Job Description:
About the Role
We are looking for a Senior Program Manager for Communications. This role is responsible for all of CEGIS content produced for governments, donors, potential employees, current employees, partners and alumni. The role is responsible for both content refinement (with the core content and messages coming from the solutions teams ) and deployment using owned and earned media channels. Currently reporting to the Head of External Engagements , the role is part of the larger Central Leadership team which looks to shape the brands positioning and provide the crucial fuel to the state delivery teams, solutions teams as well as donor management and fundraising teams. The role serves as a strategic partner to People and Culture and the Senior Leadership Team including the CEO.
Key Responsibilities
Owning the narrative and key messaging strategy
- Develop strategic narratives that communicate our value proposition clearly to governments (at multiple levels) , donors, partners, and other key external/ internal audiences.
- Create relatable messaging that links to CEGIS goals and drives necessary action from key audience groups - government, donors (international and domestic) , partners , current and potential employees
- Building and maintaining communications centric relationships with key advocates - donors, partners, board members and others who can serve as powerful voices for CEGIS and its narrative and goals
Management of earned and owned media
- Lead a team that manages current social media channels (Linkedin, Instagram, X ) and website
- Work with the solutions, states and other internal teams to finetune and develop all content - text, visual and video based in a cohesive and cost effective manner, with adherence to brand guidelines and which further the org goals.
- Owner of the annual report and all other standard and existing publications including newsletters targeted at specific audiences (Existing employees, alumni and the the overall ecosystem)
Using communications as a key driver to build the governance ecosystem
- Drive existing properties like Governance Dialogues- the ecosystem building webinars around key themes that CEGIS works on in accordance with the organisation strategy. Understand topical contexts and relevance , identify communications opportunities and work with the solutions and state teams to deliver basis these opportunities.
- Showcase stories of excellent work done by the bureaucracy and the governance machinery in driving systematic impact ( CEGIS womens day videos, CEGIS in conversation with Dr Saurabh Garg, Secretary, MOSPI)
Partner -Centric Engagement
- Leverage CEGIS network of partners to explore joint communications - from publishing to events to social media campaigns
- Drive cohesive communications based partnerships with other TCF (Convergence Foundation ) organisations that amplify the message of state capacity enhancement
- Own editorial relationships with mainline and specialist publications as well as key institutions and organisations for ecosystem events and convenings
Design process excellence and visual storytelling
- Select,maintain and continually evaluate the work of external vendors and agencies to deliver content for CEGIS
- Supervise (along with the team), deliver QC and look at better visual ways of telling our story
- Evolve and adapt brand guidelines basis ecosystem trends , ensure broadbased adoption of these guidelines across all touchpoints
Team development
- Recruit , train and manage a team of communications resources basis evolving requirements
- Allocate projects, evaluate and manage career development for the team
Key Working Relationships
Internal
- Chief Executive Officer (CEO): Collaborate closely for strategic direction, key decision-making, and alignment of communications priorities with the organizations overall mission and vision.
- Co-founder and Scientific Director: Partner to ensure that the organizations communication outputs reflect research accuracy, integrity, and scientific rigor.
- Senior Management Team: Work in coordination with the Chief of Solutions, Head of State Engagements, and other senior leaders to develop and disseminate impactful narratives around institutional initiatives and outcomes.
- State and Vertical Leads: Liaise regularly to capture on-ground insights, success stories, and implementation progress for amplification across platforms.
- Knowledge Creation and Management (KCM) Team: Collaborate to translate technical and analytical outputs into accessible knowledge products for diverse audiences.
- Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Team: Engage to communicate evidence-based outcomes and demonstrate the organizations impact through data-driven storytelling.
External
- TCF Communications Teams (and partner organizations): Coordinate messaging, branding, and outreach to ensure alignment and coherence across all communication channels.
- Vendors and Agencies: Manage relationships with creative, media, and PR partners for the design, production, and dissemination of high-quality communication materials.
- Key Publications and Media Outlets: Build and sustain relationships with sectoral and mainstream media to drive visibility and coverage of CEGISs work.
- Sectoral and Policy Organisations: Engage with organizations and platforms that influence public discourse and policy to enhance CEGISs salience and thought leadership.
- Partners and Collaborators: Work with institutional partners, funders, and other stakeholders to ensure consistent representation of CEGISs vision, impact, and strategic priorities.
What We're Looking For
- At least 10 years of experience in the social impact space in a comms / partnerships role out of which at least 4 years in a think tank / org working with the government
- Must have handled some degree of donor comms and communications related partnerships
- Being a designer is an advantage but not a mandate, however an eye for design and ability to deliver top quality content is a must
- Proven ability to work on narrative development and contextualised story telling , recognising the importance of carefully curated and tailored stories.
