Programme manager jobs for the International Development sector

War Child’s mission is to reach, protect, educate, and stand up for the rights of every child living in conflict zones. They want a world that is safer for children to live in. Very sadly, at the moment, 1 in 5 children are living in or fleeing from conflict – that number is too high, and War Child wants to change it.

War Child is looking for an experienced fundraising leader to step into a key senior leadership role during a year of real momentum.

As Interim Director of Philanthropy and Partner Engagement, you’ll lead a high-performing team of around 15, covering major donors, principal giving, trusts and foundations, institutional funding, corporate partnerships, and gaming. Together, the team brings in around £10m of War Child’s £15–16m annual income.

You’ll report to the CEO and sit on the Senior Leadership Team, with shared responsibility for income generation, strategic planning, and organisational leadership. This is an opportunity to guide a strong team through its next phase of growth, support exciting developments already underway, and help shape the future of War Child’s fundraising.

We’re looking for a confident, strategic leader with experience at director level, or someone ready to step up from a senior head role in a complex organisation. You’ll bring a strong track record in high-value fundraising, with the credibility and judgement to operate at executive level and lead a diverse team through a period of delivery and growth.

As Interim Philanthropy and Partner Engagement Director, you will:

• Oversee and support a multi-disciplinary fundraising team spanning major donors, partnerships, gaming, principal giving, institutional funding, and events
• Lead strategic planning and budgeting across the function, ensuring strong performance, income growth and long-term value
• Maximise outcomes from Winter Wassail (December 2025), War Child’s flagship gala event with a £2m target and major stewardship opportunity
• Support and strengthen the corporate partnerships function, working closely with the Head of Partnerships to refine strategy and unlock potential
• Guide the development of the principal gifts function, with a new senior hire expected before the handover
• Shape next steps for gaming and digital partnerships, following an external review
• Take a strategic view of events-based philanthropy, identifying opportunities to evolve and diversify

Ideal skills and experience: 

• Significant experience in corporate partnerships, with the ability to develop strategy, support senior fundraisers and identify long-term opportunities
• Strong knowledge of high-value fundraising, including major donors, principal giving and events-led philanthropy
• Experience leading managers and senior fundraisers across multiple income streams, ideally within a similarly sized or complex organisation
• A strategic mindset, with hands-on involvement in planning, budgeting, forecasting and performance reporting
• A collaborative, emotionally intelligent leadership style that combines high challenge with high support
• The ability to influence across teams and departments; experience in international development is helpful but not essential
• The confidence to represent War Child with major donors, partners, and senior stakeholders, both internally and externally
• Willingness to take ownership of compliance areas, including GDPR, gambling regulation and trademark risk, with support from internal specialists

Benefits include: 

• Flexible working – War Child recognise the considerable benefits that flexible working can bring and are happy to discuss any possible flexible working options with employees from hiring. For most roles, the following types of flexibility are usually possible: flexible hours, an element of working from home, compressed hours.
• Annual leave – 28 days per year (full-time), plus UK bank holidays
• Pension – all eligible employees automatically enrolled into a Group Personal Pension Plan with a 5% employer contribution, with minimum employee contribution on a salary sacrifice basis
• Health & wellbeing – employees may take advantage of a healthcare cash plan and a range of wellbeing initiatives and training. In addition, all employees have access to free, confidential one-to-one wellbeing consultations with trained counsellors.
• Learning & development – dedicated to the investment in learning and continuing professional development for all our employees
• Range of flexible benefits such a Cycle to Work scheme and season ticket loans

Remote position with some preference for Freetown Sierra Leone, Cape Town South Africa or Nairobi Kenya

SCOPE OF WORK

1. Grantmaking Due Diligence & Onboarding

• Coordinate the collection, review, and secure storage of due diligence documentation from prospective grantees.

• Assist with risk screening checks and internal reviews in alignment with Purposeful’s grantmaking policies.

• Prepare grantee onboarding documentation, including grant agreements and orientation materials.

• Track submission of required onboarding documents (e.g., bank forms, MoUs, safeguarding policies).

• Monitor and keep track of the grants due for payment.

• Respond to grantee and applicant inquiries and proactively update them on the status of their grant awards.

2. Grant Compliance & Documentation

• Monitor compliance status of all active grants, flagging outstanding requirements and follow-up needs.

• Ensure that compliance-related deadlines (e.g. reporting dates, grant conditions) are met and documented.

• Maintain clean, well-organised, and accessible digital grant files, using existing tools or systems (e.g., Google Drive, Netsuite, Salesforce, etc.) to ease retrieval and generation of reports.

• Support internal checks to ensure that funds are disbursed in line with compliance protocols and funding agreements.

