Reports To: Deputy Chief of Party – Program Quality (JEOP)

Job Grade: 8

Department: JEOP, Program Quality Unit

Background :

The Joint Emergency Operation (JEOP) is an emergency food assistance program targeting transitory food insecure households through a project participant targeting process led by the Government of Ethiopia’s (GoE) Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission (EDRMC). JEOP provides emergency assistance to protect their lives and livelihood where recurrent drought affected in significant harvest loss, livestock death and price increase of essentials. The consortium is led by CRS and includes consortium partners, CARE, Food for the Hungry, Relief Society of Tigray (REST), World Vision and ORDA. CRS also works thorough local implementing partners Hararghe and Meki Catholic Secretariat (HCS and MCS).

Job Summary: 

The role will serve as writer and content editor for the JEOP program quality unit. Reporting to the Deputy Chief of Party for Program Quality, the writer/editor will be responsible to develop and edit compelling content and stories in English for a range of audiences and in a range of formats (business development, evaluations, donor reporting, external and internal communications, technical guidance manuals, humanitarian interest stories, training materials and presentations, online for social media and digital campaigns. As part of the JEOP technical team, you will provide technical support to development of compelling content across the program cycle in line with CRS program quality principles and standards, donor guidelines, and industry best practices to CRS and JEOP consortium members to advance the delivery of high-quality programming to the poor and vulnerable. Your skill, attention to detail, knowledge, and support will contribute to support the quality of internal and external facing material.

Job Responsibilities

• Write and edit compelling and culturally appropriate content and stories for a range of audiences (donor, JEOP consortium, wider humanitarian community) in the U.S., worldwide and Ethiopia.
• Acts as a gatekeeper for editorial review processes of a variety of publications and media for JEOP.
• Collaborates with staff content developers, fellow editors, JEOP leadership, internal stakeholders, and others involved in editorial process.
• Edits donor deliverables, annual report, newsletters, brochures and special publications, multimedia materials; and pages for the CRS website, ensuring accuracy and appropriate and consistent message.
• Researches, writes, edit, proofreads and checks facts for donor materials for JEOP. Proofread materials as needed.
• Regularly evaluates and updates CRS style and boilerplate materials, manages online CRS Editorial Calendar, assists team with editorial resources pages on SharePoint site.
• Works with the Deputy Chief of Party and Communications Manager to identify compelling stories from for development of humanitarian interest pieces. Collects, edits, updates, maintains, and tracks human interest stories in online database.
• Review and edit reports and content developed by CRS technical teams in a supportive manner to build the writing skills of team members.
• Review and edit external developed content from CRS’ data collection firms.
• Works with the Communications and social media specialist to write compelling content and campaigns for CRS´ social media channels.
• Provides expert counseling and support to the JEOP team to write and edit compelling marketing copy for a range of distribution audiences.
• Provides expert counsel and recommendations to internal stakeholder on website content best practices.
• Implements search engine optimization (SEO) best practices for JEOP content.
• Writes and edits assigned pages using CRS resources on content, style, message, and voice to ensure clear, accurate, consistent, and engaging presentation of our work.
• Ensure that the text follows the recommended style guides (AP and, when appropriate, CRS and CNS).

Typical Background, Experience & Requirements:

Basic qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Communications, journalism, or related field.
• Three to five years of proven experience writing, editing, and managing content for donors in English
• Proven ability to develop and design visually attractive media for general and specialty audiences.
• Strong ability to work independently on short deadlines as needed
• Excellent organizational and project management skills; the ability to work quickly on time-critical tasks while patiently shepherding long-term projects is a must
• Adapts to all varieties of communication, from print to web, news to features, blogs to annual reports, magazines to multimedia, essays to captions.
• Expertise in editorial best practices for print and web communications.
• Knowledge of HTML and familiarity with content management/development programs a plus.
• Strong decision-making skills and ability to involve others in decisions
• Ability to effectively communicate and collaborate with a diverse range of job functions.
• Experience with website content management systems, particularly WordPress
• Native English speaker
• Highly organized with compulsive attention to detail.
• Proficient in PC software, including MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint etc.
• Knowledge of style guides (AP, APA, Chicago).
• Experience developing social media content in English, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Preferred Qualifications

• Good understanding of international relief work.
• Experience developing and writing donor content.

Personal Skills

• Exceptionally strong technical writing, presentation, facilitation, training, mentoring, and coaching skills.
• Inclusive approach, able to elevate the voices of underrepresented groups.
• Good strategic, analytical, problem-solving and systems thinking skills with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment.
• Flexibility, persistence, and ability to work well with people and cross-cultural skills
• Strong presentation, mentoring, and coaching skills
• Great interpersonal and negotiation skills.
• Curiosity, humor, high energy level.
• Team player who can work independently.
• Proactive, resourceful and results oriented.

Female applicants and persons with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply. CRS is committed to maintaining a diverse talented workforce.

Required/Desired Foreign Language: Strong written and verbal communication skills in English.

Travel Required: 10-15% to Ethiopia (anticipated 1-2 trips annually). Must be available for a minimum 4-hour daily time schedule overlap with East Africa Time (EAT)

Key Working Relationships:

Supervisory: none

Internal: JEOP Chief of Party and Senior Management Team; JEOP technical team leads; CRS Ethiopia Country Program staff; Regional Technical Advisors.