Stories Manager

Sightsavers is looking for an experienced and passionate stories manager to lead us in documenting the life-changing work Sightsavers supports across Africa and South East Asia. This is a 12-month fixed term maternity cover contract

Salary:£40,153 – £47,239

Location: UK remote – with occasional travel to Haywards Heath, when required

Contract: 12-month fixed term maternity cover contract

Hours: This is a full-time role with some flexibility around hours worked and mostly home working

At Sightsavers we’re building a global creative team, combining story collection and content production. We put the experiences of communities, partners and staff front and centre, in content that motivates and educates our audiences. The content and stories team respond to briefs from across the organisation, delivering consistent messaging and audience-focused communications that cut through to drive change.

As stories manager you will lead the stories function, which sits in the wider content and stories team. The role is responsible for leading the stories function, managing the stories team members and helping deliver our storytelling vision.

You’ll be heavily involved in hands-on story collection, and leading a team of five to deliver their thematic and regional responsibilities. You’ll work closely with the content production team to ensure stories are accurately represented. At the same time you’ll develop processes for efficient and responsible stories collection and innovate with participatory and inclusive documentation approaches. You’ll bring a strong commitment to ethical and responsible storytelling and help to educate others.

Principal Accountabilities will include:

Leading the stories function
Developing and implement processes and training for effective story collection, storage, dissemination and use
Ensuring the stories function works collaboratively with other content and stories functions, as well as the communications, media and fundraising teams
Oversight on all stories collection activity, and responsibility for the quality of our collected stories
Managing stories element of the team budget, including freelance photographer/videographer, logistics and post-production spend
Contributing to the development and delivery of the communications and content strategies
Story collection

Stories preparation and dissemination

Cross team collaboration and learning

You’ll be a storyteller with a passion for photography, video content and first-person, human-interest stories. You will be extremely knowledgeable about ethical and responsible storytelling and devoted to involving people in the documentation and telling of their own stories. You’ll be an accomplished leader with excellent people management skills, and the ability to inspire your team as you transform a vision and strategy into reality. You’ll have experience of developing and embedding new processes across a story team and the wider organisation.

To succeed in this role you will need:

Substantial experience in a similar role
Proven experience of managing a team, including remote management
Strong understanding of communications and content strategies with proven experience of strategic development and planning
Proven experience of creative concept development
Knowledge of and experience in knowing what makes a ‘good’ story
Experience of seeking out stories through strong internal relationships
Proven experience of working alongside African and/or Asian colleagues to plan and deliver stories collection activity, in person and remotely
Proven experience of creative thinking and clear brief writing
Proven experience of critically assessing written, photographic and video material
Proven experience of working with creative suppliers; great contacts in film and photography world
Proven experience of independently managing several projects at once and working under pressure
Excellent knowledge of on and offline communications channels
Ability to project manage effectively and deliver against agreed deadlines.
Solid understanding of content ethics and debates about representation
Knowledge of international development and/or global health preferred
Experience working in an international NGO
Experience of working or travelling in Africa and/or Asia
An understanding of and commitment to equality of opportunity for disabled people

Candidates are welcome to demonstrate their ability to match the person specification by expanding on how their experience, training and/or qualifications might have provided them with the knowledge or skills required for the role. Successful candidates will be appointed on merit.

This is a varied role, please read the full job description for further details

Benefits

Sightsavers offers some fantastic benefits. Our comprehensive benefits package includes generous annual leave allowance, pension, season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme, discounted gym memberships and wellness discounts. If you choose to work in or are visiting our collaborative, modern office space, you will find it an easy 20-minute train journey from Brighton or 45 minutes from London.

Please complete an application via our recruitment portal. We are particularly interested in learning of your motivations for applying. Please note that there will be an expectation that you can visit our collaborative offices in Haywards Heath, West Sussex (RH16 3BW) at least once per month. We anticipate that remote interviews will take place in early December and the evaluation process will include a role-specific written task. As this is a maternity over role, we are keen for the successful candidate to start as soon as possible.

As an equal opportunity employer, we actively encourage applications from all sections of the community. Sightsavers is a Disability Confident Leader and qualified people with a disability are particularly encouraged to apply.

In line with its commitment to safe programming and recruitment, Sightsavers participates in the inter-agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme (MDS) administered by the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response. Through collaboration with other MDS members, Sightsavers aims to ensure that there are no sexual exploitation, abuse or harassment issues relating to potential new hires and that we can respond systematically to checks from fellow MDS members. This ensures our work is accountable, delivered to a high standard and supports safeguarding across the development and humanitarian fields.