Pacific Community Ventures

Director of Communications

Position type: Full-time; Oakland, CA (hybrid, in office weekly)
Reports to: CEO
Salary: $100,000-$120,000 based on experience and geographic location, with generous benefit

  • 15 Paid Holidays
  • 20 PTO/SICK
  • Employer paid benefits (dental, medical, vision)
  • 403B Retirement match
  • FSA
  • Annual Performance bonus

Are you a driven individual who is passionate about building a more equitable society? If so, please join Pacific Community Ventures, a nonprofit mission-driven organization invested in inclusive entrepreneurship and economic mobility, the core of the American Dream. We are seeking a Director of Communications to join our team and lead PCV’s storytelling, brand, policy and community engagement. Over the past decade, our research projects and client engagements have helped define and build the field of impact investing; we have become a leading statewide community development financial institution (CDFI) in California; and scaled a nationwide mentorship platform for underinvested small business owners, and good jobs programs for working Americans. Our audiences and clients include small business owners across America, volunteer business experts; leading foundations and impact investors; other CDFIs; and policymakers at the state and local level.

Why You’re Needed
Three years ago, PCV launched our new strategy centering restorative capital, driven by themes of democratizing access to affordable capital and mentorship, stewarding climate opportunities, and being restorative in underinvested communities. You will play an integral role in embodying this strategy and vision across all we do, and who we are to our stakeholders – in the storytelling of our small business owners as local changemakers in their communities, and the local and national community organizations we partner with to serve them. You’ll bring creativity, strong project management, strategic thinking, people and communication skills (oral and written), adaptability, and most of all – a passion and lived experience in racial, economic or climate justice, inclusive entrepreneurship. You’re willing to learn on the job – often fast-paced, dynamic; always with integrity.

Role Overview
As the Director of Communications, you will lead PCV’s branding, impact storytelling, and cross- functional communication strategies, ensuring robust community trust and partner engagement. You’ll play an instrumental role in refining PCV’s brand, messaging, and expanding awareness through both digital and community-focused strategies.

Key Responsibilities
Brand Strategy & Storytelling

  • Steward PCV’s Brand: Ensure authentic storytelling to reinforce PCV’s community trust and mission alignment.
  • Partner with consultants to evolve PCV’s brand around restorative capital, and entrepreneurship, including a refreshed style guide.
  • Secure and partner with consultants to implement an overhaul of PCV’s existing web infrastructure including robust project management of UX and content updates for our Good Jobs Toolkit, and marketing collateral.
  • Set protocols for org-wide content governance and mass
  • Optimize Web Presence: Lead web design and content strategy for cross-functional teams (Lending, Business Advising, Good Jobs Innovation Lab).

Data-Driven Storytelling & Research Support with Good Jobs Innovation Lab (approximately 40% of time)

  • Support Good Jobs Innovation Lab: Work with the Chief Impact Officer, Director of Applied Research, and Associate Director of Business Advising to manage a content calendar, and partner coalitions, to meet program goals for awareness and efficacy of our research and Good Jobs Toolkit.
  • Inform data storytelling around PCV’s research, designing Tableau-enabled storyboards and enhancing our narrative through data.
  • Ensure that content campaigns help amplify these publications to key audiences across philanthropy, small and medium sized businesses, policymakers, etc.

Thought Leadership & External Relations

  • Publications & PR: Draft op-eds (2-4 per year) and thought leadership content with the CEO and leadership team, manage media placements, lifting up key messages from our program learnings, policy advocacy at the state, local, or federal levels.
  • Own PCV’s Annual Impact Report publication and content placement, working with consultant designers and internal analytics and program teams for content generation.

Cross-Functional Communications & Lead Generation

  • Lead Generation Strategy: Design outreach and content marketing campaigns to support program goals, community partnerships, and volunteer recruitment.
  • Manage budget and strategy for PCV’s digital ad campaigns driving loan and volunteer leads (Google text and display ads, Facebook and LinkedIn advertising, Volunteer Match, Idealist, etc.)
  • Create continuous feedback loops with PCV’s clients and our program teams through A/B testing, customer journey mapping, and segmentation modeling.
  • Content Calendar & Governance Management: Oversee social media, email marketing, webinars, and storytelling content for various audiences, managing a monthly cadence of success stories and thought leadership.
  • Impact Storytelling: Collaborate with external partners and team members (Senior Communications Associate, Development, leadership team, and external consultants) to manage media, PR, and branding initiatives.
  • Support PCV’s fundraising and business development functions through digital communications, organizational storytelling, and market Partner with Business Advising to structure and re-launch the
  • Small Business Support Circle to engage corporate and community partners and generate program revenue.
  • Ensure any collateral centers the voices of those PCV serves to create more impactful products, programs, and services, and better represent PCV to funders and partners.

Client & Community Engagement

  • Partner with Lending and Business Advising programs to tighten the messaging and experience of PCV clients to create more “stickiness” with our program
  • Lead PCV efforts in developing multilingual resources for small business
  • Create and execute a community engagement plan such as organizing quarterly listening sessions and occasional in-person community events with PCV clients and community partners, to capture feedback for storytelling and program design, with team member
  • Help PCV teams build communications channels with California-based organizations (microlenders, accelerators, community-based nonprofits) that together create the “continuum of capital” we want to see for underestimated entrepreneurs.
  • Tell diverse and inclusive stories using a wider variety of media, including semi-frequent videos of us talking with business owners about the value-add of PCV’s support, ; social media takeovers by clients and partners; and building stronger cross promotional partnerships to amplify our resources on social media and other mediums
  • Represent PCV at community and funder events as necessary

Team Management & Development

  • Oversee PCV’s Marketing & Communications functions for cohesive storytelling, including PCV’s Communications Associates, intern(s), consultants, and agencies
  • Supervise Marketing Team: Manage and support the professional development of PCV’s Senior Communications Associate, fostering a collaborative, inclusive culture.
  • Communication & Task Coordination: Ensure timely responses to team communication channels to meet project timelines and deliverables.

Qualifications, Skills & Experience

We strive hard to be a diverse and inclusive place to work. We value new perspectives, original ideas, and different ways of working. You will bring a background of working with dynamic teams and projects, as well as excellent analytical and communications skills that you are eager to apply to complex social problems. You should demonstrate a deep commitment to creating social and environmental benefit, under-invested people and places. You should be enthusiastic, flexible, and excited to join a passionate team.

  • 8+ years of relevant professional experience leading a marketing or communications function, including some annual strategy and budget
  • Proven track record of demand/lead generation, digital marketing, branding, and/or content marketing
  • A talent for big-picture thinking and managing all of the moving parts of a cross-functional marketing and communications group at a growing organization
  • Demonstrated experience developing campaigns for social media, email marketing, and thought leadership/content creation
  • Experience managing a team preferred; help build and promote organizational culture at all levels
  • Prior experience with, or interest in, entrepreneurship and small business a plus (but not required)
  • Prior experience with PR, earned media, or pitching and publishing thought leadership articles a plus (but not required)
  • Policy advocacy communications experience desired
  • Prior experience with a mix of Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Canva, WordPress, Hootsuite (or other social media tools), and Campaign Monitor (or other email marketing tools) a plus
  • Flexibility and comfort with a mission-driven environment, ambiguity, and a small and growing organization
  • Fast learner, who demonstrates humility, openness, transparency, and empathy as consistent with PCV values
  • Bilingual skills (especially in Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin) highly desirable

Location/Travel
This position will be based at our headquarters in Oakland long-term, due to the coordination aspects of this role. This role will be mostly remote, with regular office check-ins to support team operations. The role may involve occasional travel to other locations in California and around the United States in the future, as well as visits with small business owners and community partners around our key geographies.

Compensation
As an organization committed to creating good jobs, we walk the talk. We provide excellent benefits for full-time employees, including full health, dental, and vision insurance, retirement savings accounts with a generous match which is fully vested immediately, ample paid time off and holidays, as well as professional development opportunities. PCV also provides 1:1 executive leadership coaching service for leadership roles such as this.

To Apply
Interested candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. They should send a résumé and cover letter via e-mail to hr@pcvmail.org with the words “Director of Communications” in the subject line by December 15, 2024. No phone calls, please. Apply now.

PCV is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants are considered for all roles without regard to race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin, citizenship status, age, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, marital, parental, veteran or military status, unfavorable military discharge, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law. We live our values of openness, transparency, coming from a place of yes, collaboration, and more; and believe that justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion are fundamental to our success. We are especially interested in candidates who have direct experience with the communities we serve.

Computer Software
Microsoft Office to include Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Excel, Salesforce and QuickBooks Online

Physical and Mental Requirements:

  • Ability to stand for extended periods of time, walk, talk, hear, use hands to finger, grasp, handle or feel, push, pull, reach, crouch, kneel, crawl or bend, and perform repetitive motions of the hands and/or wrists.
  • High mental and visual attention required for planning difficult work methods and sequences to obtain size, shape, or physical qualities of AND/OR Extremely close visual attention such as making delicate adjustments to control high speed operations to exercise very precise muscular control.

**Disclaimer:**
All requirements are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities.

  • This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the employee(s) occupying this position.
  • Employees will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform any other job-related duties requested by their supervisor.
  • The company reserves the right to add to or revise an employee’s job duties at any time at its sole discretion.
    This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an “at will” employment relationship.