Policy researcher jobs in darlington, county durham

We are currently hiring for a new Trusts, Foundations and Corporates Manager, who will be responsible for managing income streams and maintaining a high standard of applications, reporting and stewardship for our trusted partners.

You will be joining a friendly team and your hard work will make an immediate, real impact for our inherited sight loss community.

Key responsibilities:

* Secure funding from Trusts, Foundations and Corporates sources to meet annual income targets and key performance indicators.

* Maintain existing relationships with Trusts, Foundations and Corporates and deliver growth opportunities by identifying new funding opportunities and monitor external trends regularly.

* Secure Corporate sponsorship for key events and projects including our Annual and Professionals’ conferences, our upcoming gala dinner and our Look Forward magazines.

* Write compelling cases for support and proposals, refreshing our case studies, impact and messaging regularly.

* Schedule, write and submit donor reports as part of our requirements and stewardship.

* Work with the Communications Manager and Head of Income Generation to create relevant case studies, news stories and social media content relevant to Trusts, Foundations and Corporates.

* Identify and cultivate new Corporate prospects and ensure that our database is kept up to date.

* Lead an exemplary stewardship programme for existing Corporate supporters and sponsors, to maximise income and establish donor loyalty.

* Collaborate with other internal teams to engage colleagues on the importance of Trusts, Foundations and Corporates by sharing successes and ways for colleagues to support these areas.

* Regularly measure the success of our outreach with pharmaceutical companies and Corporate prospects.

* Attend relevant networking events to grow our presence in the Corporate space and maintain an engaging post-event stewardship with all new contacts.

* Research and prepare applications and presentations for Charity of the Year partnerships and grow this area year-on-year.

* Create high quality, inspiring proposals, pitches, copy and other material for new opportunities, ensuring that all communications are on brand.

SPECIFICATION (E = essential, D = desirable):

Skills & Experience

Minimum of 1 year working in a similar role - E                                   

Working in a small team - D                                                                 

Educated to ‘A’ level standard or commensurate experience - E       

IT literate and highly adept in the use of MS Office Suite - E                   

Familiar with email and internet - E                                                     

High standard of written and verbal English and grammar - E           

Database experience - E                                                                     

Personal Attributes

Confident, polite and cheerful telephone manner  - E                           

Quick learner able to act on initiative and in the absence of managers - E                                                                                                   

An eye for detail and a flair for organisation - E                                 

Ability to empathise with people with disabilities (particularly visual impairment) - E                                                                               

Able to manage a busy workload - E                                                   

Commitment

Empathy with Retina UK’s aims and objectives - E                           

Willing to live Retina UK’s values - E     

 
Job Title: Community Engagement Officer 
Location: Remote with frequent travel (must be UK-based)
Reporting To: Advice and Support Lead 
Hours: Full-time 
Salary: £26,000 - £28,000 
Contract Type: Permanent  

About Us 

Metabolic Support UK (MSUK) are the leading organisation for Inherited Metabolic Disorders (IMDs), supporting thousands of people worldwide through providing individual support, building communities, and continually advocating for and empowering those living with IMDs. 

We are a small but mighty team providing individual support, advice and connection to the over 40,000 living with an IMD in the UK and more across the world. We have a strong interest in rare disease policy and campaign for the rights of our rare disease community for better healthcare services, access to treatment and to be able to live well everyday.  

Role Overview 

MSUK are seeking a passionate and proactive Community Engagement Officer to strengthen and grow our patient and family community. There are over 1500 IMDs and many of our community use social media, other patient groups and in-person events to connect and learn. This role is central to how we engage with the people we support — through social media, community groups, events, and collaborative partnerships. You’ll be the bridge between our charity and the people we serve, helping to build a supportive, inclusive, and informed community.  

Key Responsibilities 

Engagement & Social Media 

• Manage and monitor all online patient communities responding to community messages and comments with empathy and timeliness 

• Moderate relevant support online community groups, ensuring they are safe, active, and welcoming spaces 

• Identify themes and areas of interest to advocate internally for MSUK response to meeting community need 

• Signpost our Individual Support service, identify and flag individual enquiries to the Individual Support Lead 

• Working with our Campaign & Comms Lead, grow the charity’s presence across social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, TikTok) 

• Develop content that resonates with patients, families, and supporters, amplifying community stories and voices 

• Build and manage our lived experience co-production group ‘Metabolic Advisory Council’ 

Community Insight & Advocacy 

• Functioning as the ‘internal expert’ on IMD communities for all MSUK team members 

• Using our Contact Record Management system to log and manage community database to provide timely, relevant insight to team members when required 

• Work with Head of Insight & Advocacy to engage and support communities in relation to timelines for insight work 

Events & Campaigns 

• Plan, organise, and execute online and in-person community events (support groups, awareness days, family meetups, annual conference) 

• Collaborate with the team to deliver campaigns around awareness, fundraising, and education 

• Work with Virtual Support Assistant to coordinate speakers, logistics, communications, and follow-ups for all events with  

