Development manager jobs in Oxford, oxfordshire

Mansfield College is seeking an exceptional fundraising professional to join its high-performing Development team, at an exciting moment in the College’s history. We are looking for an outstanding individual to lead the College’s annual (or ‘regular’) giving programme, and create and deliver engaging stewardship opportunities for donors at all levels.

Mansfield’s annual giving programme is central to the College’s ongoing success and generates vital and significant income for the College every year for every aspect of life and work within our academic community. Now in the public phase of our For Mansfield. Forever. campaign, you will be joining a friendly, supportive and high-performing team that is responsible for delivering consecutive record-breaking fundraising years for the College.

The Development Manager is a senior role within the College’s Development & Alumni Relations team and has responsibility for executing an annual giving strategy that includes telephone campaigns; online giving days using compelling social media content to drive support; direct mail appeals; and encouraging membership of Mansfield’s 1886 Circle. This role is also responsible for ensuring engaging stewardship opportunities for donors to the College at all levels.

Our focus is on creating libraries of tomorrow with children and young people today.

We want all children and young people to feel at home at the library, to be understood, empowered and inspired. Our collaborative network is made up of member, partners and supporters. We believe in the need for safe spaces and real-life connections to support the demands of modern life. Together, we’re creating change, and you can be a part of it.

This is a pivotal moment of growth and development for Libraries Rising as a young charity. We’re seeking a passionate, skilled manager to join our team. We’re looking for someone to bring the energy and expertise to help us develop and grow over the next 12 months.

We’re looking for:

An experienced project manager who enjoys a flexible and iterative approach.

A proactive leader who is energised by variety, and able to work effectively across diverse topics and themes.

A values led bid writer who has experience of co-creating successful grant funding bids.

A creative thinker who enjoys a productive and responsive environment.

An enthusiastic collaborator who will build strong relationships with our team, members and partners.

We’re looking for someone who lives our values - progressive, collaborative, kind, aspirational and inclusive.

What’s important to us needs to be important to you too. We want to focus on impact, to work openly, to collaborate with and learn from others, to take the time to care for ourselves and each other, and to have fun together. We want to build an environmentally sustainable charity, and we want to be celebrated as an inclusion changemaker in the sector.

About the work

We are an Arts Council England Investment Principles Support Organisation. Our members are leaders in children and young people’s public libraries and schools library services (SLS). 

The Development and Delivery Manager (Projects) is a new role for the charity. You will work with a small and growing team, who are passionate about our mission and vision. You will also work with our members (leaders of children’s public library and School Library Service leaders) and sector partners.

We are in the final stages of creating our strategy for the future. You’ll be supporting us with organisational and sector development across all pillars, with a particular focus on our Thriving Charity goals.

Job purpose

To lead and deliver a range priority projects and funding bids for the charity.

The purpose of the role includes:

• To scope and deliver a range of projects to support both organisational and sector developments.
• To convene members and young people to participate in events and workshops, ensuring projects and developments are co-created with stakeholders.
• To compile reviews, reports and options appraisals to aid effective decision making.
• To lead the development and submission of grant and trust funding opportunities.
• To support the shaping, and delivery, of a funding plan to enable delivery of our new charity strategy.
• To ensure creative and flexible use of resources.

What you’ll bring to the role

• Strong project management skills, with experience delivering complex, multi-stakeholder work.
• Track record of delivering to achieve strategic goals and outcomes.
• Strong organisational skills, with the ability to prioritise, plan and manage risk.
• Ability to negotiate and influence.
• Experience of identifying funding opportunities and successfully bidding for grant funding.
• Able to work on own initiative and collaborate within a team.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Excellent listening skills with the ability to take diverse opinions into account.
• Digitally literate and technologically curious, with experience of Microsoft Office and project software.
• Experience managing and monitoring budgets.
• Experience of facilitating events and workshops.
• Committed to engaging and co-creating with children, young people and families.
• Understanding of the role of libraries within communities.
• Experience of managing partnerships, subcontractors or commissioned work.
• Awareness of GDPR implications and requirements.

