Communications Manager

Overview of the role

Forum Central has an exciting opportunity for an Interim Communications Manager. Your role is to lead on communications for the Forum Central partnership, with consideration for the partner organisations Volition and Leeds Older People’s Forum. You will look after our website, social media accounts and CRM and use them to great effect to demonstrate the impact of the Leeds third sector and the importance of Forum Central as its infrastructure support.

You will work closely with our skilled and proactive team to help ensure all our communications are clear, consistent, and relevant with equality and accessibility at their heart.

We are looking for a communications specialist with a passion for the third sector and social development who will focus on amplifying the voices of our 300+ member organisations and especially our least heard communities.

Our ideal candidate will have experience of generating high quality content for web, social media and newsletters, and will use these skills to support public health campaigns, help boost engagement with our members and actively raise the profile of Forum Central’s work across the sector locally and regionally. We expect our communications to be developed to the highest accessibility standards, challenging stigma and reflecting the diversity of the communities we represent.

Salary: NJC Scale SO2, starting SCP 26 £36,124 pro rata
Hours: 21 – 28 hours per week (equivalent to 3 or 4 days)
Contract: 12 month Fixed Term Cover, with potential extension

Key responsibilities:

• Lead on management of the Forum Central website (soon to be combined into Doing Good Leeds) – including understanding the work of Forum Central, writing copy, creating and editing pages, proofing, analysing performance, troubleshooting and liaising with developers and co-producers.
• Be responsible for upholding our brand reputation. Continue to develop our brand guidelines, and help the team apply them and follow communications processes/protocols (for Forum Central and its composite partners – Leeds Older People’s Forum and Volition).
• Lead on and have oversight of communications with Forum Central members and our strategic partners.
• Manage and maintain Forum Central’s social media accounts – including tailoring messages to audiences on different channels, creating visuals and graphics, promoting the work of Forum Central and our members and strengthening relationships through social media.
• Contribute metrics and narrative of comms activity to the Quarterly Team Updates paper. Utilise monitoring to assess if our communications are successful and adjust our strategy appropriately.
• Networking and building relationships with our members and partners and gathering feedback about Forum Central’s communications and impact.
• Be responsible for the maintenance and support the continuous improvement of our CRM and support the staff team to utilise it.
• Harness momentum around relevant awareness and international days to:
  • highlight and showcase the third sector in Leeds
  • raise awareness of our specialism work
  • encourage collaboration between our members and across sectors, for example around Mental Health Awareness Week, Learning Disability Week, Men’s Health Week and International Day of Disabled People.
• Publicise Forum Central events, projects and pieces of work. Maintain knowledge of the key developments and priorities of the Forum Central team/projects at all times and ensure these are reflected in our communications and messaging.
• Write press releases and edit, proof, design, launch and disseminate reports.
• Support the senior management team to identify core communications skills required of the staff team and support in organising or delivering training, as appropriate.
• Help ensure we maintain good internal communications.
• Contribute your specialist communications knowledge and experience e.g. to public health campaigns, consultation exercises, strategic decision making groups, task and finish groups and communications specific partnership groups.
• Explore creative ways of sharing complex information (vlogs, audio files/podcasts, films, picture/visually based summaries etc) and where appropriate develop and commission these outputs.
• Attend team meetings, away days and contribute to subgroups where appropriate.
• Actively participate in training, development and CPD opportunities, as well as regular supervision and line management support as appropriate.

Who are we?

Volition is a registered charity and Limited Company and the lead organisation within the Forum Central partnership. Forum Central is the collective voice for Leeds third sector in health and care. Our vision is a better quality of life for people in Leeds. Our work is delivered in partnership with Leeds Older People’s Forum, also a registered charity.

We are a member-led network and connect the fantastic work happening across Leeds’ diverse third sector organisations with that of other organisations and strategic developments happening in health and social care. We promote and support partnership working across the city and provide information for and about the sector. You can find out more about our work here.

Our office is based in Leeds City Centre.

Why join our team?

• Agile, flexible working, with a number of options to suit the diverse needs of our team.
• Annual, incremental pay progression within the scale (based on annual appraisal).
• Generous 28 days annual leave entitlement, plus bank holidays.
• Training and Continuous Development Opportunities. Bespoke to you and your role and personal development goals.
• Regular Team Health and Wellbeing Activities and access to a range of resources.
• 24/7 Access to the Mindful Employer Plus Employee Assistance Helpline.
• A Bike to Work Scheme.
• Warm, friendly and inclusive organisational culture.

We are proud to be Mindful Employer Charter Signatories, Living Wage Foundation Accredited and Level 2: Disability Confident Employers.

To submit an application for this role, please send the following to jobs@forumcentral.org.uk by 11:59 PM (midnight) on Thursday 24 April 2025:

• your up to date CV
• a personal statement outlining your interest in and suitability for the role
• our equal opportunities form, completed (download from our website).

For further information or to have an informal chat about the role, contact Megan Swan, Volition Operations Manager at megan.swan@forumcentral.org.uk or phone: 0113 242 1321.

Deadline: 11:59 PM (midnight) on Thursday 24 April 2025.

Interview date: 6 May 2025.

Diversity and inclusion

At Volition and Forum Central, we recognise the positive value of diversity, promote equality and challenge unfair discrimination and aim to become an inclusive organisation, whose workforce is as diverse as the communities we serve.

We strive to ensure that opportunities to work and develop at Forum Central are open to all. We treat all job applications equally, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or gender expression, race, ethnicity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation or any other equality characteristic. We particularly encourage applications from Disabled people and people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, as these groups are currently under-represented in our sector.