Communications Coordinator

About Happy Cities

Happy Cities is an urban planning, design, and engagement consulting firm. We are proud to be a certified B Corp and Living Wage employer. Our journey began with a question: if we understand the effect that urban design has on people’s feelings and behaviour, can we make cities happier? This question drove more than a decade of research, culminating in our co-founder Charles Montgomery’s bestselling book, Happy City:
Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design. Happy Cities grew into a planning, design, and research firm that works with clients around the world to create happier, healthier, more inclusive communities. Community engagement is a core component of our work, and we strive to reach and hear from diverse voices in each of the communities we serve. Our engagement approaches offer fun, educational, inclusive, and meaningful ways for people to give input in city planning processes.

We believe that engagement should provide value for participants and not just extract information from them. Equitable engagement requires continual effort to reach people of all backgrounds.

This role will support our business development and communications efforts to create happier, healthier, more inclusive communities. We are looking for someone with strong writing, editing, and organization skills—with a sharp eye for detail, clarity, and storytelling. You will apply these skills to produce multimedia content for our website and social media platforms, and to coordinate our proposal submission process. There may also be opportunities to support our planning project work, including strengthening key messages for public engagement, producing communications materials to reach a wide variety of audiences, and copy editing reports.

• Undergraduate degree plus 1‑3 years experience working in communications, marketing, or a related field.
• Strong verbal, written, and visual communication skills.
• Strong organization and time management skills, with ability to coordinate and deliver content for multiple projects with fast turnaround.
• Ability to write clearly and concisely for a variety of formats, including social media, web pages, and research and engagement reports.
• Experience copy editing (Happy Cities follows CP style).
• Experience managing and publishing website content.
• Experience delivering and producing social media campaigns.
• Graphic design skills, including proficiency InDesign and Illustrator.
• Knowledge of digital communications and marketing strategy, including for website/SEO, social media, and newsletters.
• Familiarity with urban planning principles (and an interest in learning more).
• Strong knowledge of equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti‑racism.

• Experience writing blog posts and/or articles for urbanism or media organizations.
• Experience with proposal/grant writing and RFP process, ideally related to urban planning.
• Experience writing about complex research and planning topics.
• Experience creating clear, creative, and compelling graphic reports and visual materials.
• Ability to create short‑form video content or reels for social media platforms.
• Understanding of accessible communications practices.
• Bilingual or fluent in a language other than English.

• Creating copy, graphics, and videos for various social media platforms (Instagram, Linked In, etc.) using Adobe Creative Cloud programs.
• Supporting management of the Happy Cities website, including preparing and uploading regular content via Squarespace.
• Supporting business development, including coordinating the proposal‑writing process, setting up proposal documents, and reviewing for quality control.
• Writing blog posts that translate technical insights into compelling stories.
• Copy editing reports and written materials, with support from the communications team.
• Supporting our planning teams as needed, with graphics, engagement materials, report layouts, and other communications items.
• Ensuring brand alignment across Happy Cities’ internal and public‑facing work.
• Contributing to the development and execution of a digital communications strategy, including content planning,…