Request for Proposals

Contract Amount: $30,000 plus expenses
Contract Term: 6 months with potential for extension or conversion to full-time employment
Deadline for Submissions: 5 p.m., Friday, July 26th
Contract Start Date: August 11, 2019
Contact: Paul Cabaj    Email: execdir at acca.coop
Organizational webpage: www.acca.coop

ABOUT YOU

You love telling stories and building a narrative. Short stories, 200 characters long that have an impact; visual stories that capture amoment or idea and shift perspectives; and longer stories how individuals and organizations can improve their communities. All this within the context within a flowing narrative of how the cooperative business model can build a better world.

You are a born communicator and able to deploy your web, social media and print skills that engage an audience and move them to action. You can get to the heart of the matter, weaving together data and ideas and build a cohesive package that has readers wanting more. You thrive on people and love working with a team, throwing ideas on the wall and moulding the best of them into inspiring but realistic steps forward.

But you can also go it alone when needed, able to take responsibility for a project and focus your energy to meet a deadline. You can face a swarm of tasks coming at you, calmly stare it down, pick it apart, prioritize the few things need doing now, and comfortably say no when you need to.

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING

This won’t be easy. Your main challenge ahead will be leading the development and implementation of a communications plan for a complex member-owned organization. This means trying to balance the messaging appropriate for multi-billion-dollar co-operatives with those of innovative co-operative entrepreneurs with a compelling idea and more moxie than money in their pockets.

You will be supporting a small but dedicated team of colleagues, working in offices throughout Alberta, each with heavy workloads needing communication support for a range of project. You will be interacting with colleagues in other national and provincial cooperative organizations to share ideas and collaborate across borders. Your plan will blend elements of government relations, public awareness of cooperatives, and event/program promotion.

YOUR BACKGROUND

It's about the fit, your ideas, your skills, your interests, and above all, your values and attitude fit with the co-op movement and its identity, values and principles. The best co-operatives in the world balance their ethics with business acumen and solid decision making. You have a post-secondary degree in marketing/communication, public relations, and clear experience helping organizations ramping up their communications a couple of notches.

You have shown entrepreneurial flair

This is a six-month contract with an organization that is in a rebuilding and growth phase. While we believe there is solid opportunity to build this into a full-time long-term position before the end of the contract, there is a risk. But you like risk; it's part of what has you jumping out of bed in the morning.

You will be reporting to the Executive Director of the organization. You can choose to work from your home office if you can maintain solid information flow with your colleagues and the work gets done.

A possible breakdown of your time, subject to change based on your skills and capacities and modified as we bring on additional resources and staff:

Communications Strategy (50%)

• Plan, create and develop communications to increase levels of member coop and general public engagement with ACCA and the co-operative sector including social media presence, internal/external newsletters, storylines
• Engage with our member co-operatives to coordinate messaging, marketing and enable greater amplification of sector messages & stories.
• Create materials for all aspects of the organization, website maintenance and revision.

Communications Support (35%)

• Support Branding and promotion of the Annual Gathering of Alberta Cooperatives and MLA Reception and ongoing Government Relations Activities
• Support communications for Youth Leadership Program and our work in new co-operative development in areas ranging from local investment cooperatives to renewable energy, social innovation, etc.

Internal Capacity Building (15%)

• Build the internal capacity of the organization to implement the communications plan fostering an environment of shared ownership around our brand and image and provide training on the most appropriate tools to meet that end.

Source: www.acca.coop