This position is for a strategic communications and facilitation expert looking to use their passion for communication to provide high quality documents and teach others communications best practices. You will join CDM Smith’s growing, cross-discipline strategic communications team as a subject matter expert, leading a team developing communications for FEMA resiliency and risk reduction projects.

Projects you may work on include planning and facilitating meetings, adapting policy into plain language materials, developing presentations for internal and external stakeholders and helping develop guidance and communication strategies for FEMA programs.

With a strong sense of plain language and the ability to tailor to any audience, you dig deep into material to ensure it communicates its key message. Passionate about organizational efficiency, you think through processes to ensure the right people get the right information at the right time. When someone thinks something cannot be done, your first instinct is to find a solution anyway. You are comfortable jumping from one technical topic to another and applying your expertise to different scenarios.

The core of your work will be writing and producing documents tailored to specific audiences to help communities make resiliency decisions. Tasks you will generally be assisting with will include:

Creating and implementing communications plans to ensure stakeholders receive information needed appropriately when being asked to make a decision

Facilitating discussions within your respective programs and creating plans to promote better organizational coordination and management

Writing and editing documents to specific reading levels while ensuring they meet brand and style guidance

Translating highly technical textual information into a visual story that the audience can relate to and make decisions about

Proving highly detailed quality control and readability reviews

Managing and mentoring junior staff working on project communications

Teaching technical staff communications best practices

Interacting with the public, especially disadvantaged communities, via virtual and on-the-ground community forums

Providing communications support with program stakeholders, including state, territories, federally recognized tribal nations, and local governments

Facilitating community engagement forums, like public meetings, hearings, and listening sessions

Working with social media and electronic methods of survey and data collection

Creating forums to brainstorm and act on ideas to improve FEMA’s communication best practices, and/or creatively address specific client challenges

Contributing to proposals to win more work, including writing public-engagement related scope, building up a team, and estimating cost

Some weekend and evening hours may be required to attend project public engagement events. Your work will support strategic communications efforts for FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Assistance programs across the nation.

Excellent written and oral communication skills are necessary.
Ability to see the big picture, then connect disparate dots of activities to meet an end goal;
Ability to build internal and external relationships;
Ability to translate highly complex technical information into content the general public can understand;
Ability to adapt to quickly changing technologies;
Strong organization skills;
Ability to manage a project scope, schedule, and budget;
Confident working in a virtual team atmosphere;
Strong facilitation skills.