Position in: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania or Uganda
Do you want to help grow CfA’s Communities in Africa?
Code for Africa (CfA) is seeking a full-time Community Coordinator to join our Knowledge team immediately. This position is based in one of our hubs in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, or Uganda, but exceptional candidates from other countries will also be considered.
The ideal candidate must be proficient in English, and those who are fluent in French will have an added advantage. The successful candidate will serve as a continental champion for CfA’s WanaData and Hacks/Hackers Africa communities in Nigeria, South Africa, and potentially in Tanzania and Uganda. Our communities consist of academics, journalists, storytellers, fact-checkers, data analysts and scientists, researchers, technologists, and editors.
Responsibilities for this role include coordinating and managing CfA’s Pan-African community activities, providing training, engaging with stakeholders, developing partnerships, managing information, and reporting. The ideal candidate will have substantial experience in project management.
CfA’s Knowledge initiative spearheads training management and partnerships, data analysis, digital journalism and storytelling initiatives for partner newsrooms, universities and local community events in Africa. It includes CfA communities such as the WanaData women data science/storytelling network, the africanDRONE civic drone community, and the sensors.AFRICA sensor journalism initiative, with a network of over 50 newsrooms and university partners across Africa. The Knowledge team is also the custodian of other major CfA public infrastructure, such as the continent’s largest open data portal, open.AFRICA, and Africa’s largest census data portal, HURUMap.
The successful candidate will collaborate with a dynamic, cross-border team of data analysts, community coordinators, digital designers, and editorial experts. They will also receive support from CfA’s software engineering and forensic research teams located in 22 countries across Africa.
Required
The ideal candidate for this role should have the following:
- A minimum of 4 years of experience in community organising or a related field, working directly with groups and individuals.
- Excellent project management skills, including handling multiple priorities and meeting deadlines.
- Experience delivering on contractual project requirements and producing regular reports for monitoring purposes.
- Experience organising and coordinating local and international events and community outreach (including offline, online, and hybrid events).
- Comfortable with facilitating and delivering training, skills coaching and mentoring.
- Significant experience in stakeholder engagement, with a proven ability to build relationships and engage with diverse audiences, including academics, journalists, storytellers, data analysts, researchers, technologists, and editors.
- Excellent organisational and communication skills, written and verbal, for large and small groups, in-person and via phone and email.
- Experience designing and implementing community-informed research strategies, including writing and designing surveys and questionnaires to solicit feedback on various topics.
- Familiarity with growth and impact metrics, as well as web analytics
- Ability to work creatively and accurately under pressure, with excellent attention to detail.
- Ability to multitask, prioritise, and manage time efficiently.
- Proficiency in the English language (spoken and written).
Preferred
Candidates who can demonstrate the following will have an advantage:
- Experience working in the technology, non-profit and/or media environments will be advantageous.
- An understanding of database management and familiarity with spreadsheets.
- Experience managing content distribution, such as blogs and stories through various channels, including social media, and websites (Medium, WordPress).
- Good working knowledge of HTML, WordPress and SEO.
- Experience working with a multinational and fully remote organisation.
- Bilingual in English and French (spoken and written).
Language and Location Requirements
- Location: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania or Uganda. Exceptional candidates from other African countries will be considered.
- Languages: English
- Preferred but not required: Arabic, French, Swahili or any other major African languages.
About this role
The successful candidate will aid in expanding CfA Communities initiatives and networks within Anglophone African countries, such as WanaData and HacksHackers. This includes managing the Communities’ activities, such as planning and coordinating monthly and quarterly events, fostering engagement with a diverse team of Community members across Africa, and building and maintaining sustainable relationships with new and relevant stakeholders and partners across Africa and beyond. They will also support Communities-related projects, including managing fellowships, facilitating training and mentorship, and marshalling resources.
The ideal candidate will have strong strategic analysis and critical thinking skills, as our projects are varied and fast-paced, requiring the ability to understand and learn new things quickly. They should possess a keen attention to detail, be comfortable handling multiple tasks with multiple ongoing deadlines, and have previous experience working with digital collaboration tools such as Slack, Google Drive, and Trello.
Responsibilities
The ideal candidate will be responsible for the following:
- Managing and expanding a geographically dispersed community across three or more African countries.
- Organising, coordinating, and facilitating community events, including monthly meetups for each chapter and quarterly continental events.
- Identifying gaps and needs within the Communities and developing appropriate and effective programmes tailored to meet those needs.
- Monitoring and evaluating programme effectiveness and community member feedback to improve programme outcomes.
- Developing assets that can be leveraged to inform and energise CfA’s partners, stakeholders, and community members about CfA’s Communities events and programmes, including creating detailed-oriented presentations, briefings, memos, and other communications.
- Forming partnerships with development-related organisations such as governments and CSOs.
- Growing community membership and ensuring effective engagement with all community members.
- Creating weekly and monthly community engagement plans.
- Reporting on all activities and managing community information while ensuring databases are up to date.
What We Offer:
- A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
- A dynamic workplace with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
- Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.
- A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues worldwide.
How to Apply:
Please complete this form by 20 February 2023
About Us:
Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of indigenous African civic technology and investigative data journalism laboratories, with over 90 staff in 22 countries, who build digital democracy solutions that are intended to give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions and that strengthen civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability.
This includes building infrastructure such as the continent’s largest open data portal, open.AFRICA, and the largest open-source civic software portal, commons.AFRICA, as well as the largest repository of investigative document-based evidence, source.AFRICA, and incubating initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network that gives citizens their own ‘eyes in the sky’, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative in 12 African countries, and the sensors.AFRICA remote-sensing citizen science initiative to combat air/water pollution.
CfA also incubates the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), as an association of the continent’s best investigative newsrooms, ranging from large traditional mainstream media to smaller specialist units. ANCIR member newsrooms investigate crooked politicians, organised crime and big business. The iLAB is ANCIR’s in-house digital forensic unit, with teams in east, south and west Africa. ANCIR uses its resources to strengthen newsrooms’ internal capacity by providing access to the world’s best whistleblower encryption and investigative semantic analysis technologies, skills development, and seed grants for cross-border collaboration.
At CfA, we don’t just accept differences – we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our products and our community. CfA is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative-action employer. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.
To recruitment agencies: CfA does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our employment application line, CfA employees or any other CfA contact. CfA is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.