Director of Marketing and Communications

Working at the Foundation for a Healthier West Orange (FHWO) means being part of a team committed to building a lasting legacy for the West Orange community. We take on complex challenges through focused, collaborative, and learning-oriented work with shared leadership, care for one another, and accountability for meaningful outcomes.

Position Summary
The Director of Marketing and Communications leads the Foundation’s brand and voice, ensuring our work to build the healthiest community in the nation is visible, understood, and embraced. This role shapes and stewards a compelling narrative that connects strategy to real life, elevating partners, residents, and measurable impact across West Orange. Overseeing marketing strategy, creative direction, media relations, and digital engagement, the Director ensures clarity, consistency, and momentum across all communications. By translating insight into story and story into action, this leader helps fuel a community movement toward lasting health and well-being.

Reporting to the CEO and working closely with the leadership team, this role ensures that insight and communication move in both directions - informing what is explored, scaled, adapted, or shared with partners. The Director helps FHWO operate with clarity, alignment, and credibility in service of its Mission.

Responsibilities & Accountabilities

• Lead and steward the Foundation’s enterprise narrative, brand, and voice, ensuring clarity, consistency, and cohesion across all programs, platforms, and the diverse audiences that make up West Orange County.
• Translate data, lived experience, and learning into actionable insight and compelling stories that inform strategy, exploration, decision-making, and opportunities for scale.
• Design and execute integrated marketing and communications strategies that drive measurable growth in awareness, engagement, and participation in Foundation initiatives.
• Lead creative strategy and content development across digital, print, video, and experiential channels - ensuring high-quality, audience-centered storytelling that advances strategic priorities.
• Drive social media performance and digital engagement, expanding reach, strengthening community connection, and converting awareness into action and adoption.
• Lead performance measurement across marketing and communications - using data to increase awareness, drive participation, expand utilization of programs, and clearly connect communications efforts to community health impact.
• Oversee internal and external communications to ensure organizational alignment, message discipline, and momentum across teams and partners.
• Oversee and optimize external agency and vendor partnerships - driving quality, efficiency, and measurable contribution to marketing and mission outcomes.

Team Skills

Human & Interpersonal

• Communicates clearly and transparently across teams and with the community.
• Collaborates openly, builds trust, and shares information generously.
• Listens with curiosity and respect for diverse perspectives and lived experiences.
• Demonstrates empathy, respect, and care in how work is done and decisions are made.

Thinking & Execution

• Approaches challenges with practical problem-solving and creativity.
• Prioritizes effectively, making clear tradeoffs to focus effort where it matters most.
• Adapts to change, experiments, and learns from experience.
• Plans work, follows through on commitments, and communicates proactively.
• Uses insight and information to inform decisions and improve outcomes.

Community & Systems Orientation

• Builds and sustains relationships with care, responsiveness, and integrity.
• Understands how their work fits within the broader mission, community, and ecosystem.
• Willing to test ideas, learn, and take informed risks in service of impact.

Technical Skills

• Enterprise brand and strategic communications leadership
• Narrative strategy and mission-centered storytelling
• Integrated marketing strategy and audience engagement planning
• Media strategy and reputation management
• Data-driven decision-making, insight synthesis, and performance measurement
• Digital strategy and multi-channel campaign leadership
• Agency, vendor, and partner performance management

Leadership Skills

• People Leadership & Development: Builds trust, develops others, and creates clarity so teams can do their best work.
• Cross-Functional & Systems Leadership: Works effectively across functions and partners, understanding how work connects to broader outcomes.
• Adaptive Decision-Making: Leads with sound judgment in dynamic, public-facing environments; adjusts quickly as conditions change.
• Focus & Boundary Leadership: Prioritizes what matters most, sets clear boundaries, and avoids unnecessary complexity or overload.
• Communication: Provides clarity, direction, and shared understanding through clear, grounded communication.

Experience
Experience may include leadership roles in communications, marketing, brand, storytelling, or insight-driven work within foundations, nonprofits, public-sector organizations, media, or other mission-driven enterprises. Particularly valuable is experience drawing from real work, research, and community voice to shape strategy, guide decision-making, and communicate impact in clear, compelling ways.

Education
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required. Advanced study or training in communications, journalism, marketing, public health, public affairs, or related fields is a plus but not required.

We welcome passionate, mission-driven individuals who want to make a difference. Please email your resume and a cover letter indicating the position you wish to be considered for to careers@fhwo.org.