the justice system, ensure that fines are equitably imposed and enforced, and end abusive collection practices.
Across the country, state and local governments and their courts impose fines as a punishment for minor traffic and municipal code violations, misdemeanors and felonies. They then tax people with fees, surcharges, and costs used to fund the justice system and other government services.
Those who cannot immediately pay face additional fees, license suspensions, loss of voting rights, arrest and jail. Stuck in a cycle of punishment and poverty, people can lose their jobs, their homes, and even their children. In this two-tiered system of justice, poor people – and particularly communities of color – are disproportionately punished.

Founded in 2018, FFJC has catalyzed a bipartisan movement to eliminate the fines and fees that distort justice, devastate the lives of millions of people and perpetuate and exacerbate economic and racial inequality. The Director of Communications position presents an opportunity to join a highly successful start-up organization with a culture that values collaboration, transparency, and kindness.

FFJC’s Work
FFJC has a three-pronged strategy for implementing durable fines and fees reform.

Focus States
FFJC is developing replicable advocacy models in four states: Florida, Nevada, New York, and New Mexico. FFJC’s state teams live and work in their states. Together with directly impacted communities, they have developed broad-based coalitions from across the political spectrum to enact significant reform at both the state and local level.
National Campaigns and Advocacy
FFJC works across the country to drive fines and fees reform. Our national team provides strategic and technical assistance to impacted communities and advocates and leads three national campaigns: Free to Drive, a nationwide campaign to end debt-based driver’s license restrictions; End Justice Fees, a national campaign to eliminate all fees in the justice system, and Cities and Counties for Fine and Fee Justice, which works to identify and support localities that want to reform the fines, fees, and collection practices that undermine economic prosperity in their communities.
The Clearinghouse
FFJC created and maintains a digital Clearinghouse, an easily-accessible library that collects and organizes research, pilot projects, litigation, legislation, court-rule changes, data, media, and community voices related to fines and fees reform. The Clearinghouse also contains actionable guidance and tools that can be used by policymakers, advocates, courts, and community organizations interested in reform.

Position
Reporting to the Co-Executive Directors, the Director of Communications serves as a key leadership team member and an active participant in strategic decision-making. This is a full-time, overtime exempt position. The Communications Director will be tasked with developing and implementing a communications strategy to advance FFJC’s policy and campaign goals. The Director of Communications will have primary responsibility for increasing awareness of fines and fees through innovative branding and messaging strategies; supporting the communications needs of FFJC’s state and national campaigns; managing media relations - both traditional and digital; producing FFJC advocacy materials such as reports and policy briefs; and, maintaining and enhancing FFJC’s organizational and campaign websites.

The Director of Communications will have the opportunity to build and mentor an effective Communication’s team. The Communications team currently consists of one other full time professional and external consultants, but the organization expects to hire at least one additional communications professional within 6 months and utilize additional communications consultants.
Responsibilities
Strategic Vision
• Work with FFJC leadership to develop and refine FFJC’s strategic communications goals.
• Develop and execute a comprehensive communications strategy to achieve those goals.
• Serve as a leader on the FFJC team.
• Translate the vision of leadership and the organization’s mission into compelling storytelling that will resonate widely.
• Ensure the strategic alignment of the national campaigns, state campaigns and the overall policy goals of FFJC.
• Cultivate and maintain relationships with media and other influential figures and promote the publication of relevant stories, interviews, and other media coverage to increase issue awareness, grow mission visibility and maximize support.
• Envision, execute and evaluate various content, messaging, and engagement strategies to grow or create audiences across multiple platforms.
• Create innovative, multi-channel communications content to educate audiences and attract support, including but not limited to: social media posts, op-eds, letters, reports, infographics and explainers, blogs, talking points, stakeholder communications, and newsletters.
Infrastructure & Team Development
• Assess the current structure of the communications team and identify the key roles needed to execute the strategy with sufficient capacity.
• Lead, mentor and help to grow the communications team; coach the broader FFJC team as spokespersons, providing guidance on talking points and messaging strategies for public speaking engagements.
• Spearhead FFJC’s messaging strategy, including rapid response for political, legislative and policy priorities.
• Serve as a leader of the communications team across the organization; communicate and advocate for the resources needed to be successful in this capacity.
• Develop internal processes and procedures to ensure that the communications team and other directors and teams can collaborate more effectively; create SOPs to ensure consistency in all marketing and branding materials and accessibility to information needed for teams to execute goals.
• Design, organize and implement strategic communications initiatives and special projects in collaboration with other departments, partners and external constituents.

Must-Have Qualifications
• Experience overseeing communications for issue advocacy campaigns in states or at the national level; candidates with experience working in criminal justice reform, economic justice, and/or adjacent issue areas are preferred.
• Experience, knowledge, and expertise in all aspects of communications including media relations, audience engagement, content creation-with an emphasis on digital content and building social media presence-research, and issue campaigns.
• Demonstrated success in hiring, recruiting, managing, developing, coaching, and retaining individuals and diverse teams, empowering and mentoring them as leaders.
• Experience supporting multiple teams and campaigns at complex nonprofit organizations; experience aligning messaging across multiple campaigns.
• A big-picture thinker with demonstrated success in developing and executing innovative communications plans to raise the profile of an organization and its mission.
• Experience leveraging a range of communications tactics and strategies that can include digital and traditional media, research, analysis, and working in coalition to advance a legislative agenda.
• Proven success in building an internal communications infrastructure and SOPs to support a mission.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Excellent interpersonal skills; the ability to build relationships across a wide variety of stakeholders.
• A commitment to integrity, professionalism, bipartisanship, and FFJC values.
Nice-to-Have Qualifications and Desired Attributes
• Experience overseeing external contractors to ensure timely completion of communications deliverables.
• Intermediate proficiency with Wordpress or similar platform.
• Intermediate proficiency with Mailchimp or comparable email marketing platform.
• Experience with action alert platforms.
• Independent, proactive, and driven
• Detail-oriented, responsive, creative, and flexible.
• Sense of humor

Compensation & Benefits
This is an outstanding opportunity for a highly motivated senior leader to join a highly respected and rapidly growing organization. This person will be a full-time, exempt employee expected to work 40 hours a week. Fines & Fees Justice Center is prepared to offer a very attractive compensation package, including a competitive base salary of $120,000-$145,000 and a comprehensive benefits package, including excellent medical coverage.

How to Apply
We encourage all applicants to review our website to fully familiarize themselves with the Fines & Fees Justice Center before applying: https://finesandfeesjusticecenter.org/.

New Venture Fund Careers
The Fines & Fees Justice Center is a project of New Venture Fund (NVF), a 501(c)(3) public charity that incubates new and innovative public-interest projects and grant- making programs. NVF is committed to attracting, developing and retaining exceptional people, and to creating a work environment that is dynamic, rewarding, and enables each of us to realize our potential. NVF’s work environment is safe and open to all employees and partners, respecting the full spectrum of race, color, religious creed, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, political affiliation, ancestry, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, and all other classifications protected by law in the locality and/or state in which they are working.

COVID-19 Policy
To center the safety and well-being of its employees, New Venture Fund requires that any employee who is required to conduct in-person activities for their job must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 within four weeks of their start date. This position may require candidates to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Accommodations may be sought and approved in accordance with the law by contacting human resources at [email protected].

This position description is based upon material provided by Fines & Fees Justice Center, an equal opportunity employer.

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Yasmine Coccoli, Talent Consultant
[email protected]