Canada's federal government recently committed $1 billion to drive low-carbon innovation in communities across Canada. The funding will be managed and distributed by the Green Municipal Fund (GMF), an incredibly successful sustainability program run here at FCM, the national voice for Canada's local governments. Needless to say, there's plenty of exciting work happening on the GMF team, and it's growing quickly.

Since 2000, we've used a major federal endowment to help municipalities across Canada get over 1,250 GMF-funded projects off the ground. These practical environmental solutions resulted in cleaner air, clean drinking water, more efficient energy systems, reclaimed toxic sites and more. So far, these projects have kept 2.5 million tonnes of GHG emissions out of our atmosphere.

The Policy and Public Affairs department integrates three functions that are central to the fulfillment of FCM's mandate: Outreach & Engagement, Policy & Research and Communications & Events. FCM relies heavily on its communications team to leverage its advocacy and policy work with a range of stakeholders, to engage with members, and to share the lessons and expertise gained from program initiatives.

Major Purpose

Under the general direction and supervision of the Manager, Communications, the Communications Officer develops and implements communications plans and provides communications services in support of FCM's Green Municipal Fund.

The Communications Officer leads and contributes to the development of communications products and activities such as website content, digital communications, videos, case studies, reports, presentation materials digital images and other resources.

The Communication Officer contributes to the development, monitoring and evaluation of communications strategies, plans and trends. He/She also supports the assessment of communications activities and recommends measures, processes and tools for quality assurance, effective dissemination of resources and continuous improvement.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Develops, implements and evaluates communications plans to promote program initiatives including knowledge resources, events and award programs;
• Coordinates the production of communications tools (e.g. web content, promotional material, social media content, e-bulletins, reports, presentations, guidebooks, case studies, videos) from concept, design, writing, editing and translation through to production, quality assurance and publication;
• Substantively edits, copy-edits and conducts quality assurance, ensures appropriate document structure, grammatical accuracy, adherence to editorial standards and FCM style guide;
• Contributes to the development and maintenance of FCM-wide editorial and design standards for communications materials;
• Coordinates work assignments with external suppliers, such as editors, graphic designers and translators;
• Gathers analytics related to social media and website to ensure continuous improvement in the development and dissemination of program information and resources;
• Assesses the quality of existing communications vehicles and the efficiency of document development processes among FCM business units and with external suppliers, and recommends to manager and implement methods to improve existing vehicles, systems and processes to meet communications and performance objectives
• As a member of the FCM Communications team, contributes to the development of communications and marketing strategies and plans aligned with corporate objectives
• May be called upon to participate in cross-functional teamwork

Knowledge, Experience and Skills

• Post-secondary education in a communications or related field such as Public Relations, Journalism, Communications, Marketing or similar
• Minimum of 5 years' experience in a professional communications role
• Strong knowledge in the areas of communications project management, writing and editing
• Strong knowledge of best practices and experience in developing digital communications products, writing for the web, blogs and social media
• Knowledge of usability, search engine optimization, content strategy and content marketing best practices an asset
• Ability to manage multiple projects and assignments simultaneously and meet tight deadlines
• Knowledge of municipal, federal government or parliamentary affairs
• Strong political acumen and tact
• Excellent planning and priority management skills
• Strong adaptability and problem-solving skills
• Strong customer service orientation

Language

Excellent oral and written communications skills in both English and French (bilingual).

We thank all candidates for their interest; however, we will only contact those selected for an interview. All the applications will be kept on file for six months following the hiring.