Communications & Engagement Manager

Are you excited about healthcare communications, audience engagement, and meaningful events? Are you ready to join a growing team of communications professionals?

Ripple Effect is looking for a Communications and Engagement Manager with six years of experience to support our clients' missions. This role will work within Ripple Effect's Communications Division and will use their background and their ability to lead to manage and execute communications, engagement, and event activities for a variety of government clients. Ripple Effect supports leading health care agencies such as CMS, NIH, and CDC but we also serve many other healthcare and non-healthcare clients.

If this position sounds of interest, there’s a place for you here at Ripple Effect! We are a diverse, progressive, and engaging work environment. We offer a multitude of incentives and flexible work options that work for you and your lifestyle.

General Information  

• Job Code: PRO-CM-04M
• Location: Ripple Effect Headquarters – Rockville, MD  
• Employee Type: Exempt, Full-Time Regular (Ask our recruiters about flexible work arrangements)  
• Telework: Partial 
• Clearance: None
• Manager: Yes
• Number of Openings: 1  
• Travel Required: This position may require national travel
• Salary Range: $83,539.00 - $96,069.00 (how we pay and promote)  

Responsibilities

• Manage a team of communicators and event specialists in the day-to-day work of high-visibility communications and events-related projects for our clients, including tracking progress on deliverables, timelines, budgets, and resource-allocation.
• Lead and participate in client meetings, including agenda and slide development, meeting facilitation, note taking, and assigning action items.
• Develop and maintain excellent relationships with clients and vendors, focusing on delivering high-quality service.
• Spearhead communications and events projects by identifying opportunities, developing plans, obtaining appropriate approval, initiating action, and closing out projects.
• Lead audience engagement initiatives and activities to strategically broaden client networks and amplify messaging reach.
• Provide mentoring on task management, and communications, engagement, and event planning techniques and tools.
• Build monthly and quarterly content plans, email marketing campaigns, newsletters.
• Determine the need for materials to support agency programs including talking points, presentation and engagement plans, feature stories, speeches, etc.
• Manage all components of the event lifecycle (pre-, day-of, and post-event) to include managing event budgets, creating and monitoring registration sites, uploading website content, drafting event-related emails, plans, and social media, developing RFPs, sourcing, negotiating, and selecting vendors, securing room blooks, making travel arrangements, responding to attendee and client questions, providing day of support, reviewing and analyzing survey responses, drafting and reviewing meeting summaries, and reconciling invoices.
• Oversee the preparation and distribution of conference materials in digital and hard copy format, such as program books, agenda, briefing materials, PowerPoints, travel, and hotel information, etc.
• Perform other duties related to the core functions of the role.

Requirements

Minimum Education and Experience  

• Completed bachelor's degree
• 6 years of relevant communications task coordination and/or events planning experience
• 4 years of relevant management experience  

Basic Requirements

• Relevant experience leading projects and teams, tasking, implementing a quality review process for all deliverables, and following up on others’ work to ensure deliverable deadlines are met.
• Relevant experience developing communications strategies, tactical implementation plans, and content in a range of voices, styles, and formats.
• Relevant experience leading governmental, non-profit, and/or corporate in-person, virtual, and hybrid event planning projects, including the use of event software.
• Highly organized, efficient, and extremely detail-oriented with ability to see the big picture.
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills for face-to-face interactions with clients, co-workers, and leadership and preparing high quality, client-ready deliverables.
• Ability to learn quickly, perform complex tasks following established procedures, and condense complex information from diverse sources into concise, attractive, and user-friendly formats.
• Intermediate to advanced skills in Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook.
• Working knowledge of web-based systems such as SharePoint and Teams.
• Ability to administer established policies and procedures impacting departmental budgeting, strategic planning, and procedural change.
• Ability and willingness to report to our Headquarters office (located in Rockville, MD) or to client sites on an as-needed basis for events and meetings.

To be successful at Ripple Effect, you must be able to pay attention to details, clearly communicate, work independently, and have an eagerness to learn. Learn more about what it takes to become a Rippler here.  

Skills That Set You Apart

• Master's Degree
• PMP or other project management certification
• Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) and/or Certified Government Meeting Professional (CGMP)
• Experience in federal government contracting, especially with CMS and/or NIH experience
• Experience with policy and science communications and marketing techniques and content in the healthcare space
• Media management
• Crisis communications
• Experience with Microsoft Planner and other project planning tools
• Experience writing proposals or with other business development activities including pricing

If you don’t have all of the skills above, don’t be discouraged—no resume paints a complete picture of a person. There’s a good chance you’re more wonderful than you think, so please apply!  

About Ripple Effect  

Ripple Effect is an award-winning women-owned small business providing professional consulting and exceptional talent for federal, private, and non-profit clients. We deliver multi-disciplinary solutions across communications & outreach, research & evaluation, policy & program management, digital transformation, and strategic staffing solutions with a focus on science, research, and healthcare domains.  

Hiring Process | Life at Ripple |COVID Response | DEI  

Benefits

Ripple Effect rewards our employees for their contributions to our mission in many ways, from competitive pay and exceptional benefits to a range of work/life programs based on your employment classification and personalized preferences.  

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Ripple Effect is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, political affiliation, or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during the hiring process, please let us know by contacting our HR department at [email protected] or your recruiter. Eligibility for employment will be verified using E-verify.