Community Development & Engagement Manager

PROGRAM/DEPARTMENT SUMMARY: -

Gaza Sky Geeks (GSG) is Gaza’s leading co-working space, tech education hub, and startup accelerator, run by Mercy Corps, a nonprofit international relief and development organization with programs in the occupied Palestinian territories since the 1980s. Mercy Corps founded GSG in partnership with Google.org in 2011.  We bring together online freelancers, outsourcers, and startup founders together under one roof to share ideas, best practices, code, and build brighter futures through the power of the internet. Gaza Sky Geeks’ overarching goal is to build an internationally competitive technology ecosystem in Gaza through online freelancing, outsourcing, and startups.

GENERAL POSITION SUMMARY: -

As Community Development Manager, your role is to cultivate the most successful tech community in Gaza by creating the best possible environment for our members and ensuring they take full advantage of the opportunities offered by Gaza Sky Geeks.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS: -

Community Development Responsibilities:

• Oversee all aspects of the GSG community member experience from the system to enter GSG to onboarding processes to ensuring the day-to-day experience reflects our values and provides meaningful, responsive resources to community members
• Serve as the primary point-of-contact for GSG community members and solving member-related issues
• Foster community building and strengthening through member engagement activities and events  
• Create an inclusive, collaborative, and fun environment that encourage proactive behavior internally and externally
• Support the  smooth-running of operations of the co-working space
• Take an active role in growing and nurturing the GSG community by shaping outreach strategies and internal networking events
• Own ultimately responsibility for ensuring wide publicizing of GSG community activities and events throughout the Gaza ecosystem to include incubators, universities, student groups, trade groups, and local companies; ensuring they are encouraged to attend and welcome at GSG events
• Encourage and consult other ecosystem members (individuals and organizations) to lead their own activities that directly support GSG’s overall mission of building a competitive tech ecosystem in Gaza
• Coordinate with other GSG team members (e.g. communications, social media) to ensure community building priorities are represented in overall strategy and execution

Community Development Deliverables:

• Develop a GSG onboarding process for new community members to introduce them to GSG values, procedures, and all the benefits they can derive from the community and our co-working space
• Lead rollout of new communication tools, forums (online and offline), and creative ‘bootstrappy’ ways to increase peer-to-peer engagement and fun within the entire Gaza tech community (this may entail consolidating and cleaning up existing forums and groups and streamlining communication channels across Gaza tech community)
• Run cross-cutting events / activities / workshops twice a month that convene GSG community members from different program verticals and facilitates networking and community building, in addition to the community building events led by other leaders of GSG program verticals
• Build and maintain a fully up-to-date and comprehensive database in Hubspot of all GSG’s local partners in Gaza to ensure easy mass communication with and segmentation of partners
• Deliver a significant increase in GSG program alumni, trainees, and other beneficiaries’ engagement and volunteering to support the GSG community through mentoring and teaching (e.g. peer-led workshops, mentoring in the coding academy, leading a tech meetup) – you will track total weekly hours contributed by individual of community members (can be approximate, but standardized) to all GSG program verticals (tech education, freelancing, startups, women’s programming), to be verified and validated by the Data & Monitoring Coordinator and Program Manager. Examples of ‘hours contributed’ may include every hour a local mentor spends at a GSG hackathon, hours that a community member volunteers to lead a workshop on graphic design, or hours that mentors in Technovation work for free to tech young girls.
• In collaboration with the GSG Director, Program Manager, and Data/M&E Coordinator, develop and maintain feedback mechanisms/surveys to improve coworking space and community engagement activities
• Report to GSG leadership on sentiment within GSG’s coworking space, community, and broader ecosystem

Community Operations Responsibilities:

• Lead planning and execution of GSG events (demo days, hackathons, workshops) with written plans, roles and responsibilities, and timelines—this includes leading and convening meetings of colleagues, managers and subordinates to establish timelines and project plans.  
• Manage an operations team within GSG for co-working space quality (make sure the space is comfortable – warm or cold enough, that internet is working well, rooms are easy to reserve, welcome entrepreneurs and guests to the space, operate the space – or make sure somebody is – during GSG opening hours)
• Ensure that GSG space is operated efficiently and at full-capacity year-round through detailed scheduling of desk usage, room usage, workshop scheduling, and GSG program timeline requirements— if there is projected excess capacity within GSG’s space, it is filled promptly with new programming activities or community/peer-led workshops that are valuable to the community
• Support Logistics & Operations Coordinators with delivering on their responsibilities by providing strategic guidance and review in advance of review / approval by GSG Program Manager
• Liaise with MC finance team on requests such as cash projections  

Community Operations Deliverables:

• Identify and execute at least 3 systems that improve co-working space efficiency and member management (e.g. electronic door locks with keycards / mobile phone event registration, efficient desk and furniture set up, facebook/email communications)
• A well maintained, constantly up to date calendar system for GSG room bookings and space requirements from GSG programs within the GSG coworking space, projected as far out as possible
• Event timelines and draft plans delivered to GSG management ahead of event dates (to be developed in coordination with all relevant GSG staff, but lead by you)

ACCOUNTABILITY: -

REPORTS DIRECTLY TO: GSG Director of Gaza Programs

WORKS DIRECTLY WITH: GSG Mentorship coordinator, External GSG volunteers, GSG Director, Acceleration Manager, MC finance, procurement, and logistics

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QUALIFICATIONS, KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

1. University degree in ICT, Business, any other related field, with a demonstrated record of interest and contemporary knowledge in his/her field.
2. Having excellent communication , engagement and  networking skills with others
3. Strong relationship management skills and emotional intelligence with a customer service attitude to ensure positive, beneficial experience of community members and actors
4. Experience working and interacting with diverse communities in a professional manner , proper understating of the cultural differences and the community needs
5. Excellent writing skills in both English and Arabic.
6. Proficiency in MS Office, Slack, Google products (Drive, Sheets, Docs). GSG does not use email internally. We use Slack.
7. Willingness to work outside of normal business hours as required;

SUCCESS FACTORS:

1. Ability to work in a flat, fast paced environment with others who are passionate about supporting Gaza’s technology ecosystem
2. Comfort with uncertainty and change—GSG is a small program but growing rapidly. Just like our program, we seek staff who are adaptable and pitch in on what needs to be done.
3. Strong listening abilities in order to understand the needs of Gaza’s freelancing community and GSG’s tech community
4. Superb attention to detail
5. Positive attitude and passion for your work
6. Proactive, get-stuff-done mentality that always prioritizes outcomes, not just inputs
7. Excellent written and oral communication skills;
8. Strong interpersonal, conflict resolution and negotiation skills;
9. Excellent time and organizational management skills;
10. Up to date knowledge of technical and industry developments.

Excellent ability to work under pressure and carry out multiple tasks simultaneously.

If interested, submit an application online through Apply Now - تقدم الآن لهذه الوظيفة. No later than Saturday, 12 January 2019.

Qualified persons with disability are highly encouraged to apply.

Interested candidates are encouraged to complete the application .Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.