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Communications Manager

Wallace & Gromit's Grand Appeal

Job Description

The successful candidate will drive charity and commercial creative campaigns to raise awareness, impact and support income generation across The Grand Appeal, Cots for Tots and Gromit Unleashed. The role holder will work collaboratively within the comms and marketing team, as well as with colleagues from across the organisation, including the fundraising, commercial and operations & services teams. The role also involves meeting and liaising with many of the families that we support.

This is a varied and rewarding role, combining strategic thinking with hands-on delivery of a wide variety of integrated communications campaigns and engagement. The role holder will coordinate activity across multiple workstreams to ensure that comms plans, media activity and content creation are delivered on time and are aligned with the relevant audience and key objectives. We are looking for an experienced communications professional with excellent media judgement, outstanding relationship-building skills and a genuine commitment to making a difference.

You will line manage, motivate and inspire the wider communications team and manage workloads to ensure that the team delivers key activities and responsibilities to the highest standard.

If you are motivated by purpose, value and integrity, and want your work to have real-world impact, we would love to hear from you. The role holder will be required to complete a DBS disclosure check.

Required skills

Key Responsibilities

Campaign planning and delivery:

Develop, coordinate and deliver integrated communications campaigns that raise awareness of The Grand Appeal, Cots for Tots and Gromit Unleashed, demonstrate the impact of the charity’s work and support fundraising, commercial and engagement objectives.

Campaign development and coordination:

Work with colleagues across communications, marketing, fundraising, commercial, operations and services to translate priorities into clear campaign plans, ensuring objectives, audiences, messages, timelines, budgets and evaluation measures are agreed and delivered effectively.

Story development:

Identify, develop and sensitively manage compelling stories that reflect the charity’s impact, including working with families, hospital colleagues, supporters, partners and internal teams to secure appropriate permissions and ensure all content is accurate, respectful and aligned with the charity’s tone and values.

Media relations and PR:

Help manage day-to-day media activity, including drafting press releases, statements, briefings and reactive lines, selling in stories, coordinating press calls and interviews, preparing spokespeople and managing media enquiries.

Content and copywriting:

Produce high-quality written content for a wide range of channels, including web, email, social media, print, press, supporter communications, internal briefings and campaign materials, adapting style, tone and messaging for different audiences while maintaining brand consistency.

Digital communications:

Plan and oversee campaign communications across digital channels, including website content, social media and emarketing, ensuring activity is timely, engaging, audience-led and aligned with wider marketing and income generation plans.

Marketing materials and brand delivery:

Coordinate the development of printed and physical marketing materials, working with designers, suppliers and internal stakeholders to ensure materials are accurate, on brand, accessible, cost-effective and delivered to agreed deadlines.

People management:

Line manage, motivate and develop members of the communications team, supporting workload planning, prioritisation, performance, wellbeing and professional development, and ensuring work is completed on time and to a high standard.

Stakeholder relationships:

Build strong working relationships with colleagues across the charity, hospital teams, families, supporters, volunteers, suppliers, media contacts, corporate partners and external agencies to support collaborative, wellplanned and effective communications activity.

Monitoring, evaluation and reporting:

Track communications activity and campaign performance, using appropriate insight, analytics and media monitoring to evaluate reach, engagement, impact and learning, and produce clear reports and recommendations for future activity.

Compliance, consent and safeguarding:

Ensure communications activity is delivered in line with GDPR, consent processes, safeguarding responsibilities, charity policies and best practice, particularly when working with children, families, patient stories and sensitive information.

Essential Skills & Qualifications

Experience:

Proven track record in corporate communications, media relations and reputation management, usually 3–5+ years in-house or agency.

Communication:

Exceptional verbal and written communication skills with a portfolio of published press releases or earned media placements.

Network:

Existing, robust relationships with key journalists and media outlets.

Crisis Management:

Ability to stay calm under pressure and make swift, decisive calls to protect brand integrity.

Organisational Skills:

Capacity to manage multiple parallel campaigns, work to tight deadlines, and handle budgets

Our Team Culture & Values

Top talent:

We seek to recruit and nurture top talent in every team.

Championship teams:

We work together to deliver results we’d be unable to achieve on our own.

Mission first:

Our work for Bristol Children’s Hospital (BCH) and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is of paramount importance and remains our focus at all times. We ensure that our culture is harmonious, friendly and supportive so that we stay focused on achieving our goals.

Community focus:

Our Grand Appeal community is at the heart of everything we do. We build lasting relationships by being open, transparent and trustworthy.

Positive energy:

We are determined, optimistic and ambitious.

Ambition, innovation and brilliant execution:

We collaborate and develop efficient, effective and creative strategies to help us deliver our team goals and the Charity’s Primary Purpose. We always strive for high-quality work and action.

Clear communication:

We are direct and always strive to explain what we mean in clear, transparent language. We understand the importance of accurate drafting, use of language, and prompt sharing of information to improve collaboration and productivity.

Responsibility:

We each take responsibility for our actions. We share successes and failures as a team. We acknowledge excellent performance in others. We encourage improvements across the organisation even in ways that are not explicitly part of our job.

Benefits

What we offer At The Grand Appeal, you’ll join a friendly, talented and supportive team of around 45 people, who share one mission: making a difference for sick children and their families. We offer a creative, inspiring workplace opposite Bristol Children’s Hospital.

We offer:

If this sounds like the right workplace for you, you have the required skills and experience, and you are looking for a new challenge, we would love to hear from you.