Position Overview
The Director, Communications & Advocacy is an integral member of the Food Initiative while working closely with the Communications, Policy & Advocacy (CPA) team in New York. They will report to the Senior Vice President, Food, and senior leaders on the Food team, with a secondary line of responsibility to the Senior Vice President/Chief, Communications, Policy, and Advocacy. They will also collaborate closely with the communications and policy teams on CPA. They will play a pivotal role in devising and implementing communications strategies, nurturing strategic partnerships and coalitions, educating policymakers, managing contracts and grants, and supporting priorities of the climate-food strategy that includes the global initiatives of School Meals, Regenerative Agriculture, Periodic Table of Food, and Food is Medicine. In successfully implementing this work, the Director will strategically position the Food team’s priorities in important conversations and convenings via traditional and social media, deepen partnerships, educate, and mobilize influential decision-makers, and provide policy, advocacy, and communications expertise to advance programmatic objectives.
The position involves research, ideation, project management, and coordination supporting the program areas, and their various projects, and developing the team’s influence agenda. The position requires curiosity, creativity, and versatility, with both a global and domestic (U.S.) perspective, and a passion for innovative thinking with the potential to advance human progress. The Director will help connect the dots, developing a communications narrative for this diverse portfolio and--with the broader communications team—telling that story in compelling ways traditionally and via social media. They will also support the policy needs of the programs and initiatives by advising and supporting the strategies to influence target audiences and key stakeholders. The successful applicant should have the ability to synthesize information from diverse sources on a range of topics and be able to think creatively about how to use that content for both internal and external purposes. They should have extensive network connections in global development at the state and federal level in the United States, including an understanding of policymaking and experience in developing strategies to influence behavior and opinions.
Pay Range: $171,296- $251,409. This represents the present low and high end of the Foundation’s pay range for this position. Actual pay will vary based on various factors, including but not limited to experience.
Work Schedule: This role is on a hybrid work schedule, and required to be in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
Below is further background on the food team’s strategic priorities:
Food is Medicine (FIM): The Foundation has recently increased its commitment to its $100M ‘Big Bet' on FIM, which aims to make FIM interventions accessible to 30M high-need patients in the U.S. Our goal is to make effective, equitable FIM programs a reimbursable medical benefit among public and private health insurers, and to integrate nutrition more deeply into healthcare. The FIM program has been active since 2019, and works closely with community-based organizations, advocates, researchers, federal and state agencies, healthcare providers, and private companies, to scale FIM and improve health, increase health equity, and mitigate rising healthcare costs.
School Meals: After the UN Food Systems Summit of 2021 RF has supported the development of the School Meals Coalition which now has 90 member states. The goal of this big bet will be to develop a new organization that will support the work with these governments to expand school meals to 100m additional children, improve the quality of those meals, make them climate-positive, and ensure funding for these programs is sustainable. New funding mechanisms like debt swaps for school meals and ultra-processed food taxes will be needed to create the fiscal space for school meal expansion.
Regenerative Agriculture: We are currently working with over 20 funding partners to enable a movement to shift the world’s agriculture to regenerative practices that improve soil health, water quality, biodiversity, equity, and farmers’ well-being. This big bet will have three parts a) Enabling a common definition and framework for regenerative agriculture that creates accountability b) Innovative financing mechanism to support the transition from conventional to regenerative systems and c) furthering the research and evidence needed for context-specific regenerative practices.
The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI): This “long bet” is building a global scientific ecosystem and providing tools, data, and training to catalog the complete biomolecular composition of the world’s food supply for the first time. The aim will be to create a global public good that will enable researchers to answer key questions such as the impact of regenerative agriculture on nutrient density, the medicinal qualities of food, and what new crop varieties offer the most potential for meeting the nutritional needs of a climate-changed future.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities
Policy, Advocacy, and Influence
External Communications
Project Management
Education, Experience, and Skills
Qualifications and Competencies
About The Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a pioneering philanthropy built on collaborative partnerships at the frontiers of science, technology, and innovation that enable individuals, families, and communities to flourish. We make big bets to promote the well-being of humanity. Today, we are focused on advancing human opportunity and reversing the climate crisis by transforming systems in food, health, energy, and finance. For more information, sign up for our newsletter at http://rockefellerfoundation.org and follow us on X @RockefellerFdn.
The Rockefeller Foundation offers a comprehensive and competitive benefits package that includes health insurance programs, tuition reimbursement and student loan repayment, a generous 401K, parental leave, and various forms of paid time off, all to help our employees feel energized, cared for, and engaged.
As an organization, we focus on six values to advance our culture and continue our success. We are dedicated to being Transparent, Optimistic, Accountable, Collaborative, Trusted, and Equitable. We operate from a strong commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion in everything that we do. It is not only the right thing to do – we could not make an impact without our team members' diverse perspectives and experiences. We expect all employees at the Foundation to contribute by developing their unique perspectives and talent, challenging conventional wisdom through evidence and reason, and amplifying marginalized voices.
The Rockefeller Foundation is committed to the principles of equal employment opportunity and compliance with all federal, state, and local laws concerning employment discrimination, including the Americans with Disabilities Act. To this end, the Foundation ensures equal opportunity to all employees and applicants regardless of race, color, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, lawful alien status, physical, mental, and medical disability, veteran status, liability for service in the United States Armed Forces, or any other protected status.
The Rockefeller Foundation is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
This vacancy is archived.