Relationship & Partnership Management 

• Build and maintain relationships with other patient advocacy groups, charities, and health organisations 

• Represent the charity at external events, meetings, and forums relevant to the rare disease space 

• Seek opportunities for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and joint initiatives 

Community Fundraising 

• Work with Fundraising lead on community support for individual and events fundraising including event research, donor journey support and online promotion 
   

Person Specification 

Essential 

• Experience managing online communities and/or social media platforms in a professional or volunteer capacity 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills 

• Strong organisational skills and event planning experience 

• Empathetic and sensitive to the lived experiences of patients and carers 

• Ability to work independently, from home, and as part of a small, dynamic team 

• Confident, keen to travel and enjoys in-person events and networking  

Desirable 

• Personal or professional experience within the rare disease, health, or charity sectors 

• Experience managing partnerships or external relationships 

• Familiarity with tools such as Canva, Mailchimp, Eventbrite, or similar 

What We Offer 

• A supportive and flexible working environment. 

• Opportunities for personal and professional growth. 

• The chance to make a tangible impact in the lives of people affected by rare diseases. 

An exciting opportunity has arisen in our Equality, Inclusion. Diversity Team. We are looking for an experienced EDI business partner to work  across Barnardo's providing expert advice and guidance to help us meet our public sector equality duty. The successful applicant will have the opportunity to work on ambitious initiatives, contribute to our culture of belonging and support training and events to promote awareness of EDI.

Our EDI ambition is growing a culture where everyone belongs. EDI runs through everything we do and we work in a collaborative and enabling way across the whole organisation. Key areas of our work are compliance, culture, participation, cultivation of belonging, colleague journey, recruitment, progression and growth. Our data led insight enables us to measure impact and plan for the future. Our EDI objectives are fundamental to our work on our anti-racism, disability equality, LGBT+ strategy and gender equality.

As an EDI Business Partner, you will be responsible for ensuring that a proactive, high quality, professional and appropriate business focused EDI service is delivered by providing first class advice, guidance, information and support to colleagues, across all areas of the organisation to assist them in delivering Barnardo's Corporate Strategy.

You will be a subject matter expert in EDI and will be key to embedding EDI in decision making, ensuring we are compliant with legal requirements, delivering on our EDI objectives, anti-racism and disability equality commitments, key EDI projects, supporting colleagues with lived experience and contributing to a culture of belonging across the whole organisation. The role holder will be expected to have a knowledge of EDI legislation across the UK.

If this sounds like you, please apply today.

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.

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. 

ID: 1449 Social Media Manager

Service: Digital Marketing 

Salary: Grade 4 point 29: starting at £36,842 – raising to £41,106 per annum + £480 home working allowance 

Location: Homebased

Hours: Full time 37 hours per week 

We offer flexible working arrangements - please see below for more details. 

Contract: Permanent

Family Action & the Role’s Impact:

Family Action is a national charity that supports people through change, challenge and crisis across England and Wales. On 1st January 2025, Relate, the largest provider of relationship support, joined the organisation helping us reach even more people and support the creation of secure foundations for children and young people, and safe, supportive relationships for all.

For over 150 years Family Action has seen first-hand the power of family and relationships to shape lives, for better or worse. That's why we speak up for the importance of family in national and local policymaking, amplify family voices and represent the changing needs of families in the UK today. 

Whatever family means or looks like to us, it's relationships that matter. With Relate at Family Action, we are able to extend the support we provide with counselling, information, mediation and support to individuals, couples and families from all backgrounds and sexualities, as well as provide expert training for relationship support practitioners.

This is an exciting opportunity to lead our social media team and help strategically shape the role of paid and organic social across Family Action’s channels, including those under the Relate brand. You will manage a team of two Social Media Executives and drive brand awareness, income generation and service marketing whilst also providing strategic insight around wider external engagement activity. 

Main Responsibilities (for details check the job description and person specification):

• Lead on the development and delivery of paid and organic social media activity across both Family Action and Relate brands.

• Refine Family Action’s social media strategy in line with key brand, income generation and service marketing objectives 

• Work with the Head of Digital Marketing and Senior Social Media Executive to develop a paid social and sales strategy to drive purchases of services and toolkits from Relate

• Lead on the development and delivery of sophisticated Meta and LinkedIn ad campaigns at each stage of the donation/purchase funnel ie. awareness, interest, conversion

• Line manage a team of two Social Media Executives responsible for the day to day management of both Relate and Family Action channels, and supporting local services and retail shops with their use of social media.

Main Requirements (for details check the job description and person specification):

• Extensive experience of strategically managing and developing social media channels for a large organisation/group/brand.

• Significant experience of developing successful paid social media campaigns for a range of business objectives including to drive income generation 

• Excellent copywriting skills and the ability to write powerfully and succinctly for different objectives, audiences and channels.

• Excellent creative skills and the ability to recognise effective imagery, and stock photography and video.

• Experience of line management and/or mentoring a junior member of the team.

