The Resource Development Communications Senior Writer/Editor supports CARE’s fundraising efforts by gathering, writing and editing content (proposals, reports, human interest stories, unrestricted fundraising appeals, emergency updates, etc.) that result in optimal financial support for and understanding of CARE’s work. As a member of the RDC writing team the Senior Writer/Editor is involved in the production of donor-ready fundraising materials, working closely with relationship managers, technical teams and country office staff.

The Senior Writer/Editor has specific responsibilities within the writing team, including taking the lead on proposals/reports for the most technically sophisticated and highest level donors within Major Gifts, Foundation and Corporate portfolios; working with Resource Development leadership in implementing new strategies for donor-facing communication; originating “from-scratch” proposals for new grants; leading the development of sophisticated products designed to raise unrestricted funds; and generating and updating effective humanitarian appeals in the critical first hours and days of an emergency.

Responsibilities:

1. Develop products in support of new grant opportunities and strategic objectives
   • The Senior Writer/Editor helps meet CARE’s revenue goals by providing individual, foundation and corporate fundraisers with high-quality donor proposals and reports for a range of CARE projects and programs. A particular responsibility is supporting country office and technical staff in the development of ground-up proposals for new grants without a reporting history — crafting effective content communicating project objectives, strategies and funding needs in donor-appropriate language, often without the guidance of a pre-existing documents or formats. The Senior Writer/Editor works with country office and technical staff to ensure that impact objectives are communicated clearly at the proposal stage and followed up consistently in reporting throughout project implementation.
   • The Senior Writer/Editor has an in-depth understanding of development and humanitarian concepts, maintains close working relationships with technical experts across CARE’s functional and geographical areas, and is able to understand and interpret sometimes highly complex technical language effectively for specific donor audiences.
   • A further responsibility is to support Resource Development leadership in implementing new strategies for donor communication to meet fundraising needs in an atmosphere of changing demands, where traditional proposals and reports are no longer sufficient. This may entail direct creation of written materials in innovative formats, or in some cases supervising the work of others such as contract writers, graphic designers and multimedia content producers.
   • As Resource Development leadership explores avenues for improving the quality and effectiveness of donor communication materials, the Senior Writer/Editor will take the lead in efforts to build writing and communications capacity among program staff, particularly at country office level. This may involve activities such as providing in-depth feedback for field staff on their written materials, creating supportive guidelines/handbooks, or facilitating remote or in-person training in proposal writing and human interest story gathering/writing.
2. Develop high-level fundraising materials including those directed at unrestricted fundraising.
   • In addition to working on project-specific proposals and reports, the Senior Writer/Editor helps meet CARE’s annual revenue goals by preparing effective communication materials in support a range of special objectives including campaigns and pooled fund appeals. Typically the Senior Writer/Editor will be assigned more technically sophisticated proposals/reports and those aimed at meeting revenue objectives at the highest level below Mega-Gifts. A specific responsibility of the Senior Writer/Editor is to help meet unrestricted fundraising goals by taking the lead in developing complex, multi-sectoral materials targeted at high-level donors. These include products such as Impact Fund proposals/reports, which require broad experience with CARE’s work and relationship-building with subject matter experts across the CARE world.
3. Support fundraising for humanitarian response and other ongoing projects.
   • A further responsibility is leading the development and updating of emergency fundraising appeals generating donor support of CARE’s immediate response to humanitarian emergencies. This requires an intimate understanding of CARE’s humanitarian operations and the ability to craft compelling materials, sometimes under extreme deadline pressure and outside normal work hours.
   • The Senior Writer/Editor will also oversee regular updates of products designed to support revenue goals for humanitarian operations beyond immediate emergency appeals — for example, developing proposals and reports for pooled funds such as the Humanitarian Surge Fund. The Senior Writer/Editor may take long-term responsibility for reporting on specific emergency situations in order to keep interest and funding alive. Written products may include donor reports, human interest stories and factsheets.
   • Other projects might include writing workshop facilitation, development of annual dollar handles, travel to CARE programs to gather stories and content and/or supervise local staff in generating storytelling content, management of CARE’s funding priority menu, etc. Each member of the writing team, including Senior Writer/Editors, typically manages one significant project throughout the year and contributes to multiple smaller projects.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree (International affairs, English/journalism, public health/development or technical area preferred).
• 7-10 years of writing experience or equivalent
• Superior writing and research skills
• Project management skills
• Negotiating skills
• Grants-writing proficiency
• Proficiency in online research
• In-depth understanding of development and humanitarian concepts
• Cross-cultural communication skills