Entrepreneurship in the territories: is it the right time?
World Central Kitchen is seeking an emotionally intelligent, tenacious, and innovative Community Outreach Manager to lead frontline operations, rapidly build and manage dynamic field teams, and ensure food aid swiftly reaches disaster-affected communities — all in alignment with WCK's North Star values.
The ideal candidate is a resourceful, compassionate leader, facilitator, and collaborative team player who thrives in fast-paced, unpredictable environments. You should excel at building trust with communities in crisis, leading teams under pressure, and adapting to complex, evolving situations. Your role includes:
- Rapid Community Assessment: Be first on the ground to quickly understand the local context, identify urgent food needs, and establish connections within affected communities
- Rapid Team Building and Management: Recruit, train, and lead dynamic, locally driven community outreach teams to deliver efficient, effective food aid in fast-changing environments
- Culturally Competent Outreach & Relationship Building: Lead with empathy and cultural awareness, fostering strong relationships across diverse communities to ensure food aid is aligned with cultural practices, community needs, and delivered with dignity
- Problem Solving in Crisis: Navigate post-disaster environments, creatively overcome obstacles and work with other response units to expediently support communities with food aid— always guided by WCK's North Star values
- Bi/Multilingual Communication: Lead inclusive communication, coordination, and culturally aligned community engagement across diverse populations
Duration: The Community Outreach Manager is a two (2) year contract term position with the opportunity for renewal, offering a unique chance to lead and help shape WCK's responses.
This position reports directly to the Response Director during activations, and the Senior Manager while off activation.
Preferred Location(s): Asia - Must live within one (1) hour of an international airport.
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Seoul, South Korea
- Singapore, Singapore
- Tokyo, Japan
Key Responsibilities:
Personnel Management and Training
- Recruit, train, and motivate diverse community outreach teams on activation, ensuring a high-performance culture aligned with WCK's mission and values.
- Provide leadership, mentorship, training and support to team members, promoting a culture of urgency, accountability, adaptability and continuous learning within the team
- Address personnel issues on activations in real time, and provide regular performance feedback on Corps members.
- Support the recruitment of Corps members, and manage personnel effectively on the ground to foster growth and ensure a diverse pipeline of activation leadership
- Identify professional development needs and gaps in team capabilities to arrange for appropriate training, and provide this feedback to relevant stakeholders for implementation.
Activation Management
- Respond within four (4) hours notice to a disaster area to act as Community Outreach Manager, managing relief operations on the ground, or in rare cases, remotely
- Lead and manage field teams specializing in community outreach and engagement. Ensure strategic and streamlined implementation of relief activities on the ground, operationalizing WCK's North Star values
- Design and implement response strategies in the field that are adaptable and robust enough to function in high-stress, dynamic environments affected by natural disasters or conflicts
- Recruit, onboard, train and manage community outreach teams, including local hires and Corps members in the field.
- Consult on the scope of the response, and manage or implement community outreach operations
- Provide regular updates on community outreach operations to the Response Director to ensure ongoing, transparent information sharing across the organization.
- Collaborate with all WCK departments on the ground, or remotely to support the needs of the activation.
- Ensure smooth transitions and complete handovers with other Activation Managers, and between Response Corps team members when rotating field teams through phases of the activation
- Complete the After-Action Report process immediately following activation wind-down, collating and drawing learnings for process improvement
Community Outreach
- Rapidly scout community needs in a disaster area to design the scope of the response, and ensure that food reaches beneficiaries as quickly and effectively as possible.
- Foster a collaborative environment with local populations; establish and nurture relationships with community members throughout the activation.
- Gather feedback from beneficiaries to understand evolving needs and changes on the ground. Utilize findings to recommend the scope of WCK support, including potential scale up or wind down strategies.
- Build and maintain relationships with community members to understand overall food needs, feedback on WCK performance, and other concurrent mass-feeding activities
Budgeting and Logistics
- Work with the finance team and Response Director to share cost projections for community outreach operations, focusing on meal production and logistical needs
- Collaborate with the procurement and logistics team to source materials and supplies efficiently and ensure timely delivery to affected areas
Community and Stakeholder Engagement
- Build strong relationships with local communities first.
- Ensure the teams conduct outreach and engagement activities that contribute to WCK's reputation as an effective, compassionate, and reliable relief organization
- Represent WCK in the field, acting as an ambassador to beneficiaries, partners, and the media, as required.
