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Assistant Director, Fundraising & Communications

The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board is seeking an Assistant Director of Fundraising & Communications.

About

UHAB empowers low- to moderate-income residents to take control of their housing and enhance communities by creating strong tenant associations and lasting affordable co-ops. Since 1973, UHAB has helped form hundreds of tenant associations and transformed troubled rental buildings into 1,200 affordable co-ops, providing homeownership opportunities for over 25,000 families. With democratic community control at the core of our mission, we work to sustain this thriving affordable housing community for this generation and those to come.

We organize residents to be active participants and decision-makers in shaping their neighborhoods. UHAB’s programs address a full spectrum of affordable housing needs: from building resident power and organizing tenants as community leaders, to developing thousands of units of affordable housing across the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, to making small loans to first-time homeowners, to preserving affordable co-ops through training, education, and technical assistance. UHAB’s programs address the needs of future generations through long-term solutions: developing new affordable co-ops, increasing energy efficiency and introducing renewable technologies, and strengthening housing policy.

Position

Reporting to the Director of Fundraising & Communications, the Assistant Director will help plan and carry out UHAB’s communication strategy and support with day-to-day activities of the department, from administrative to creative.

The main function of this team is to advance the organization by telling UHAB’s story to bring in resources, engage partners, and strengthen our external communications. Sharing our many successes and lessons helps us enlist funders as well as spark and enrich collaborations with stakeholders and partners ranging from affordable co-op shareholders and like-minded organizations, to elected officials and the media. UHAB’s Fundraising & Communications team plans and produces an annual gala event, in addition to two public events a year, from film screenings, panels and exhibitions, to community events celebrating leaders in HDFC co-ops. The Assistant Director will be directly involved in planning, producing and carrying out these and other external communications projects, from social media content to annual and quarterly reports, as well as monthly newsletters and special projects like our archive and oral history interviews.

The Fundraising & Communications team also supports the organization’s internal operations and needs. We provide support and resources to UHAB’s Program Directors, including producing communication materials, supporting UHAB’s mission and activities through grants, individual donor campaigns, and philanthropic funding, as well as producing press releases and media coverage of UHAB’s work and impact on the communities we serve. 

Responsibilities include:

External Communications: Website & Social Media

  • Overseeing all pages of our website (coordinating with each department and keeping up with organization news and relevant updates)
  • Working with department directors to represent their programmatic work as effectively as possible across online platforms (website, social media, newsletters, etc.)
  • Frequent maintenance of homepage, program pages, events page, staff directory, etc.
  • Continually refreshing and updating news, sidebars, and both written and visual content throughout
  • Updating and maintaining the vendor directory with relevant resources, ensuring all contact information is up to date and paying sponsors are appropriately represented
  • Sourcing new vendor sponsorships for the directory website
  • Working with the Director to develop a execute a comprehensive digital communication and social media strategy
  • Tracking follower retention and growth using google analytics and social media data
  • Managing all social media posts and content and coordinating with other departments who use social media
  • Posting photos and creating videos, slideshows, and other visual content
  • Maintain, digitize, adequately store, document and help grow UHAB’s archive materials (both hard copy and digital)
  • Staying abreast of advances in digital communications and making periodic recommendations for tools and resources that will help the organization
  • Making recommendations for refreshing/reorganizing the site and/or developing a new site
  • Producing Press Release content to track milestones and publicize organization’s successful campaigns, new developments, and important updates

Internal Communications: Contact Database Management & Communication Materials

  • Support the Director in maintaining internal communications within the organization, including internal newsletters, staff trainings on workplace tools, and internal organizational policy
  • Maintain our internal Intranet database, including working with staff to request upgrades, performing routine data hygiene scans, and creating call and email lists
  • Producing communication material for each program as needed and tracking supply (brochures, postcards, etc.)
  • Managing and maintaining UHAB’s digital photo library
  • Collecting and capturing photographs and testimonies at public events to build content
  • Manage and oversee the production of monthly UHAB NEWS and HDFC NEWS, and work closely with Member Services to carry out and produce the quarterly Member News.
  • Create templates as needed for external communications like PowerPoint presentations, slide decks, as well as Board Books.
  • Producing Press Release content to track milestones and publicize organization’s successful campaigns, new developments, and important updates
  • Writing, editing, and proofreading a variety of materials, including website features, newsletters, brochures, e-blasts, press releases, press advisories, and position papers
  • Publicize job postings to attract a large pool of candidates
  • Working with the Director of Fundraising & Communications to standardize templates for internal and external communications, establish talking points, and help streamline content output across the organization

Events:

  • Co-chairing events committee with Director of Fundraising & Communications to ensure that events are coordinated and adequately supported by program staff
  • Manage and oversee attendee registration and other relevant events needs
  • Produce and support the production of all relevant communications and graphic messaging for events
  • Updating and maintaining events calendar, communications about events
  • Coordinate with third party vendors and press where relevant
  • Support the Director with all needs for annual gala (major event), from managing outreach and funder engagement to coordinating ticket sales and event installation.

Fundraising:

  • Working with the Director to identify foundations, corporations, government entities, and other funders focused on affordable housing development and sustainability, limited-equity co-ops, and tenant organizing
  • Researching and identifying current and potential individual donors and prospects
  • Working with the director to maintain a clear, user-friendly system for tracking past, current, and potential funders and individual donors
  • Maintaining and updating UHAB’s CRM, which holds donor records, relationships, and contact information
  • Tracking and recording grants and donations
  • Anticipating and following up on deadlines for grant applications, pre-proposal meetings, acknowledgment letters, and grant reports
  • Preparing, disseminating, and tracking the effectiveness of donor appeals
  • Preparing, disseminating, and tracking acknowledgment letters
  • Supporting the Director’s grant research and writing by creating outlines, editing proposals on an as-needed basis

Qualifications

The Assistant Director of Fundraising & Communications is a motivated, collaborative person who thinks creatively, works proactively, is eager to learn, and has a critical lens for improvement.

The successful candidate will have experience with:

  • Fundraising research (identifying philanthropic institutions and enlarging our individual donor pool)
  • Maintaining a website and creating new content
  • Working with various CMS platforms, including WordPress
  • Writing website and other content and proofreading both digital and hard copy text
  • Social Media strategy (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn)
  • Graphic design and production using Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and other tools
  • Photography
  • Experience working with oral history projects or interviews to capture stories
  • Working knowledge of the following programs is essential: Microsoft Word, Excel, Publisher, and PowerPoint, InDesign or Illustrator, WordPress, Constant Contact or Mailchimp.
  • Affordable housing and community development in New York City
  • Fundraising, philanthropy, and foundations
  • Individual donor prospecting and/or stewardship
  • Journalism, blogging, or other writing
  • Web design
  • CRM databases such as Salsa
  • The following skills and experience are preferred, but not mandatory:
  • Spanish Fluency (spoken and/or written)
  • Microsoft Access
  • Public relations and/or event management

Location   This position is currently hybrid, based at UHAB’s office in Lower Manhattan and requiring some travel to other locations across NYC.

Compensation $75,000 annually. UHAB offers a generous benefits package including 100% employer paid medical and dental insurance; long-term disability insurance; a 403b retirement plan; medical and dependent care flexible spending accounts; 3 weeks of paid vacation for new employees and 4 weeks of paid vacation after 2 years of employment; 14 paid holidays, 12 sick days, and 1 personal day per year; and bereavement leave.

Application To apply, send a resume and cover letter to jobs@uhab.org with the subject: Assistant Director of Fundraising & Communications.

UHAB works with a diverse community of tenants, community members and co-op shareholders and believes that the UHAB Staff should reflect this diversity. Women, people of color, LBGTQ+ people, and people with lived experience of economic and housing instability are encouraged to apply. UHAB is an equal opportunity employer.