Corporate affairs officer jobs in Belfast
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This role will join an ambitious programme developing the capacity of the Libraries Connected public library networks. We want to help them evolve as strategic partnerships able to deliver social impacts at scale and to secure resources and investment from national, regional and sub-regional government. Be key to the development of libraries as essential social infrastructure, and help them secure the resources they need to make an impact.
The role is part of a small team of two Regional Managers, supported by an Administrator.
By developing our existing regional networks into formal, resourced structures we can enable the regions to:
- Secure investment for the service and for the libraries from regional and devolved / combined authority funds.
- Create unique regional offers to meet specific needs across and within the regional areas.
- Deliver at scale. For example, the Yorkshire & Humber regional network has 15 library services, and 348 library buildings.
- Create opportunities for cost saving – through joint procurement and shared / collaborative services.
- Share good practice and experience on a formal and integrated basis.
We have 9 regional networks in England, covering all library services and ranging in size from 9 to 33 services. Within each region they provide hundreds of library branches, thousands of staff, and serve millions of service users. They have a long tradition of working together as peer support networks and to deliver activities such as festivals, marketing, and staff training.
Please see the attached job description for a full description of the role, including person specification.
Frequent travel within the UK may be required for the role.
About Libraries Connected
We are an independent charity that supports, promotes and represents public libraries. Our work is driven and led by our membership, which includes almost every library service in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Crown Dependencies (Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man).
Across the areas we serve there are 176 individual library services with around 3,000 library branches serving over 61 million people.
Our unique approach is to bring these services together to share experience, expertise and evidence – driving innovation and impact across the public library sector.
While senior library leaders sit on our board and committees, we work with library staff at all levels.
As well as providing practical support, training and advice to libraries, we represent them to government and raise their profile in the media. We also develop and lead national library projects with cultural, academic and corporate partners.
We work to a strategic plan that runs until 2027, organised around four themes: drive, grow, connect and engage.
We generate income from membership subscriptions, commissioned services, events and grants. As an Arts Council Investment Principle Support Organisation, part of our core funding in England comes from the Arts Council to help embed their Investment Principles across the library network.
Our values
- We are supportive. We respond to the varied, emerging needs of our members and their communities to enable libraries to learn from each other, and other sector leaders, so that they can safeguard and improve their services.
- We are inclusive. We work with our members and partners to design and deliver our work and to determine our strategic priorities because we are committed to representing the diverse communities and libraries which we serve.
- We are open. We are in constant communication with our members and partners on all levels to learn from their experiences, reflect on our practice and develop our services. We welcome challenge and new directions for our work.
- We are ambitious. We believe that libraries are an essential part of the solution to a range of society’s needs. We promote innovation and collaboration to ensure that libraries are recognised locally and nationally.
Working at Libraries Connected
We are a friendly, collaborative team of around 20 staff based all around England and Wales.
We value diversity and are committed to promoting an inclusive working environment. We strongly believe that inclusive and diverse organisations are not only better places to work, they are more innovative, make better decisions and are more successful. We value people who bring unique perspectives and knowledge to our team.
We want to make our recruitment process as fair as possible. To reduce bias, we shortlist candidates based on their responses to up to six application questions. These are designed to tell us about your values, experience, attitudes to work, and transferable skills. We do not ask for a separate cover letter or supporting statement.
We offer flexible working as standard, helping work fit around family and caring responsibilities. Many of our staff work their hours in different ways, including flexi time and compressed hours. We are open to discussing what would work for you and be possible for the role.
All roles are remote and are open to applicants who live anywhere in the UK. We provide staff with a home office set-up including laptop, monitor and phone. There is the option to work from our central London office or use a co-working space if it is not possible to work from home.
We welcome requests for adjustments to our standard recruitment processes for anyone who needs them.
Our vision is an inclusive, modern, sustainable and high-quality public library service at the heart of every community in the UK.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Title: Head of Campaigns
Salary: £60,000
Contract: Temporary
Hours: 37.5 per week (Monday to Friday)
Holiday: 25 days per year plus bank holidays
Location: Home based with regular across the UK
Probationary Period: 3 months
Reports to: Chief Executive
Benefits: An additional 3 days holiday between Christmas and New Year
Flexitime policy
5% pension contribution
Anticipated contract duration: 9th November 2026 - February 2028
We are River Action
We are a small and agile campaigning organisation on a mission to rescue the UK’s rivers from a toxic cocktail of agricultural, sewage and industrial pollution and water shortages. We support community action, galvanise and mobilise public opinion, influence government policy, take legal actions and call out destructive industrial practices to incentivise changes that end river pollution and secure freshwater.
