JOB DESCRIPTION
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Position:
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Deputy Director - Communications
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Department:
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Communications
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Role:
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Drive strategic communications, donor engagement, and knowledge sharing across the organization.
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Reporting Relationship:
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Director -
Communications &
Marketing
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Location:
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Delhi NCR
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Number of Positions:
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01
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Grade Level
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C
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Nature of Employment:
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Full-Time Staff
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AMERICAN INDIA FOUNDATION TRUST
The American India Foundation Trust (AIF) is committed to improving the lives of India’s underprivileged, with a special focus on women, children, and youth. The Foundation does this through high-impact interventions in education, health, and livelihoods because poverty is multidimensional. Founded over two decades ago, in the aftermath of the devastating Gujarat earthquake, as a humanitarian initiative by the then Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ji, and the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, AIF has impacted the lives of 20.47 million of India’s poor across 35 States and Union Territories of India.
Registered as a Trust in India, with an independent Board of Trustees, AIF adheres to strict financial and governance standards, ensuring transparency, accountability, and responsible management of resources. As per statutory mandates, AIF is registered under 80G and 12A. These registrations and certifications are tangible evidence of the organization's existence, credibility, and compliance with the applicable legal and regulatory frameworks while demonstrating a firm commitment to its vision and mission. Learn more at
www.aif-india.org.
Job Summary:
The Deputy Director – Communications serves as the operational lead for AIF's Communications & Marketing function, ensuring that the organization's voice, knowledge assets, and digital presence consistently advance its institutional priorities. Working in close partnership with the Director – Communications & Marketing, the role is responsible for translating organizational strategy into high-quality communications that strengthen fundraising, government engagement, stakeholder confidence, program visibility, and thought leadership.
The position combines strategic communications, editorial leadership, digital marketing, website governance, donor stewardship, executive communications, and institutional knowledge management within a single integrated portfolio. Success in the role will depend on the quality of communication products produced, but also on the ability to establish systems, processes, and editorial standards that enable timely execution, organizational learning, and consistent brand stewardship across all programmes and functions.
KEY ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Communications & Editorial Leadership
- Work closely with the Director – Communications & Marketing to operationalize AIF's annual communications strategy across programmes, fundraising, leadership engagement, government relations, and institutional priorities.
- Lead the planning, commissioning, writing, editing, and dissemination of high-quality communication products that position AIF as a credible thought leader across education, public health, livelihoods, disability inclusion, climate resilience, and leadership development.
- Oversee the development of long-form communication assets including annual reports, program reports, impact reports, donor publications, blogs, opinion pieces, speeches, policy briefs, case studies, success stories, coffee table books, executive presentations, organizational publications, and knowledge products.
- Maintain editorial standards across the organization, including master communication templates, proposal boilerplates, report structures, institutional messaging, style guides, and language frameworks that improve consistency and reduce duplication across teams.
- Assist translation of program evidence, monitoring data, research findings, and organizational priorities into compelling narratives tailored to diverse audiences including donors, governments, corporates, media, civil society, and development practitioners.
Digital Communications, Marketing & Audience Engagement
- Lead AIF's digital communications strategy across owned and earned platforms to strengthen visibility, stakeholder engagement, fundraising, and institutional positioning.
- Oversee the planning and execution of AIF's digital ecosystem, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, newsletters, blogs, and emerging digital channels, ensuring each platform supports clearly defined communication objectives.
- Maintain a sustainable forward bank of approved digital content, ensuring communication opportunities are anticipated rather than developed reactively.
- Drive long-term audience growth through evidence-based digital marketing strategies informed by platform analytics, audience behavior, campaign performance, and communication trends.
Website Strategy, Governance & Digital Experience
- Lead the strategic governance of AIF's website as the organization's primary platform for institutional credibility, donor engagement, fundraising, recruitment, and knowledge dissemination.
- Establish systems for routine website governance, including scheduled quality audits, content reviews, link validation, information architecture, SEO optimization, accessibility, and user experience improvements.
- Ensure timely maintenance and enhancement of all institutional pages, including program content, publications, leadership profiles, awards, media coverage, careers, campaign microsites, the Donate platform, and other high-value digital assets.
- Develop landing pages and digital experiences that improve discoverability, stakeholder engagement, and conversion across fundraising and communication campaigns.
Fundraising Communications
- Lead the development of quarterly donor newsletters, external newsletters, stewardship reports, campaign updates, impact summaries, donor presentations, and communication products that deepen donor engagement.
- Develop and maintain master proposal templates, institutional boilerplates, program descriptions, organizational statistics, impact statements, and reusable communication assets supporting fundraising and business development.
- Assist execution of mini–India Mission Trips (IMTs) for strategic donor partnerships.
- Lead communication campaigns supporting crowdfunding, employee engagement initiatives, workplace giving, digital fundraising, and other strategic fundraising priorities.
Executive Communications & Organizational Governance
- Produce high-quality governance and executive communication products that support organizational leadership, Board engagement, and institutional decision-making.
- Assist in the preparation of quarterly CD Memos and India Trustee Board communication materials, executive presentations, briefing notes, speeches, leadership messages, and strategic updates.
- Support leadership visibility through executive thought leadership, media messaging, and strategic communication opportunities.
Knowledge Management & Institutional Systems
- Maintain and continuously improve communication repositories including editorial calendars, social media repositories, PR trackers, awards trackers, communication dashboards, donor mandate trackers, content libraries, photography and video archives, program factsheets, state dossiers, India databases, communication toolkits, and institutional knowledge repositories.
- Work closely with program teams to establish regular content collection mechanisms that ensure a continuous pipeline of stories, data, multimedia assets, publications, and field updates for communication and fundraising purposes.
Events, Institutional Positioning & Strategic Engagement
- Lead communication planning for flagship organizational events, donor convenings, government engagements, sector dialogues, conferences, webinars, roundtables, and strategic partnerships.
- Develop integrated communication plans spanning pre-event promotion, speaker communication, event branding, digital amplification, media engagement, live coverage, post-event reporting, and long-term content repurposing.
- Build communication assets that extend the impact of organizational events beyond the event itself through publications, videos, newsletters, blogs, knowledge products, and digital storytelling.
- Lead institutional award submissions and maintain an annual awards calendar that strengthens AIF's visibility and recognition within the development sector.
Communications Analytics & Performance Management
- Analyze performance trends and translate insights into strategic recommendations that improve audience engagement, content planning, fundraising outcomes, and organizational visibility.
- Present periodic communication performance reports to leadership, highlighting opportunities for optimization, innovation, and continuous improvement.
Key Skills & Competencies
- Master's degree in Communications, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, English, Development Studies, Management, or a related discipline.
- Minimum 12–15 years of progressively responsible experience in strategic communications, editorial leadership, digital marketing, fundraising communications, or institutional communications, preferably within the development or social impact sector.
- Exceptional writing, editing, and storytelling skills with demonstrated experience producing executive communications, donor-facing publications, governance documents, knowledge products, and high-impact institutional content.
- Strong understanding of digital marketing, social media strategy, website governance, SEO, email marketing, communication analytics, and audience engagement.
- Demonstrated experience supporting fundraising through donor communications, stewardship strategies, proposal development, campaign communications, and institutional positioning.
OTHERS: Salary shall be commensurate with experience.
POSITION AVAILABILITY:Immediate
Only applications of shortlisted candidates will be acknowledged.
AIF is committed to fostering an inclusive workplace and ensures equal opportunity for all, without discrimination.