Position : Community & Events Choreographer

This will be a full-time remote role, with a preference for an individual based in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, or Southeast Asia.

About Pollinate Impact

Incubators and accelerators across the Global South relentlessly support entrepreneurs to build thriving businesses while creating impact for their communities.  But, there are limited – if any – support systems for the incubators and accelerators to share lessons learned, connect them to funding opportunities, and offer networks of peer support.

Pollinate Impact recently launched as a member-led network of impact incubators and accelerators in the Global South.  By bringing the incubation and acceleration community together, we are amplifying and unifying their voices, to drive more support to the impact entrepreneurship field.  By building avenues for incubators to share, collaborate, and co-create, we enable them to better support their entrepreneurs, develop shared resources, and ultimately create transformative change in their communities. By the end of 2024, our 50 member organizations will have supported more than 60,000 impact entrepreneurs who are driving sustainable development solutions across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

This is a pivotal moment to join our team, where you will play a crucial role in building this Network from the ground up, directly supporting members to amplify their impact, and to build a thriving incubation industry in their regions.  As part of the Secretariat of this member-led network, you should expect a dynamic environment where emergence is embraced, where you appreciate learning through an iterative process.  We are cultivating and stewarding the members of our Network towards common goals, and we believe in being responsive and empathetic to the unique needs and demands of our members.

Position Overview

As a Community & Events Choreographer, you will have the opportunity to make a significant impact on our organization by engaging our community and stewarding collective action through working groups, events, and member meet-ups. The Community & Events Choreographer plays a pivotal role in ensuring our events, meetings, and workshops are well planned, delivered seamlessly, and facilitated skillfully.  You will draw on the insights from these meetings to help publish the learnings and insights to position Pollinate Impact’s thought leadership at regional and global levels.

This will be a full-time remote role, with a preference for an individual based in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, or Southeast Asia.  Because our team is scattered across the globe, you will need to take meetings outside of a 9-5 schedule, since our opportunities to connect as a team are limited, given the spread of time zones.

Your Responsibilities

Event Planning and Coordination - 50%

• Build and maintain a comprehensive calendar of activities for all network events, both virtual and in-person, while taking into consideration various holidays and time zone differences.
• Ensure the efficient planning and successful execution of the Pollinate Impact activities, events, and programming calendar.  These are virtual and in-person events that include member-only meetings, public ecosystem events, workshops, appearances, and other community opportunities.
• Ensure the success of our virtual events (about 2 per week) through careful planning and execution.  Each event has between 2-5 speakers and 10-50 participants.  In advance of the event, your tasks include securing speakers, sending calendar invitations to participants, drafting detailed session overview documents, scheduling and hosting speaker briefings, managing event registrations and queries for all sessions, sending out timely event reminders, and facilitating other relevant communications as needed. During the event, your tasks include conducting pre-session tech checks, welcoming participants, introducing Pollinate Impact and the speakers, and encouraging a highly engaged virtual audience.
• Ensure end to end planning, delivery and coordination of in-person events and workshops across different geographies for between 25 to 50 participants, which last between 3-6 hours.  Your responsibilities include, drafting and sending invitations, communications, managing speakers, timely reminders, vendor coordination, handling logistics (venue, catering, photography, transportation, printing), and budget management.
• Define standard operating procedures to streamline our events management systems, while ensuring buy-in and accountability with the rest of the team who contribute to the successful delivery of every event.
• Ensure end to end planning, delivery, and coordination of one in-person large scale annual convening, with 100+ participants and 30 speakers, from across the Global South.  Your responsibilities include drafting and sending invitations, communications, managing speakers, sending timely reminders, vendor coordination, handling logistics (venue, catering, photography, transport, print) and budget management.
• Monitor and track the progress of working group meetings, including scheduling, invitations, documenting minutes and action items, following-up with members for updates and tracking budgets in order to ensure that progress is made on any action items committed to by members.
• Manage post-event activities including tracking attendance and poll reports, share recordings, sending thank you emails, and circulating minutes and action items.

