The brain tumour charity jobs

The Brain Tumour Charity is leading the way in research, support, and advocacy for everyone affect by brain tumours. Our mission is simple but urgent: to accelerate a cure for brain tumours and improve life for everyone affected by this devastating disease.

We’re looking for a strategic and collaborative leader to join us as our first Head of Performance and Planning. In this newly created role, you’ll help us stay focused on what matters most – delivering impact for the brain tumour community.

You’ll lead our planning and performance functions, working closely with senior leaders and teams across the organisation to ensure we have clear priorities, strong reporting, and effective ways to measure progress. You’ll also oversee our governance and risk frameworks, making sure we remain well-governed and prepared for the future.

This is a strategic but hands-on role that will shape how we plan, deliver and learn as we grow. You’ll work closely with the CEO and Board to support decision-making and accountability, helping us to embed a joined-up, insight-led approach that will drive progress against our ambitious 2030 strategy.

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR:

You’ll bring experience in planning and performance, with a strong track record of leading cross-organisational work in a complex setting. You’ll be confident building relationships at all levels, influencing decisions, and turning strategy into action. You’ll thrive on helping others stay focused and aligned, and you’ll bring clarity and structure to big ambitions. If you love working collaboratively and want to make a real impact, this is the role for you.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES:

Developing and leading business planning processes and activities

• Leading our annual and multi-year business planning processes, ensuring strong alignment to our 2030 strategy and strategic pillars.
• Designing and managing planning tools, timelines, and guidance to support joined-up planning across The Charity’s departments.
• Aligning strategic planning with budget and resource planning in partnership with the Director of Finance and IT and the Director of People and Culture.
• Working closely with the Director of Finance and IT, and the wider leadership team, to drive alignment between strategy, delivery, and performance.
• Championing a collaborative and inclusive approach to planning, building understanding and engagement across the Charity.
• Representing planning and performance leadership at key forums, including SLT and Extended Leadership Team meetings, and at Board subcommittees where required.

Performance monitoring and reporting

• Designing, implementing and embedding our performance monitoring and reporting frameworks, including dashboards, KPIs and narrative reporting for SLT and Board.
• Identifying and escalating performance trends and/or risks, highlighting these in order to partner with teams on continuous improvement
• Driving the use of data and insight in organisational planning and decision-making processes, including embedding processes to support equity and inclusion e.g. EDI impact assessments.
• Building capacity and planning capability across The Charity to support sustainable processes and ways of working, and to support continuous improvement.
• Working closely with leaders to ensure planning, change and performance are aligned, and with particular emphasis on Finance, Strategy and External Affairs, and People and Culture.

Programme and project planning

• Developing and communicating frameworks to support how programmes and projects are monitored and measured, in alignment with our strategy impact framework led by the Strategy & External Affairs team.
• Support programme planning and monitoring capability across The Charity through coaching and advisory support to teams and leaders and through procuring and/or sharing supporting tools and guidance for this purpose

Leading governance, risk management and business continuity

• Strategic oversight of governance, including overseeing Board and subcommittee reporting, documentation, regulatory and legal compliance.
• Overseeing the Charity’s corporate risk register, embedding risk awareness and mitigation planning across The Charity.
• Leading the development of our Business Continuity Planning (BCP) approach, including associated guidance, communication and learning.
• Acting as a trusted partner to SLT and Heads of Teams on performance, risk, and governance.

Championing supporter care across The Charity, you will lead on guaranteeing a high quality experience for our donors and supporters through their journey with us. Everything the team does is about ensuring CX excellence, from handling first communications and processing income, through to ensuring that an appropriate ‘thank you’ is received.

Responsible for a small team of both Central Operations and Supporter Care experts you’ll ensure that our community are placed at the centre of all we do. Working with Fundraising, Finance and Marketing you’ll ensure the smooth running of our campaigns and income reconciliation, implementing the workflows to get the right data into the CRM, acting as the central point between them and our technical teams (Website, Journeys, Finance and IT).

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR:

With boundless energy, passion and enthusiasm, you are the positive and welcoming face of the Charity, inspiring and motivating our supporters and encouraging their ongoing participation. You’ll work tirelessly to ensure that they receive the best possible service and see themselves as an integral part of our community.

