Manager, Communications

Organization: Distress Centre of Ottawa and Region

Location: Ottawa and Region, Ontario | Hybrid (remote and in-office)

Employment Type: Full-time, Permanent

Schedule: 37.5 hours per week, Monday–Friday, with flexibility required

About the Distress Centre of Ottawa and Region

For more than 55 years, the Distress Centre of Ottawa and Region (DCOR) has been a source of connection, hope, and empathy for those experiencing stress, distress, and crisis across and well beyond the City of Ottawa. Operating 24 hours a day, every day of the year, DCOR provides accessible, confidential, and non-judgmental support and referrals in both English and French. Through our phone lines, community partnerships, training, and volunteer-driven programs, we ensure that no one in our community faces their most difficult moments alone.

About the Position

Reporting to the Director, Partnerships and Development, the Manager, Communications leads how DCOR presents itself in words and design. The Manager is DCOR’s lead writer and editor, the owner of its website content and layout, the steward of its visual identity, and the producer of its key organizational materials including reports and educational resources. The Manager sets DCOR's standards for safe, accurate, and accessible communications. As a bilingual organization, the Manager ensures that DCOR materials are translated in English and French with consistency and accuracy.

As a member of the Communications and Development team, the Manager supports fundraising and events efforts by producing campaign, stewardship, and promotional materials, overseeing event promotion and delivery through the Coordinator, and ensuring that DCOR’s messaging consistently advances both its mission and its fundraising goals.

The Manager, Communications supervises:

• Coordinator, Digital Media and Events

Key Responsibilities

Writing and Resource Management: Approximately 40%

• Serve as DCOR’s lead writer and editor across reports, educational materials, key communications, and web copy, with sensitivity to the mental health and crisis-support context.
• Set and uphold a consistent editorial voice, and edit or review others’ writing for quality and tone.
• Work across teams to produce polished organizational materials, such as reports, educational resources, presentations, one-pagers, and other collateral.
• Produce campaign, stewardship, and promotional materials in support of the Director’s fundraising and partnership work.
• Support media and public-relations materials (e.g., talking points, backgrounders, releases) as required.
• Manage DCOR’s materials inventory and ensure the ordering and delivery of printed materials and supplies to partners.

Website and Digital Presence Management: Approximately 25%

• Own DCOR’s website content, structure, and layout, keeping it accurate, accessible, bilingual, current, and easy to use.
• Oversee external technical/web consultants for coding and development, translating DCOR’s needs into clear requirements.
• Provide direction and quality oversight to the Coordinator’s social media and email execution, ensuring alignment with DCOR’s messaging.
• Monitor DCOR's general inboxes and other online accounts and portals, and triage or respond to public queries according to DCOR protocols.

Branding and Marketing: Approximately 20%

• Own DCOR’s visual identity and brand standards and guidelines.
• Ensure all internal and external materials present a consistent, professional, mission-aligned identity, and support staff in applying brand standards.
• Work with consultants to oversee design work using tools such as Canva (or similar).
• Represent DCOR in relevant spaces such as community working groups or partner coordination meetings focused on communications.
• Ensure French-language content is accurate, managing translation resources as needed.

Team Leadership: Approximately 15%

• Hold performance management for all direct reports, including supervision, coaching, annual reviews, and any disciplinary process.
• Where required, attend events to gauge the impact and resonance of DCOR’s messaging with different audiences.

Other duties as assigned

Qualifications

Required

• 5-8 years in a communications or marketing role, including 1-3 years of experience supervising or leading projects and/or people
• Post-secondary education in communications, public relations, media, marketing or a related field
• Demonstrated exceptional writing and editing skills (writing samples will be required) across a range of formats including formal and informal contexts.
• Demonstrated experience producing clean, on-brand design using accessible tools such as Canva (or similar).
• Experience owning website content in a content-management system (e.g., WordPress), and comfort briefing and managing external web/technical consultants.
• Demonstrated project management skills, including managing consultants, timelines, and budgets.

Preferred

• Experience in the nonprofit, healthcare, or mental health sector.
• Familiarity with safe messaging guidelines for suicide and mental health.
• Experience supervising or coaching staff and/or volunteers.
• Experience producing educational resources or information materials.
• Bilingualism (English/French) in writing and reading.

Please note:

• This role involves occasional evening, weekend, and holiday work connected with events, and travel in the Ottawa region.
• We require a portfolio of relevant work alongside your application.
• Given the nature of DCOR’s work, the successful candidate may be required to complete a Police Reference Check. Further details will be provided during the interview process.

Compensation

• Salary: $75,000 - $80,000 annually
• Benefits including medical and dental coverage after 3 months.
• Group RRSP matching program after 3 months.
• Competitive annual leave program, including 15 days of vacation, 7 days of planned personal leave and 15 days of sick leave.
• Hybrid work environment with work taking place from the candidate’s home office as well as from our central Ottawa office.
• Free onsite parking.

This posting is for an existing vacancy. DCOR does not use AI to screen, assess, or select applicants for the position. Only those applicants chosen for an interview will be contacted.

DCOR is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the places where we work. We encourage applications from people with lived and living experience of mental health challenges; Indigenous peoples; racialized communities; persons with disabilities; members of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities; and others who have been underrepresented in the nonprofit and mental health sectors. Self-identification is entirely voluntary and all information will be kept confidential.

If you require accommodation(s) at any stage of the recruitment process, please contact us in confidence by emailing us at jferne AT dcottawa.on.ca. All requests for reasonable accommodation will be considered fairly and objectively, ensuring applicants are treated with respect and dignity.