Food for Education (F4E) is at the forefront of transforming the nutritional and educational landscape for public primary school children across Kenya. As a women-led, African-driven social enterprise, our mission is to deliver high-quality, low-cost meals that uplift communities by improving child nutrition and learning outcomes. Since our inception in 2012, we have served over 100 million meals, and we are steadily advancing towards our goal of reaching at least 1 million students daily by 2027.
Our model is rooted in innovation, sustainability, and efficiency. We are driven by technology-enabled logistics and streamlined supply chains that ensure cost-effective meal delivery. But at the heart of our success is strong, meaningful engagement with the communities we serve. That’s where you come in.
We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Community Manager to play a pivotal role in strengthening our grassroots presence, cultivating stakeholder trust, and ensuring program alignment with community priorities. This is a senior field-facing role that demands strategic foresight, people skills, and operational grit.
If you are passionate about building trusted relationships and navigating complex community dynamics to support impactful education and nutrition programs, then this role is for you.
Position Overview: Community Manager
The Community Manager will lead and oversee Food for Education’s community engagement and stakeholder support efforts across multiple layers of society. From parents and teachers to school heads, Board of Management members, local farmers, and grassroots administrators, the Community Manager ensures that F4E’s initiatives are well-received, understood, and sustained.
This role combines strategic engagement planning with hands-on fieldwork and cross-functional collaboration. It requires a professional who can navigate sensitive social, political, and security environments while keeping the needs of children and communities at the forefront.
Detailed Job Description
A. Strategic Community Engagement
As the Community Manager, you will be the chief architect and executor of F4E’s community engagement strategy. Your goal is to create and nurture strong bonds between F4E and the community stakeholders we serve and work with.
Key Responsibilities:
- Design and implement a community engagement strategy that aligns with F4E’s growth and operational expansion, particularly at the school, village, and county levels.
- Build and maintain trusted relationships with key grassroots stakeholders including school headteachers, teachers, parents, Boards of Management (BOMs), religious and community leaders, and farmers contributing to our supply chains.
- Coordinate and roll out targeted community mobilization forums, such as barazas and local sensitization campaigns, that help build awareness and garner support for F4E’s programs.
- Serve as the organization’s community pulse-checker—monitor local sentiment, identify potential friction points or resistance, and proactively mitigate or resolve issues before they escalate.
- Lead local storytelling initiatives to spotlight community impact, align program messaging, and humanize the work of F4E.
B. Grassroots & Security Liaison
Community engagement in Kenya often requires close coordination with local government structures and security agencies. You will serve as F4E’s primary liaison with grassroots authorities, ensuring smooth relations and secure program implementation.
Key Responsibilities:
- Engage and collaborate with local administrators including chiefs, sub-chiefs, and ward-level government officials, particularly during key phases such as program launches, expansions, or public forums.
- Liaise with law enforcement personnel and community policing actors to ensure F4E programs proceed without security disruptions, especially during politically sensitive periods or community unrest.
- Represent F4E in official government and grassroots forums such as barazas, ward meetings, and sub-county planning sessions.
- Collaborate with the Public Affairs Director to feed security-related insights into F4E’s broader risk management framework, helping anticipate and address emerging threats or tensions.
C. Cross-Functional Coordination
To ensure successful program rollouts and continuity, you will collaborate closely with multiple internal departments, particularly those whose work touches the field.
Key Responsibilities:
- Work with the Government Relations, Expansion, Technical Operations, and Communications teams to ensure alignment on community-facing strategies, messages, and operational plans.
- Support adoption of F4E’s Tap2Eat initiative—a smart subsidy payment and registration system—by helping communities understand and accept the program.
- Provide on-the-ground support during Tap2Eat registration drives and address community concerns or misconceptions around digital engagement.
- Represent the Public Affairs team during community events including school kitchen launches, parent sensitization meetings, and county exhibitions.
D. Team Leadership
As a leader within the Public Affairs department, you will manage and mentor a dispersed team of Community Associates who are deployed nationally. Your leadership will be critical to fostering a high-performance culture that delivers results while respecting local contexts.
Key Responsibilities:
- Provide hands-on mentorship, supervision, and performance guidance to Community Associates spread across different counties.
- Develop training materials and conduct capacity-building sessions focused on stakeholder mapping, conflict resolution, diplomacy, and field reporting.
- Encourage regular learning loops and knowledge sharing to help the team continuously adapt to evolving field dynamics.
- Promote a culture of accountability, integrity, and respect in all community interactions.
- Ensure your team internalizes F4E’s historical and strategic approach to community relations, with special attention to lessons learned from the Government Relations unit.
E. Data, Insights & Reporting
Community engagement must be backed by data and insight to ensure strategies are grounded, effective, and responsive to real-world conditions. You will drive reporting and knowledge management efforts related to community engagement.
Key Responsibilities:
- Use Salesforce or equivalent systems to track all community outreach, engagement events, feedback, and outcomes.
- Collect qualitative and quantitative data to support analysis of community sentiment, adoption rates, and potential friction points.
- Prepare timely briefs, reports, and dashboards for the Director of Public Affairs and senior leadership to inform national-level strategies.
- Ensure insights gathered from community engagements are incorporated into decision-making processes across departments and used to refine F4E’s stakeholder engagement approach.
Minimum Requirements
- Minimum of 5 years of proven experience in community development, grassroots mobilization, public affairs, or education-related stakeholder engagement.
- Strong interpersonal, diplomatic, and listening skills that allow you to navigate diverse and sometimes conflicting stakeholder needs.
- Deep familiarity with Kenya’s local administrative, educational, and political systems, particularly at the village, sub-county, and county levels.
- Demonstrated ability to build and maintain trust across different social strata including government officials, parents, school heads, and farmers.
- Track record of managing or leading field teams in community-centered projects.
- Bilingual fluency in English and Kiswahili is mandatory; fluency in additional local languages is a strong advantage.
- Must be a strategic thinker who is also comfortable with hands-on field execution.
- Must possess strong emotional intelligence, credibility, and a deep respect for diverse community settings.
- Experience coordinating with law enforcement or local security stakeholders is a plus.
- Familiarity with digital data platforms such as Salesforce or Power BI will be beneficial.
Our Commitment to Equity and Inclusion
Food for Education is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment where all qualified applicants receive equal consideration, regardless of gender identity or expression, age, marital status, physical or mental ability, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other protected status.
Career Growth and Professional Development
At Food for Education, we believe that our people are our greatest asset. That’s why we invest in continuous professional growth and leadership development. As a Community Manager, you will benefit from:
- Weekly one-on-one check-ins with your line manager to guide your performance and development.
- Biannual career review sessions where we reflect on your aspirations and shape your career growth plan.
- Opportunities to shape the direction and ethos of one of Africa’s most impactful social enterprises.
- A learning-driven culture that emphasizes transparency, collaboration, and feedback.
This is not just a job—it is a unique opportunity to build a long-term, mission-driven career in an organization that is changing lives every single day.
Application Process
The deadline for applications is 15th August 2025. We aim to contact all applicants, but due to the high volume of applications we typically receive, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. If you do not hear from us within two weeks of the application deadline, please consider your application unsuccessful on this occasion. However, we encourage you to keep an eye on our job board for future openings that may align with your skills and experience.
Please send your application to the email address provided in the job listing.