We are a talented team of positive disrupters and stakeholder mobilisers delivering our strategy to urgently protect and restore our rivers for the benefit of communities, rivers and wildlife.
Our rivers are our life support system and they are dying. We need urgent action to bring them back to life.
Who we are looking for
We're looking for an exceptional campaigner to lead an ambitious environmental campaigning programme for just over a year to cover maternity leave. This is an exciting opportunity for an inspiring leader who can develop bold, strategic campaigns that shift public debate, influence decision-makers and deliver tangible environmental outcomes.
You'll be an experienced campaign strategist who understands that lasting change rarely comes from a single tactic. You'll know how to bring together compelling communications, evidence and investigations, grassroots mobilisation, political engagement, legal interventions and partnerships into integrated campaigns capable of changing policy, behaviour and corporate practice.
We're looking for someone who combines strategic vision with practical delivery. Someone who is comfortable making decisions in a fast-moving environment, spotting opportunities as they emerge and adapting campaigns to maximise impact.
Experience in environmental campaigning would be highly valuable, but above all we're looking for someone with an outstanding track record of leading successful campaigns that have shifted opinion, influenced policy or held powerful institutions to account.
We’re looking for someone who brings energy, creativity and courageous leadership. Someone who is excited by building campaigns that challenge the status quo, comfortable navigating complexity and able to combine bold thinking with sound judgement. You'll know when to disrupt, when to collaborate and how to inspire others to believe that together we can restore the UK’s rivers.
If you're motivated by creating change, thrive in a dynamic environment and want to lead campaigns that make a genuine difference to one of the UK's greatest environmental challenges, we'd love to hear from you.
What you’ll be doing:
As Head of Campaigns, you will be developing and delivering bold, integrated campaigns that drive lasting change for the UK's rivers. You'll lead and inspire a talented team of campaigners, helping them to develop innovative, impactful campaigns while fostering a collaborative, ambitious and supportive culture. You'll work closely with colleagues across communications, policy, legal, fundraising and research, ensuring our work is strategically aligned and greater than the sum of its parts.
Leading River Action's Campaigns Team, you will shape the organisation's campaigning strategy, ensuring our work is innovative, evidence-led and designed to influence public opinion, hold polluters to account and secure meaningful political and systemic change. You'll create campaigns that connect compelling storytelling with community mobilisation, strategic communications, political advocacy, legal action and partnerships, ensuring every part of our work contributes towards our mission to rescue the UK’s rivers.
You'll provide strategic leadership across the full campaign lifecycle, overseeing campaign planning, delivery, budgeting, resourcing and evaluation. You'll ensure our campaigns are informed by robust evidence, guided by clear objectives and measured against meaningful outcomes, using insight and learning to continually strengthen our impact.
You will lead River Action's communications and public profile, ensuring our campaigns cut through the national conversation, inspire public action and strengthen our reputation as one of the UK's leading environmental campaigning organisations. You’ll oversee media, messaging and campaign communications that amplify our voice and build public support for change.
Internally, you'll work in close partnership with the Head of Public Affairs to ensure our public campaigns reinforce and accelerate our political influencing work, while ensuring community campaigns and grassroots action inform our national priorities. You'll also work alongside the Head of Legal to develop campaigns involving strategic litigation to achieve change within and outside of court and legal processes, using legal action as a catalyst for wider public awareness, policy change and industry accountability.
As a member of River Action's Senior Management Team, you'll help shape the strategic direction of the organisation and contribute to organisational leadership beyond your own department. You'll work alongside the CEO and fellow Heads of Department to deliver our organisational strategy, embedding collaboration, innovation and impact across all areas of our work.
You'll also play a key role in securing the resources needed to deliver our ambitions. Working with the Head of Development, you'll help develop compelling funding proposals, inspire funders with our vision and demonstrate the impact of our work through robust monitoring, evaluation and reporting. Working with the Finance and Operations Manager, you'll oversee campaign budgets, ensuring resources are managed effectively and strategically.
Main Duties
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Provide strategic leadership as a member of the Senior Management Team, supporting the CEO to deliver River Action's organisational strategy, theory of change and long-term vision.
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Lead the development and delivery of River Action's integrated campaigning strategy, ensuring our public campaigns drive measurable environmental, political and societal change.
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Develop and oversee a portfolio of ambitious national campaigns, identifying opportunities to influence public opinion, policy, regulation and industry practice through innovative and impactful campaigning.
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Lead River Action's communications, media and public engagement strategy, ensuring compelling storytelling, strong brand visibility and effective use of traditional, digital and social media to grow our influence and supporter base.
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Lead the planning and delivery of River Action’s creative interventions and actions, from polling, petitions and shareholder actions to public protests and high-profile actions.
