Marketing communications jobs in Belfast, northern ireland

Corporate Partnerships Lead - 0.6 FTE

Contract : 

• 12 months fixed term; 

• 0.6 / 22.2 hours per week; 

• Remote, home-based but with requirement to travel to in-person meetings when required.

Salary: 

• £49,844 (FTE) pro-rata £29,906 

• Plus £312 working from home allowance 

Reports to: Head of Fundraising

Purpose of the Role: 

Voice 21 is a rapidly growing national education charity, with a bold new strategy to 2030, and ambitious plans to double fundraised income over this strategic period. We believe there is significant potential for the corporate sector to engage with our work and support our mission to transform education. We are seeking an experienced corporate fundraiser to build our burgeoning programme, unlock exciting new opportunities for support and lead on developing new voluntary income from corporate partnerships. You will champion creative, insight-driven new business development and account management, ensuring partnerships are meaningful, mutually beneficial and aligned with our mission. This role will encompass research and qualification, engagement of potential corporate partners, developing propositions and proposals, pitching and securing new partners and relationship building and stewardship. This role will suit someone proactive and self-motivated, with proven experience in building income from corporate partnerships, who is comfortable working independently, skilled in building relationships at all levels, and driven by Voice 21’s mission.

Key Responsibility of the Role: 

• Work collaboratively across the organisation to build trusted relationships internally, maximise opportunities, and ensure corporate partnerships support our strategic objectives.

• Identify and deliver opportunities to develop new partnerships, securing and onboarding new corporate partners through targeted engagement.

• Build sustainable relationships with corporate contacts, ensuring excellent engagement and stewardship.

• Build a robust pipeline of prospective partners, ensuring a strategic and targeted approach to new business.

• Collaborate across teams to shape and deliver high-value, mutually beneficial partnership proposals that align with organisational priorities. 

• Provide strategic support to the Head of Fundraising and Senior Leadership Team, ensuring where appropriate that senior colleagues are fully briefed and prepared.

• Contribute your sector knowledge, expertise and specialist insights to inform strategy and innovation and assist decision-making.

• Keep accurate records of all interactions with supporters and prospects. 

What you will bring: 

• Proven experience in setting up a corporate fundraising programme, with a track record of securing five-figure+ relationships and raising income to target.

• Knowledge and/or experience of a range of corporate income streams, from strategic partnerships and sponsorships, to cause-related marketing, employee engagement, gifts in kind, etc.

• Strong commercial awareness, with ability to identify and prioritise high-value opportunities. Proactive and assertive, with the ability to recognise and act on new opportunities and the tenacity to secure meetings. 

• Experience of building a portfolio of corporate sector prospects and managing a pipeline of opportunities. Ideally with experience of using Salesforce (or another CRM system) to manage pipelines, track performance and report on outcomes.

• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to build and maintain relationships at all levels, negotiating and influencing to achieve successful outcomes. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with confident and engaging presentation abilities.

• Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities effectively.

• Knowledge of fundraising legislation, ethics, compliance, and data protection requirements.

• Self-motivated, comfortable working autonomously, and able to take ownership of own performance. Comfortable in a fast-paced, iterative culture.

What you will achieve: 

• Build a qualified pipeline of corporate prospects.

• Secure new five-figure partnerships.

• Develop tailored partnership propositions aligned to organisational priorities.

• Strengthen stewardship and engagement processes.

Who you’ll work with: Your line manager will be the Head of Fundraising and you will work alongside a fundraising officer. The fundraising team sits in the Operations Directorate.

Where you’ll work: All Voice 21 staff work remotely and this is a home-based role, with some travel expected to our London office (by Victoria station) and elsewhere for meetings. Occasional overnight stays may be required depending on where you are based. Voice 21 pays all travel and accommodation expenses. 

About Voice 21 

Voice 21 is the national oracy education charity. We exist to empower every child to use their voice for success in school and life. Our work transforms learning and life chances through talk by increasing access to a high-quality oracy education for those that need it most. Follow the links to find out more about why oracy is so vital and the impact Voice 21 has. 