Personal qualities

• Empathetic, able to understand a variety of viewpoints that are different to their own.
• Calm under pressure and able to manage multiple priorities while maintaining quality.
• Confident in building relationships and constructively challenging where needed.
• Thrives when working collaboratively and taking responsibility for delivery.
• Trusts others and inspires trust.
• Ambitious for our charity, the library sector and for children and young people.
• Strategic thinker who can also absorb and analyse detailed information.
• Entrepreneurial, with the ability to spot opportunities and develop them.
• Asks for feedback and is able to accept and act on it to improve their own performance.
• Understanding of inclusion and its importance within a diverse society.
• Commitment to own continued professional development.

Our application process is open to everyone and anyone with the experience we’re looking for. We have a diverse board of trustees, but we know our staff team is not as diverse as we need for the future, as we grow. We particularly welcome applications from people from racialised communities, men, trans or non-binary individuals, and those with hidden or visible disabilities.

Employee benefits include:

25 days annual leave (pro rata) plus Bank Holidays

5% employer pension contribution

Employee Assist Programme – including 24/7 counselling, health support and legal helpline.

A range of discounts on retail, entertainment, travel and wellbeing.

If you have any questions about the role, or want to chat Tabitha, Chief Executive before applying, please get in touch.

All applicants must have an existing Right to Work in the UK. Please also note that appointment will be made subject to collection of two references and a satisfactory DBS check or evidence of a current DBS certificate.

What we're building

Level Water exists to solve a problem that shouldn’t exist: too many disabled children are still missing out on high-quality swimming lessons. 

Last year, our swimmers raised over £1m. This year we’ve sold out events in minutes and want to double the fundraising. We’re on the path to exponential growth and we need someone who can help us get there.

We're Level Water, a founder-led charity solving learn-to-swim for disabled children. We're not your typical charity. We own our events and run them like a business. We move fast, test everything, and we're building something that doesn't exist anywhere else. Our events are uniquely profitable, and we reinvest in quality and growth. 

We've just brought in a new Fundraising Director, and this Marketing role is a cornerstone of the team we're building. If you want to help define how a modern charity grows and does marketing, this is your chance.

The opportunity

This isn't a "post on social and send a newsletter" role. This is a “build something exceptional, then grow it” role. Marketing is at the heart of our flywheel, which means you’ll be integral to everything we are doing at Level Water. 

You'll own marketing strategy and execution across our entire operation: our iconic events, our life-changing swimming programmes, and our reputation as a charity. You'll drive growth, tell stories that matter, and build genuine communities that scale.

You'll have the freedom to experiment. Want to test a new channel? Launch a content series? Build a creator programme? Run paid campaigns that actually convert? Brilliant. Build the business case and let's do it.

You'll work with real impact. Children with disabilities are learning to swim because of us. Families are transformed by our lessons. Volunteers and incredible teachers make it happen. These are stories that deserve to be told brilliantly, and you'll be the one telling them.

This role is 80% growth and 20% impact storytelling, but the two are inseparable. We’re product-led and we launch and test often. Great stories fuel growth. Growth creates more stories. You'll understand that tension and thrive in it.

You'll work closely with our Fundraising Director and CEO to scale marketing as our most powerful growth lever. You'll also manage a network of brilliant freelancers (photographers, videographers, copywriters, designers) to help you execute at the highest level.

And you'll grow with us. We're scaling fast, and we need people who can scale with us. 

This is a mission-critical role in driving Level Water's growth. Every event you sell out, every story you tell, every audience you build helps unlock more funded swimming lessons, bringing us closer to a future where every disabled child can have a great swimming lesson with a confident, qualified teacher.

Marketing at Level Water isn’t just about selling events - it’s a core delivery mechanism in our Theory of Change. This role exists to move the levers that unlock more lessons, faster progression, stronger outcomes, and a sustainable income engine that funds it all.

This is the most exciting marketing job in the charity sector for the right person.

What you'll actually do

This role owns marketing as a growth engine. You'll set strategy, drive execution across multiple channels, and be accountable for how marketing translates into event sign-ups, fundraising growth, profile, and impact. You'll work closely with the Fundraising Director to shape priorities, influence decisions, and build something that scales.

Drive growth marketing that converts

• Own end-to-end marketing for our events portfolio: from launch campaigns to sell-out.

• Build and execute multi-channel campaigns across social, email, paid ads, PR, partnerships, and whatever else works.

• Test everything. Audiences, messages, creative, channels. Find what works, double down, and scale it.

• Use data to spot opportunities: which channels are converting? Where are we leaving growth on the table? What could we do differently?

• Manage our digital advertising and paid social strategy with a ruthless focus on ROI.

• Grow our email database and social audiences with intent, not just for vanity metrics.

• Be trusted to repeatedly turn £1 into £5 or £10. 

• Define and unleash our audiences: help them share their stories in a way that turns experiences into future sales, and makes everything that Level Water does easier.

• Build and manage our captain and ambassador programmes as genuine growth engines - nurturing relationships, setting expectations, and turning influence into measurable impact.

• Proactively convert interest into action. This includes direct outreach (e.g. picking up the phone to captains, engaging top fundraisers, activating ambassadors) to ensure intent turns into ticket sales and fundraising.

Tell stories that build belief

• Find, shape, and share the stories that show our impact: the children, the families, the teachers, the moments that matter.

• Build and curate a library of content (video, photography, case studies, testimonials) that we can use everywhere.

• Work with freelance photographers and videographers to capture our events and programmes at their best.

• Create content that our supporters, partners, and prospects actually want to engage with, not just content that ticks a box.

• Manage our website (fundraising, events, and programmes pages) to ensure it's always up to date, compelling, and optimised for conversion.

• Ensure our impact reporting to donors is rich with content about our work.

• Use storytelling internally to build shared understanding, momentum and belief across the charity as we scale.

Build our profile and partnerships

• Position Level Water as a leader in accessible swimming and outdoor challenge events.

• Build and leverage relationships with press, influencers, local authorities, and stakeholders.

• Identify partnership and sponsorship opportunities that align with our mission and drive growth.

• Amplify examples of inclusion within our pools, making them known and also making inclusive practice visible.

• Promote our swimming pool partners and recognise their contribution to our work.

Manage, measure, and improve

• Own the marketing budget and get maximum value from every pound spent.

• Manage our freelance network: scope projects, review proposals, and ensure quality work on time and on budget.

• Report regularly on what's working and what's not: campaign performance, audience growth, conversion rates, ROI.

• Stay ahead of the curve: what are the best organisations doing? What can we learn and adapt?

Who we're looking for

We care much more about how you work than where you've worked. You don't need charity sector experience .

People who thrive here have:

• Hustle and drive. You take ownership. You spot opportunities and go after them. You don't wait to be told what to do.

• A commercial approach. You think in terms of audiences, funnels, conversion, and scale. You understand what drives growth and you know how to execute it.

• Copywriting chops. You can really write. Headlines that stop the scroll. Emails people actually read. Stories that land. You know that words matter.

• A data brain. You can look at campaign performance and spot the story. You know that "CTR is up 18%" means something, and you know how to act on it.

• A bias for action. You test things. You move fast. You're comfortable with uncertainty and you learn by doing.

• Creative thinking. You generate ideas. You see opportunities others miss. You're not afraid to try something different.

• Organisation. Strong attention to detail, with the ability to run 12 products, 40 email journeys and 100 web pages without dropping anything.

• An entrepreneurial mindset. You think like an owner. If this were your business, how would you grow it?

Bonus points if:

• You've worked in a startup, scale-up, or high-growth environment.

• You've built audiences from scratch or scaled marketing profitably.

• You've led paid campaigns that actually delivered ROI.

• You've worked across multiple channels and understand how they work together.

• You love being outdoors (swimming, hiking, wild camping, anything that gets you outside). 

Why Level Water?

Our values: Bold, Driven, Personal, and Joyful are at the heart of this role. You'll be expected to bring ambition, move with purpose, care deeply about impact, and help create marketing that feels genuinely joyful to be part of.

Bold. This isn't a "follow the playbook" role. We want your ideas. We want you to challenge us. We want you to help us build something better.

Driven. We're growing fast and we need people who can scale with us. If you're ambitious, there's a huge opportunity here.

Personal. We're a small, founder-led team. We move fast, we debate hard, we test everything, and we care deeply about what we do.

Joyful. You'll work on some of the most iconic outdoor swims in the UK. You'll help tell stories that change lives. You'll be part of creating something people remember forever.

Practical details

• Flexible working: remote, hybrid, or (even better) office-based in Tunbridge Wells or Exeter, your choice.

• You'll attend weekend events throughout the summer (with time off in lieu).

• Salary: £30k–£45k depending on experience.

How to apply

We want to hear from you in whatever way best shows us who you are and how you think.

Get creative. It’s a marketing job so sell us on your personality and style. A traditional CV and cover letter? Absolutely fine. A video introduction? Great. A presentation deck? Bring it on. Whatever format helps you shine and show us who you are.

Here's what we'd love to know:

1. How you'd approach marketing growth:
Imagine we want to double sign-ups for one of our summer events (currently sitting at 500 swimmers). Walk us through your approach: which channels would you use, what would your messaging be, how would you measure success, and what would you test first?

2. What excites you about this role:
Tell us why this opportunity appeals to you specifically.

3. Something you're proud of:
Share one thing you've built, grown, or improved. Doesn't have to be in charity or even at work, it could be anything that shows your drive and ability to make things happen.

Before you apply

If you've got questions about the role, the team, or whether this might be right for you, please reach out. I'm Andy Punter, Fundraising Director at Level Water, and I'd genuinely love to chat.​

Deadline

20th March 2026

We're excited to meet you. Let's build something brilliant together.

Role: Community Development Manager 

Salary: £37,296 (pro rata)

Hours: 28 hours per week (0.8 FTE)

Location: Remote, with frequent travel across the West of England region

Managed by: Chief Executive

Term: Fixed term, 16 months

Deadline for applications: Noon 23 Monday 23 March

Following the appointment of our current Chief Executive in 2025, we are embarking on an exciting new chapter and developing a strategy that aims to extend our impact by addressing key rural issues facing communities locally, namely; access to jobs and services, affordable housing, and health and wellbeing.

Over the next 18 months, and thanks to funding from the National Lottery, we will be undertaking research, engaging stakeholders from across the region, and working with several rural communities to pilot local initiatives. We are confident this activity will catalyse interest in the challenges faced by people in rural communities, demonstrate the value of community-led responses, and lever in longer-term support and resource.

To help us take this ambitious programme of work forward, we are looking to recruit a Community Development Manager.

Reporting to our Chief Executive, key responsibilities will include project management, stakeholder engagement, and drawing on best practice to inspire, facilitate and offer support to groups to help them get going with projects that address local needs.

We are looking for a dynamic and highly motivated individual who’s passion for community development will cut through and help us demonstrate the potential of supporting people locally to have greater agency over the circumstances that affect their lives. 

For more information and details how to apply, please download a copy of the Job Description and Person Specification available from our website.

Community Zakat Development Manager (UK Islamic Charity)

Location / Salary / Contract

UK-wide (home-based) | £30,000 - £35,000 | Fixed term (24 months, with a view to permanent) | Travel required across the UK.

The Opportunity

Civitas Charity recruitment is delighted to be working with UK-wide Muslim charity expanding a localised Zakat distribution model nationwide. In this role, you will build and support a network of Community Zakat Partners, primarily masjids and faith-based community centres/groups, ensuring each partnership is values-led, compliant and effective.

Key Responsibilities

Identify, engage and support prospective Community Zakat Partners, with a focus on masjids and faith-based community organisations.

Lead partner onboarding, agreements and due diligence, working closely with Quality Assurance and Finance colleagues.

Act as the primary point of contact for partners, providing guidance, problem-solving support and clear, timely communication.

Maintain oversight of partnership performance, compliance and risk, coordinating reviews, monitoring and any required audits.

Oversee partner reporting to capture outcomes, data and case studies, contributing to internal learning and impact reporting.

Line manage the Community Zakat Grants Officer, setting objectives and supporting development across the network.

The Candidate

Minimum three years’ experience in partnership or stakeholder management, ideally within the charity, community or public sector.

Proven ability to manage agreements and deliver against objectives, with strong governance, compliance and reporting discipline.

Excellent relationship-building, communication and negotiation skills; confident engaging senior volunteers and faith leaders.

Experience supervising or line managing staff, with a collaborative and accountable approach.

Desirable: experience working with Muslim communities and an understanding of Zakat in a UK context.

Applicants can be based anywhere in England; a full UK driving licence and willingness to travel nationally (car driver) are essential.

How to Apply

If you are keen, please apply directly or contact Syed at Civitas for further info. Deadline is the 20th March 2026. Interviews expected: week commencing 2 April 2026. A DBS application will be required for the successful candidate.