Consultant – Lead Community Manager, MicroMentor – Mexico or available in PST hours

Background:

MicroMentor, an initiative of Mercy Corps’ Innovations Team, connects entrepreneurs and business mentors on an easy-to-use social platform that strives to overcome geographical limitations and deliver business resources at scale to under-resourced communities around the globe. We are the world’s largest network of free business mentoring. Entrepreneurs matched with a mentor have shown significant results in terms of improved job creation, business survival, and revenue growth. Since its inception, our community has grown to more than 270,000 entrepreneurs and 90,000 mentors across 180 countries. Our team is diverse, driven, hardworking, and highly committed to the mission of helping small businesses thrive through mentoring.

Purpose / Project Description:

MicroMentor is looking for a professional who is passionate about mentorship, user engagement, and community management. Their role will contribute to the success of MicroMentor’s communities, both English and Spanish-speaking communities made up of entrepreneurs and mentors. These are communities for client networks housing their mentoring initiatives on our platform.

As the Lead Community Manager, they will be the architect and champion of our online communities. They’ll lead the charge in building relationships, fostering meaningful connections, amplifying voices, and creating a collaborative space where our end users (mentors and entrepreneurs) feel empowered and connected.

They will monitor and engage users on the MicroMentor platform and via virtual gatherings, while connecting individually as needed on a case by case basis. This person will play a key role in achieving success for customers and channel partners by ensuring their communities have a successful mentorship experience based on their goals.

Consultant Responsibilities & Activities:

*All references of community refers to entrepreneur & mentor end users

1. Relationship Growth:

• Nurture and strengthen relationships with both community groups (mentors & entrepreneurs):
  • Create personalized onboarding experiences for new members, including developing educational/marketing materials and other necessary content & tools to ensure a successful onboarding experience.
  • Actively participate in conversations, respond to queries, and foster dialogue across all communication channels (forum, email, platform, phone).
  • Lead all aspects of organizing online meetups, workshops, and other virtual engagement activities.
  • Develop programs that recognize and celebrate member contributions and achievements. This includes owning and executing all aspects of the current Mentor Journey program. Monitor this program’s effectiveness and propose adjustments where needed to maximize engagement.
  • Consistently bring/implement new ideas that leverage the latest market trends / successful community engagement strategies in the market

2. Community Engagement Strategy:

• Develop and implement a comprehensive community engagement strategy for each end user (mentor & VSBDR entrepreneur):
  • Analyze the demographics, interests, and behavior of our target audience. ○ Propose community goals and objectives to drive community engagement that’s aligned with client’s strategic goals.
  • Leverage existing channels, including the Discourse Forum, Email, MM Platform, virtual gatherings, and social channels to deepen community engagement and increase connections.
    • Create an annual calendar with monthly virtual gatherings scheduled for each user group with topics defined. Lead monthly/bi-monthly virtual gatherings capturing participation and critical insights to share with the MicroMentor team.
    • Lead planning and prepare supporting materials for virtual gatherings in English and Spanish (when applicable).
    • Manually support entrepreneurs to connect with the right mentor, specifically for customer communities.
  • Develop marketing and educational content and interaction strategies for each channel, in collaboration with the marketing team.
  • Every two weeks, prepare a digest of entrepreneurs without connections to share and request support from active mentors that are relevant to help.
  • Conduct individual calls with community members to support matching success
  • Partner with cross-functional teams to integrate community insights into product development.
  • Stay up-to-date on industry trends, tools for community management, and best practices in community building.

3. Data Analysis & Reporting:

• Monitor and analyze community engagement metrics:
  • Track and report key performance indicators (KPIs) as defined for this client. Suggest others based on community management insights.
  • Identify trends and insights from platform analytics and member feedback. ○ Propose and execute quarterly satisfaction measurement of community engagement initiatives.
  • Utilize data to inform and optimize community engagement strategies and summarize into actionable reports for internal stakeholders.

4. Content Creation:

• Craft compelling content that resonates with the community:
  • Develop forum posts, articles, helpful mentoring content, and other resources to share with the community with the end goal of driving engagement and satisfaction. This is in collaboration with the marketing team.
  • Showcase member stories and contributions via the forum, email campaigns and social media.

Consultant Deliverables:

The Consultant will:

• Relationship Growth – Execute New User Onboarding Initiatives + Report Updates – (on-going/monthly)
• Relationship Growth – Respond to all end user inquiries across all managed communication channels – (on-going/daily)
• Relationship Growth – Execute mentor recognition programs (Mentor Journey) + Report Program Updates – (monthly)
• Community Engagement – Analyze demographics, interests, and behavior analysis of our target community – (on-going/monthly)
• Community Engagement – Execute manual matching of entrepreneurs with mentors + report performance – (on-going/weekly)
• Community Engagement – Design, plan, execute mentor/entrepreneur gatherings + report performance – (monthly/bi-monthly)
• Data Analysis & Reporting – Track, monitor, and analyze, and report community engagement KPIs (on-going/weekly/monthly)
• Content Creation – Develop content to successfully onboard, grow and retain both community members – (on-going/weekly/monthly)

Timeframe / Schedule:

Jan 26, 2024 – Jan 25, 2025

The Consultant will report to:

Global Partnerships & Innovation Manager

The Consultant will work closely with MicroMentor team members, including:

• Programs & Innovation Manager
• Global Programs and Innovation Director
• Marketing team
• Product team

Required Experience & Skills:

• Bilingual English/Spanish
• Experience in community management and successfully driving engagement
• Strong communication skills both written and oral
• Proven ability to effectively build interpersonal relationships and achieve alignment across a wide range of functions and constituents
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to analyze data and surface clear and concise actionable insights
• Intercultural communication skills and awareness are a must
• Knowledge of customer relationship management best practices
• Team management skills a plus
• Technical aptitude and ability to learn new software systems
• Experience with Forum Management a plus
• Experience with Whatsapp is a plus
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Flexible approach and an ability to operate effectively with uncertainty and change
• Driven, self-motivated, enthusiastic, and with a “can-do” attitude

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives. We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our stakeholders and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects. Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC’s policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.