Why work for Voice 21?

Tackle a vital challenge, with great people. Voice 21 exists to transform children' s learning and life chances through talk and we are aiming to be working with 1,800 schools a year by 2030. To reach this goal we recruit great people and give them real responsibility, training and support. 

Output focused culture, with flexible working opportunities. We have an agile and flexible approach, our team can work when and wherever works best to deliver the requirements of their role. As our staff predominantly work from home, we support them to create a workspace and provide technology that enables them to work effectively. 

Real development opportunities. We believe in supporting people to develop the skills they need to be excellent whether this means funding external training, finding a mentor to support them or giving them the time to learn from others in the organisations through our regular CPD sessions. 

Great benefits. 36 days holiday (inclusive of bank holidays and a 3 day Christmas closure period). Holiday entitlement increases linked to length of service, 5% employer contribution to pension, interest-free season ticket, cycle and technology loans, employee assistance scheme. 

Application details:

Please submit your C.V. and your responses to the following questions:

1/. Tell us about the highest value corporate partnership that you have personally secured and which you developed from start to finish (max 500 words):

• How did you go about identifying the prospect and opportunity?

• How did you go about developing the relationship before you secured the partnership?

• What were the features of the partnership and what was the value for the charity and the corporate?

• What was your role in developing the pitch and how did you go about landing the deal?

• What was the outcome and/or impact of securing this partnership?

2/. Reflecting on the example you have shared, what did you learn from this experience? And how does that learning show up in your approach to corporate partnerships fundraising? (max 250 words) 

3/. What interests you about Voice 21 and this contract specifically? What do you expect will be the challenges and opportunities in this role? (max 250 words)

Closing date: 1st June 2026 however we reserve the right to close applications before the stated closing date if a sufficient number of suitable applications is received

Interview dates: TBC 

Valuing every voice

Voice 21 believes that every voice should be heard and valued. We are committed to the equal treatment of all current and prospective employees and do not condone discrimination on the basis of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, or marriage and civil partnership. 

Voice 21 is a diverse and inclusive workplace and we strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join us. By offering a salary range, we demonstrate our commitment to considering a wide range of applicants who may bring different perspectives and levels of experience.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a thriving national charity, as part of a high-performing, ambitious Business Development team. You will use a wide range of commercial and interpersonal skills to develop the way our services support children, young people and families. The core area of your work will be working with teams of Barnardo's colleagues to produce compelling proposals to commissioners and partners. As such, you'll be able to demonstrate:

∙ Strong organisational skills

∙ Attention to detail

∙ The ability to elicit and articulate great ideas

∙ Strong written and spoken communication.

You will need to be a good writer, communicating ideas effectively on paper with an ability to analyse large volumes of information to develop clear and compelling responses to tenders. It is critical that you can build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders to support the development of proposals and service design. You will manage all aspects of proposals and tenders, leading the development and delivery of bids, working to deadlines, ensuring that we present strong business cases and bids that underpin successful outcomes. In addition, there will be the opportunity to help us develop new services and innovations in priority growth areas, monitor market intelligence, assess commercial and contract risks and work alongside operational colleagues in Children's Services.

Your project management skills may have been developed in any sector, and may need further development, but your commitment to the work we do will be demonstrated by your enthusiasm and ability to learn. In Business Development we are a supportive team, with stimulating and challenging work and extensive opportunities to learn and to help Barnardo's transform the lives of the UK's most vulnerable children.

This is a full-time role (36.25 hours per week) within Business Development. The role will operate on a 'Work from Anywhere' basis, meaning that you can work both from home and/or from an office 'hub that's nearest to where you live. Some travel may be required.

Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

Please note previous applicants need not apply. 

Pay & Reward Framework

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values.  We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people. 

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay. 

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours.  More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application. 

Benefits

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, in the community, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or depending on the role any combination of these. Please read through the advert carefully to understand the remits of hybrid working that will be specific to the role.

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our Buy Your Leave scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

About Barnardo's

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.