- Dynamic self starter who can juggle multiple responsibilities and often shifting priorities.
- Excellent communicator and team player
- Preferred Location : Delhi
About CEGIS
Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS pronounced See-Jis) aims to
improve lives by helping Indian state governments deliver better development outcomes.
The four key characteristics of any high-performing organisation are (a) measuring outcomes through reliable, high quality data that enables goal setting and monitoring progress towards these goals; (b) strategic use of personnel competency based hiring and training, skilling, and performance appraisals to determine job assignments, pay, and promotions to achieve the goals above; (c) strategic budgeting where resource allocation is based on evidence and cost-effectiveness; (d) and creating efficient systems to leverage external actors (including for-profit and nonprofit organisations). The Indian State needs to perform better on all four fronts above, by enhancing its capacity. CEGIS partners with states to improve this capacity by focusing on these four pillars of the State.
Informed by cutting-edge research and evidence as well as a practical orientation toward implementable ideas, CEGIS works with State Governments in India to enable a transformative improvement in their functioning. This vision and Theory of Change (ToC) is an outcome of extensive research done by Prof. Karthik Muralidharan (CEGIS Co-Founder and Scientific Director) and strategic philanthropic support provided by Mr. Ashish Dhawan (CEGIS Co-Founder).
Prof. Karthik Muralidharan is the Tata Chancellors Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego. Over the past two decades, he has led extensive research projects in India across education, health, and social welfare. His book, Accelerating Indias Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance, systematically analyses Indias governance challenges and provides actionable, evidence-based strategies, emphasising state-level reforms as critical for Indias advancement.
Ashish Dhawan is a leading Indian philanthropist and the Founder-CEO of The Convergence Foundation (TCF). He is also the Founding Chairperson of Ashoka University and the Central Square Foundation, and is a governing board member of the Gates Foundation. Before his second career as a philanthropist, Ashish was among Indias most successful private equity investors.
CEGIS Approach and Model of Functioning
Our solutions to enhance governance are co-created with state governments in a state-led way, where we focus on deep partnerships with states with an iterative cycle of think-demonstrate-document-transfer. We work closely with the top bureaucratic leadership, front-line workers and public officials in Finance, Planning, Human Resources and a few other priority line departments.
In alignment with our four principles or pillars of change - outcome measurement, personnel management, strategic public finance, states and markets, CEGIS is currently working with the governments of Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, NCT of Delhi, Assam, and a few Government of India entities like the NITI Aayog and Capacity Building Commission (CBC) across a range of projects and sectors. Through CEGIS flagship offering, the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) Survey, we are helping enable state governments we are working with to collect better quality citizen level data, make informed, evidence-based decisions, and institutionalise this process of securing periodic citizen-level feedback. We are setting up a Financial Analytics Unit (FAU) to enhance analytical capacity and increase the effectiveness of budgetary allocations of the Finance Department in another state. In alignment with our personnel management workstream, we are also working with the HR/Administrative Reforms & Training Department to set up and institutionalise an in-house Capacity Building Unit (CBU) that aids the adoption of competency-based Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Performance Management Systems (PMS) with a few of these entities. Similarly, to improve the value of public money, we are working at the interface of states and markets which encompasses procurement, regulation, and policy formulation. Our solutions are constantly being refined based on real-time feedback and are designed to be customised and replicated across contexts.
CEGIS@5: A Journey of Learning & Building Capacity
Since its incorporation in 2019, despite the enormous challenges posed by COVID, CEGIS has gained significant momentum in building strong collaborations with the government(s) as a trusted partner who can provide both thought leadership and implementation support on key governance reforms. CEGIS position as a non-profit that does not take any funding from the government (other than in-kind contributions of office space/staff) has been a key enabler in earning this trust.
Beginning with 2 state government engagements in the first 2 years of its inception, today CEGIS is working across several Indian states with 15+ projects across several sectors, including education, nutrition and local governance. From a small group of founding members, we have grown by leaps and bounds to become a team of 150+ members located across the country. Helmed by a former bureaucrat with invaluable governance experience, state and solution team leads with decades of domain expertise, and enabling functions led by professionals with considerable corporate careers, the team at CEGIS brings together knowledge and experience that spans various sectors - from developmental economics, research, and governance to management consulting and social entrepreneurship.
Over the last 5 years, we have also been able to garner support for our vision and theory of change from a diverse range of foundations and philanthropists whose partnership has enabled us to build our own organisational capacity as well as continue to experiment and improve our solution design to augment state capacity and governance. We believe that this approach will gradually enable all government officials to achieve their goals more effectively, thereby improving the ability of the State to deliver services to all Indian citizens in the decades to come.
To explore what the mission of CEGIS is and the impact we hope to have, please take a look at this video of our CEO, Dr Vijay Pingale.
Funding Partners: