Portfolio Development Manager

Ref: 7319

Closing Date: 15th  March 2026

Save the Children UK has an exciting opportunity for a Portfolio Development Manager to join our Partnerships for Impact department on a 12-month maternity cover contract.

In this role, you will support the development of high-quality, compelling communication materials that connect donors and partners with our impact for children. You will help devise and implement engagement products for donors and prospective partners, and lead storytelling and communications projects such as End of Year Communications for donors and the Unrestricted Funding Communications Pack.

The role will have a particular focus on flexible funding streams such as unrestricted and emergency funding, which allow us to adapt and respond to children's and communities' most pressing needs.

We are ideally looking for someone creative, with excellent written and verbal communication skills and a track record of producing high-quality communications materials. A strong understanding of the charity sector, fundraising and global development issues is important, and experience creating fundraising and information materials — including digital communications and visually creative products — for philanthropic and corporate donors is preferred.

About Us

Save the Children UK believes every child deserves a future. In the UK and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm.  When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave.  We ensure children's unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach. 

About the role

As a Portfolio Development Manager, you will support the development of both restricted and unrestricted opportunities. For this maternity cover, the role will have a greater focus on flexible funding streams such as unrestricted and emergency funding, which enable Partnerships for Impact to adapt and respond to children's and communities' most pressing needs.

You will lead the creation of high-quality engagement and communication materials that connect high-value donors and partners with our impact for children. This includes driving storytelling and communications projects across our funding priorities and supporting teams across Partnerships for Impact to effectively communicate the value and impact of flexible funding.

In this role, you will

• Lead on the design and development of restricted and unrestricted opportunities as prioritised through the portfolio pipeline, in alignment with our funding and strategic priorities.
• Lead on the creation of high-quality, compelling engagement and communication materials for high-value audiences to effectively convey the organisation's need for flexible funds and associated impact for children.
• Ensure alignment with partner interests and work with colleagues across Global, UK and Public Impact to develop innovative storytelling and communication products to support teams across Partnerships for Impact to secure more flexible funding.
• Support the Partnerships for Impact team by developing and executing strategies to raise both restricted and unrestricted income through targeted communications, development of professional engagement products, digital tools, reports and fundraising materials in line with our funding priorities and pipeline, while ensuring consistency in our brand tone, look and feel.
• Lead, create and manage emergency communications and critical information suitable for the Partnerships for Impact audience.

About you

To be successful, it is important that you have:

• Strong Written and Verbal Communication skills: Ability to create high-quality proposal and partnership opportunities as well as communications, including persuasive materials that effectively demonstrate the impact and influence of partnerships
  • Digital Platforms Proficiency: Skilled in using digital tools and platforms to produce visually appealing and professional documents and presentations
  • Interpersonal and Relationship Management Skills: Strong capability to build, manage, and maintain relationships across diverse teams and stakeholders
  • Document Design and IT Skills: Proficient in leveraging IT and design software to produce polished, engaging, and professional documents
  • Strong communication skills: Ability to craft clear, persuasive, and engaging materials
  • Creativity and storytelling skills: Expertise in using storytelling to connect emotionally with donors and partners
  • Project management skills: Capable of managing multiple communications projects from concept to delivery
  • Collaboration: Skilled at working with internal teams to align on goals and deliverables
  • Strong Attention to detail: Ensuring accuracy and quality in all communication materials and proposals
  • Proposal Writing: Ideally experience in writing proposals to support the creation of partnership opportunities, including crafting persuasive and tailored content

Please note: applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so we encourage candidates to apply as soon as possible.

Please note: To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.

Location & Ways of Working:

The majority of our roles can be performed remotely in the UK, but at times you will be required to come to your contracted office (usually between 2–4 days per month, depending on the needs of your role, team, or service). For many roles, this is likely to be the minimum required to deliver impact.

This will be discussed and agreed with your manager / team and we encourage candidates to discuss our ways of working in more detail at interview stage.

Please note: travel costs to your contracted office will be at your own expense. 

Flexible Working - We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview.

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion: 

Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be "Free to Be Me". We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think. 

We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences - of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability - help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.