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Serve as a senior public representative and spokesperson for River Action, building the organisation's profile and influence through media engagement, public speaking, stakeholder engagement and high-profile external events.
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Oversee River Action's digital campaigning platforms, including the strategic development of our website and digital engagement tools.
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Work closely with the Head of Public Affairs to ensure campaigns and political advocacy are fully integrated, maximising opportunities to influence government, regulators and decision-makers.
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Work closely with the Head of Public Affairs to ensure grassroots action informs national campaigns, and national campaigns empower and amplify community action.
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Work with the Head of Legal to identify, develop and deliver strategic legal interventions that strengthen campaigns, increase accountability and drive systemic change beyond the courtroom.
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Build and maintain influential relationships with campaign partners, coalitions, NGOs, academics, community organisations, funders and other key stakeholders to maximise collective impact.
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Lead campaign planning, governance and delivery, ensuring campaigns are effectively resourced, managed and evaluated against agreed objectives, budgets and monitoring, evaluation and reporting (MER) frameworks.
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Lead, inspire and develop the Campaigns Team, fostering a collaborative, creative and high-performing culture that enables colleagues to thrive and deliver exceptional work.
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Work with the CEO, Head of Development and senior colleagues to secure funding for campaign activities, contributing to funding proposals, donor engagement and impact reporting.
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Work with the Finance and Operations Manager to develop, monitor and manage campaign budgets, ensuring resources are used effectively and strategically.
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Support organisational reporting by contributing to Board papers, quarterly and annual reports, organisational planning and performance monitoring.
Other Duties & Responsibilities
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Adopt a positive approach to personal and professional development; engaging in one to one meetings and relevant training.
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Be aware of, and act on, relevant health and safety responsibilities as an employee of River Action and adhere to these wherever you are working.
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To maintain confidentiality in all areas of work at River Action.
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UK travel will be required. Training & operational activities may require overnight stays away from home, in which case standard River Action procedures apply.
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Demonstrate a strong commitment to creating an inclusive, equal and diverse workplace and a positive organisational culture.
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Work collaboratively with colleagues across River Action to collectively deliver our ethos and mission.
What you’ll bring
The position will suit a strategic, well organised, energetic, passionate and dedicated person. The ideal person will be an excellent leader, a people person, and thrive within a dynamic and fast-paced environment. The person will have a passion to protect and restore our waterways and hold those responsible for environmental destruction to account.
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Ability to think strategically to deliver campaigns that are positively disruptive and meet River Action values.
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Line management experience of highly experienced professionals, bringing out the best in your team.
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Creative attitude and skills for solving problems and raising awareness of problems and solutions.
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A head for organisation and excellent time management, bringing others along with you in planning and delivering interventions and projects at short notice and under pressure.
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Experience in public and/or political campaigning either within or outside the environmental sector.
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Experience and contacts in communications and PR.
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An understanding of the issues that are impacting our rivers, and their solutions.
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The ability to establish and maintain effective contacts and relationships with senior and influential external individuals and bodies.
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The ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with a wide range of people both verbally and in writing including the media, community groups, other NGO representatives, government, industry leaders, supporters and followers on social media.
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Exceptional IT literacy and a head for figures and budgeting.
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Ability to work independently and take initiative to solve problems.
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Ability to work flexible hours as necessary.
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A good team player with a willingness to muck in as and where required.
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Ability to think clearly even when working under pressure.
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A passion for River Action’s mission and vision.
Diversity and Inclusion
Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies show that women and people of colour are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every single criteria. We are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace. So if you like the look of this role but your past experience does not align perfectly with everything in the job description, we would still like to hear from you. You may be just the right person for this or other roles.
How to apply
To apply, please submit to jobs at riveractionuk dot com with the subject ‘Head of Campaigns’’:
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your CV (2 pages max),
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a cover letter (2 pages max) explaining why you want to work for River Action and how your skills and experience meet the requirements of the role, and
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a written submission (2 pages) as described below.
Only applications including all three documents will be accepted. Please provide your documents in pdf format.
Written submission
River Action is looking to develop a campaign around water security in the UK to launch in 2027. Please put together a campaign brief setting out the challenges faced, how we would develop and deliver this campaign including campaign asks; campaign outcomes; public, political and legal tactics; routes for funding and resource requirements.
Your campaign brief should be no longer than 2 sides of A4.
Application process
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until 23:59 on 19th July.
Should your application be shortlisted, the next stage will involve an initial 30 minute interview on 28th July via video conference. You may then be invited to attend a second interview with a panel on 3rd August.
Please indicate in your covering letter or in a covering email your availability for interviews on these dates.
If you have any questions about the role or your application, please contact us on jobs at riveractionuk dot com.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.