Benefits: 

- an annual paid leave entitlement of 30 working days plus bank holidays

- up to 6% matched-pension contributions

- flexible working arrangements and new starters have the right to make flexible working requests from day one of employment

- enhanced paid sick leave and paid family leave provisions

- eye care and winter flu jabs vouchers

- cycle to work scheme

- investing in your professional development with ongoing quality training and career development opportunities

We are forward looking, ambitious and committed to continuous improvement. We are a people focused, can-do organisation, which strives for excellence in all we do and operates with mutual respect.

To Apply:

• Click the “Apply Now” link below and fill out our digital application form

• Closing Date: Sunday 1st June at 23:59

• To learn more about Family Action: Careers

Interviews will be scheduled on a rolling basis and we reserve the right to close the role early if we find a suitable candidate.

For direct queries or if you would like to discuss any aspect of the selection process or flexible working requests, please email: Matthew Dennis (full email address available on the advert document)

We about reserve the right to close the role early if we find suitable candidates.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion:

We are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that candidates may need during the recruitment process and you will be asked whether you require any adjustments if shortlisted for interview. We also make reasonable adjustments on the job, where required.

We are committed to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in all that we do and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Intersectionality is important to us and we particularly welcome applications from ethnically diverse communities, LGBTQIA+ candidates and disabled candidates because we are committed to increasing the representation of these groups at Family Action. We know that greater diversity will lead to even greater results for families and children and strive for our workforce to be truly representative of the diverse communities we support. We offer a guaranteed interview scheme for disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role, and will reimburse your travel cost if you attend an interview.

Community Based/Home Working – West Midlands

Permanent, Full Time

Circa £30,000 plus competitive benefits

Do you want to make a difference?

The RAF Benevolent Fund is the leading welfare charity for the RAF. Every year we make a real difference to over 40,000 people who benefit from our services. Working at the Fund is more than sitting at your desk ad in this role you will have the opportunity to be part of our RAF Family.  Alongside helping our beneficiaries, we also get to hang out with Spitfires and Typhoons, take part in a Dambusters bike ride, attend events like Royal Ascot, the Chelsea Flower Show, and the Bomber Command Memorial Service. Every day you will make a difference and play your part in changing the lives of others and helping people in the RAF Family get through the toughest of times.

It doesn’t matter how long someone served or when. If they were part of the RAF, they and their family are part of our RAF Family. We will always be here to support them when they need it most.

Join the RAF Family and play your part in making a difference.

Do you want to play a part in what we do?

People are at the heart of what we do. Together we:

· Help reduce social isolation and loneliness among veterans. 

· We support ill or injured men and women to have a safe place to call home, a home that meets their specific needs.

· We fund youth services on stations to provide clubs and activities for the children of serving personnel who move every few years.

· We provide grants to help with the cost of living. But this is just a few of the ways we help.

We are seeking an individual to raise awareness of the Fund’s welfare offer amongst social welfare agencies across the West Midlands but also, crucially, to help address the issue of social isolation and feelings of loneliness experienced by some members of the RAF Family.

The post holder will be working with socially isolated individuals to identify meaningfully enriching opportunities to reduce feelings of loneliness, some of whom may have complex and challenging welfare needs, to develop actions plans and coordinate support to overcome any barriers preventing successful connection into these enriching opportunities, assisting them by identifying appropriate support from within the RAF Benevolent Fund and the wider statutory and military charity sector.

The successful candidate will have experience of working in a social welfare role supporting individuals, have strong people and relationship-building skills, as well as empathy with or understanding of the issues affecting the Armed Forces community.  Individuals with a social prescribing or working aged veteran support background are encouraged to apply.

This is a community-based position working from home covering the West Midlands, delivering both remote and face to face support, ideally you will be based in Staffordshire or Shropshire.  The candidate must have their own vehicle to use to travel around these regions.  Occasional travel to London will be required.  The successful candidate for this role will need to be Enhanced DBS checked and prove they have the right to work in the UK.

To apply, please click on this link and send your CV, together with a cover letter detailing why you believe you are suitable for this role, providing examples of how you meet the job profile when you apply through our recruitment portal.

The closing date for applications is Friday 23rd May 2025, 5.00pm.  Interviews will be held on 9th – 10th June 2025.

A copy of the Fund’s Candidate Privacy Notice can be found on our website. As an equal opportunities employer, the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund is committed to the equal treatment of all current and prospective employees and does 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. The Fund takes safeguarding seriously, and appropriate background checks will be completed. You can find out more about our commitment to safeguarding on our website. This role requires an Enhanced DBS check. We aspire to have a diverse and inclusive workplace and strongly encourage suitably qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join the Fund.

The Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund is a Registered Charity (No. 1081009).

Working closely with the Awareness Programme Manager, Senior Volunteer Development Manager, and colleagues in our Community Services Engagement team, the senior Awareness Programme Officer will be responsible for the delivery of our awareness talk programme across the UK. This includes the recruitment, coordination, support and training of volunteers in line with Bowel Cancer UK's volunteering strategy and the awareness programme plans.

You will be a team player with excellent communication and people skills and you must be proactive, resilient and capable of organising and managing a busy workload.