Brand Building & Member Engagement - 30%

• Be the face of Pollinate Impact in your region by attending events, participating in speaking engagements, etc. in order to keep abreast of the trends emerging in the regional ecosystem, understand the nuances of the market in your region, and offer recommendations and insights to the Network Secretariat to improve our programming and value proposition to Members, Partners, and Allies.
• Build strong rapport with the impact entrepreneurship community in your region (i.e., incubators, accelerators, investors, entrepreneurs, NGO, and corporations, etc.) to increase membership, partnerships, and overall awareness of the mission and work of Pollinate Impact.
• Conceptualize, develop, and launch the member-only online portal. Work with technical providers to design and develop a solution that will meet our budget and member demands.
• Once launched, drive engagement on the member portal and build a sense of community by creatively seeking ideas, resources, contributions via polls, surveys, forums, and other means.  Plan on testing out what works in iterative increments, where we learn as we go and evolve our approaches.
• Backstop for the Membership Coordinator on occasion, as needed by:
• Sharing pertinent resources and opportunities with member organizations and actively involve them in various Pollinate Impact activities including, but not limited to: working groups, member meet-ups, peer-powered workshops, funding opportunities, etc.
• Identifying common areas of interest amongst members and partners during the events, working group meetings, engagements etc., in order to facilitate follow-on connections and action opportunities to promote further collaboration between members.
• Providing excellent customer service to members and others in response to phone, email inquiries, and requests for information.
• Think strategically about emerging opportunities to promote Pollinate Impact and reach new audiences through the development of new partnerships and events.

Insights and Reporting  - 20%

• Collect, analyze, and synthesize data from the member portal, member feedback, program notes, and annual member survey in order to track the overall health of the Network and recommend programmatic improvements and updates that are responsive to member needs.
• Develop and maintain social network analysis of the Network.
• Ensure notetaking of events, workshops, and working groups, documenting insights, learnings, progress, and action items that will be circulated internally and to Network members.  This documentation will provide the foundation for many of our regular updates to the governing council of the Network, and the organization’s Board.
• Document and track any connections and/or introductions made between members to support the impact metrics of the Network.
• Report and track budgets, outcomes, and progress for working groups. The budgets will be allocated by the governance council, but needs to be managed by you.
• Contribute to regular reporting to donors, our governance council and Board on achievements, key numbers and metrics, learnings and insights generated, teasing out success stories from members, and emerging trends that we intend to pursue.

Required profile for job ad : Community & Events Choreographer

You are a great fit for the team at Pollinate Impact, if:

• You're a firm believer in the power of impact entrepreneurship to address the world's most complex challenges.
• You're enthusiastic about leveraging your skills to help cultivate a robust entrepreneurship ecosystem by backing accelerators and incubators in the Global South.
• Working in a small, global team with a big vision excites you.
• You're adaptable and eager to evolve based on fresh knowledge and insights.
• Your flexibility shines as you willingly step in to support the team whenever necessary, maximizing your contribution.
• You are highly self-driven and excel working in independent and remote work settings. Having ownership of goals energizes you, and you thrive on rapidly learning when faced with new challenges.
• You work smartly.
• You strive to find better, simpler and quicker ways to achieve your results, and embrace a learn-as-we-go attitude.  You’re communicative, trustworthy, and able to meet and anticipate deadlines.
• Building trusted relationships and creating value for others is your thing! People love interacting with you and seeking your help as you are a perceptive listener who empathizes well and effortlessly builds connections with a wide range of stakeholders.
• This position is perfect for you, if:
• You have 3-5 years of experience coordinating events in community-led or collaborative initiatives involving multiple stakeholders.
• You have a natural talent for planning, excel at organizing events, and you have proven expertise in event management across different cultures and geographies.
• You have proven experience in event content curation that enables you to effectively design session objectives, structure, and flow and (if needed) lead in moderation.
• You’re very well-organized.
• You are detail oriented and have excellent organizational skills.
• Nothing falls through the cracks with your leadership.
• You have strong organizational and project management experience successfully overseeing multiple projects simultaneously from start to finish.
• You’ve created systems and processes for event organizing in order to improve efficiency and streamline workflows.
• You’ve worked across diverse geographies and cultures that enables you to demonstrate strong intercultural awareness and the ability to collaborate effectively in such a network or community.
• You have prior experience in organizations where creating value for several different stakeholders with varying needs was central to your role.
• You are proficient in event management, CRM tools, and software in order to track and report data.
• You’re extremely articulate. You have strong written and verbal communication skills that give you the ability to articulate ideas and thoughts clearly.
• You’re comfortable speaking in front of a crowd (large or small, virtually or in-person.)
• You understand that this job isn't always 9-5 and can plan your time and schedule around peak moments and different time zones.
• You possess an understanding of digital tools to thrive in a fully remote environment.
• Experience in the social impact, development, or start-up entrepreneurship ecosystem is a must for us!