You’ll have proven experience of working in a busy Supporter Care or customer-focused role, as well as being a people manager, with a good understanding of the fundraising environment. You’ll need a strong understanding of our systems, processes, fundraising options and services. You’ll also be responsible for inspiring excellent supporter care across the Charity, ensuring that our community is placed at the centre of all we do

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES:

• With the support of the Head of CX, provide an exemplary core Supporter Care and Central Operations function, meeting agreed SLAs to maximise supporter engagement, stewardship and accurate income processing
• Oversee accurate daily and monthly bank reconciliation, working closely with the Finance and Fundraising teams
• Support initiatives to maximise engagement by calling supporters e.g. to welcome them to The Charity and to talk to them about Gift Aid
• Work with the Head of the CX team to create monthly reports to evidence progress and adherence to the team SLAs
• Manage complaints and assist other teams in responding to complaints, ensuring robust recording in the CRM
• Lead on new supporter care projects and activities
• Regularly review fundraising and complaint policies, updating documentation and processes as needed e.g. vulnerable persons policy
• Provide supporter care ‘consultancy’ for other teams and promote supporter care excellence
• Keep up to date on current fundraising regulations and legislation; share knowledge and best practice with the wider team
• Lead on planning, implementing and documenting team processes, striving to automate and improve wherever possible
• Facilitate and provide training to members of the team as required
• Support regular reviews of Gift Aid and ensure Gift Aid claims and income are maximised, working closely with the Finance team
• Identify volunteer opportunities and manage team volunteers, acting as a Volunteer Champion for the team

Are you ready to join us?

A powerful campaigning organisation, Brain Tumour Research is the leading voice of the brain tumour community in the UK. Unique and much needed, we are the only national charity focused on finding a cure for all types of brain tumours. Our work focuses on campaigning to increase the national investment in research into brain tumours to £35 million per year, while fundraising to create a network of seven sustainable Brain Tumour Research Centres of Excellence, across the UK.​

Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer, yet just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease since records began in 2002.  All of us at Brain Tumour Research are passionate about finding a cure for this devastating disease.  

Job Purpose:

This is a fantastic opportunity for an individual who wants to build a career in the charity sector and make a difference in one of the most innovative and exciting medical research fundraising charities in the UK. ​

As the Community Fundraising Assistant (East), you will play a crucial role in helping the charity meet its strategic plans and objectives, which include campaigning to increase the national investment in brain tumour research to £35 million per year, while fundraising to create a network of seven sustainable Brain Tumour Research Centres of Excellence across the UK. ​

Your role will be to support our East region to generate and grow our income through community fundraising activities, contributing to a regional team target of £1.5 million.  ​

You will possess good time attention to detail and time management skills. You will also have a positive ‘can do’ attitude, a personable manner, and will embrace the desire to make a measurable difference. ​

You’ll enjoy being part of and contributing to a busy, experienced, fast-working, and dedicated fundraising team while working cross-functionally with other departments such as PR, marketing and Research, Policy and Innovation. ​

We ask that the successful candidate be flexible and willing to travel, if there is a large event that our supporters need assistance with. ​

Brain Tumour Research is an exciting, innovative, and ambitious charity. We are passionate about finding a cure for brain tumours through the establishment of dedicated Brain Tumour Research Centres of Excellence around the UK.

Reports to: Community Development Manager - East​

Direct Reports: None ​

Location: Hybrid, working two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) at our Head Office in Milton Keynes. ​

Contract: Permanent   ​

Hours: Full time ​

Salary: circa £27,000​

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Requisite Skills and Experience: ​​

Essential 

• ​Experience of working in an administrative or customer service environment
• A good communicator, with the ability to converse sensitively and empathetically with members of the public, who may be going through current or recent traumatic experiences  Ability to work proactively and independently 
• Flexible, embraces change and development, and can work occasional evenings and weekends when necessary 
• Experience of working with MS Office, especially confident in Word and Excel. 
• Outstanding organisation and time management skills ​
• Access to a car and full driving licence ​​​

Desirable 

• ​Experience of working with a database / CRM / SharePoint and Asana or other task management platforms 
• ​Experience of working with and recruiting volunteers 
• ​Experience in community fundraising, donor management and stewardship ​​

Main duties:  ​

• Respond to supporter fundraising queries from across the East Region, predominantly via email or phone​

• Support the delivery of community fundraising activities and events across the East Region, but predominantly within the areas of London and Home Counties​

• Research and identify opportunities for support from within the East Region ​

• Ensure fundraisers that you support have access to relevant fundraising advice, guidance and accurate signposting, whilst promoting best practice in fundraising ​

• Keep our CRM database fully up to date with information about our supporters and their fundraising activities ​

• Provide administrative support for the East region​

• Work collaboratively with other teams within the organisation​

• Play an active role in the wider Community Fundraising Team and Income Generation Directorate 

This is a fantastic opportunity for someone wanting to take the first steps into developing your Community Fundraising career.​

​If you’re looking for a rewarding challenge, we would love to hear from you!

​​We reserve the right to close the application window early and advise candidates to apply in good time to avoid disappointment.

​We are asking for a CV as the first step but applicants may be asked to provide a targeted covering letter as part of the selection process.  Interviews will be conducted during the application window as appropriate, and will consist of a first interview via MS Teams, progressing, if successful to a face to face second interview, held at our offices in Milton Keynes.

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Closing Date: 27th August

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We are looking for people who share our passion for finding a cure for brain tumours and who have the skills and experience to make a difference. We welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, and ages. We believe that diversity enriches our organisation and helps us achieve our mission. We are committed to providing an inclusive and supportive environment where everyone can be themselves and contribute to our vision.

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