3. Finance Coordination

• Liaise with the finance team to prepare and verify payment documents, banking instructions, and payment schedules.

• Support alignment between grant budgets and payment disbursements.

• Track the movement of funds across grants, ensuring appropriate documentation is in place for each transaction.

4. Donor & Internal Reporting

• Assist in preparing compliance-related sections of donor reports and internal grantmaking summaries.

• Track reporting obligations by donor or partner, and ensure all documentation is collected and filed on time, including any relevant country-specific compliance requirements.

5. Audit & Policy Support

• Prepare documentation for internal and external audits, including sampling, document summaries, and data extractions.

• Assist in developing and maintaining internal tools (templates, checklists, trackers) related to grant compliance.

• Contribute to ongoing improvements in Purposeful’s compliance systems, bringing in lessons learned and audit feedback, and emerging regulatory or legal considerations relevant to our work.

Location: London
Department: Big Issue Frontline
Contract type: Permanent
Hours: 35
Salary: £36,000 per annum
 
Key support for our London and South East sales and outreach team.
 
As part of our constant push to deliver the best possible support to our vendors the Big Issue is looking to appoint to a Sales and Support Coordinator to the London and South East team. The essence of this role is to allow the support team to work more effectively and more efficiently across the region so they can provide better support to our vendors.
 
You will work to understand and improve best practices, develop processes, guidance frameworks and support programmes. You will also provide administrative support with the sales and support process and give excellent customer service to members of the public, vendors and third party agencies.
 
A key offering direct to vendors will be to help them in maximising sales by planning, identifying and delivering new opportunities to sell the magazine.
 
Therefore to offer our vendors and our support team the best possible support you will have experience and knowledge of working with vulnerable adults in a frontline setting, strong team-working skills, experience of working in either the social enterprise sector or comparable with a focus on monitoring, evaluation and learning and experience of working with and managing a data CRM (preferably Salesforce) based platform.
 
Full details of the role including key responsibilities and required skills and experience are available in the Job Description.
 
In April 2023, the Big Issue Group launched a community interest company, Big Issue Changing Lives, to support more people affected by poverty and increase the impact of our services. Big Issue Changing Lives C.I.C. provides vendors with the end-to-end support they need including sales set up and support, access to health and wellbeing services, and employment opportunities.
 
Salary and Benefits offered:

• Salary of £36,000 per annum
• Incremental holiday entitlement starting at 25 days per year plus bank holidays (pro-rata for part time staff) plus paid leave to care for a sick child or grandchild and a sick or elderly relation
• Company Sick Pay
• Enhanced contribution to our workplace pension
• Enhanced maternity pay
• Training and development opportunities including an open learning library and management training schemes
• Health benefits include life cover, a health cash plan scheme which provides access to counselling and a range of therapies
• Blue Light Card benefits scheme

Please note that we reserve the right to review and amend our staff benefits and they do not form part of any contract of employment
 
Workplace details:
 
The role is centrally based at our head Office at Finsbury Park, London. There may be the need to visit other areas of the region if required and to support logistical distribution of the magazine, therefore the ability and willingness to drive a company vehicle is desirable.
 
Closing date - 04th August 2025 (23:59pm). We may interview before the role closes so please apply asap.
 
Since 1991, The Big Issue has fought poverty by creating opportunities and supporting people to take control of their lives. Over time our organisation has grown and now The Big Issue Group consists of The Big Issue Company Ltd and Big Issue Invest Ltd (our social investment arm) and Big Issue Changing Lives Community Interest Company.
 
REF-222907

Who we are

ARTICLE 19 is an international “think–do” organisation that propels the freedom of expression movement locally and globally to ensure all people realise the power of their voices. Together with our partners, we:
• THINK: We develop cutting-edge research and legal and policy analysis to drive change worldwide.
• DO: We lead work on the frontlines of expression through our 9 regional hubs across the globe.
• PROPEL: We propel change by sparking innovation in the global freedom of expression movement.

We carry out our mission by working on many themes such as promoting media independence; increasing access to information; protecting journalists; expanding civic space; and placing human rights at the heart of developing digital spaces.

For over 35 years, ARTICLE 19 has worked for a world where all people everywhere can freely express themselves and actively engage in public life without fear of discrimination. We do this by combining research, campaigning, and cutting-edge legal analysis.

Explore our impact since 1987

Your contribution to the team
You will support all financial aspects of budgeting, reporting, compliance and financial management of grants managed by ARTICLE 19, including all finance-related work with grant-receiving partners. The role is a key part of improving our programme delivery by supporting grant budget holders.

What you can expect in a typical day

• To support production of financial reports in compliance with donor and internal ARTICLE 19 requirements for a portfolio of projects managed by ARTICLE 19.
• To generate and review transactional reports and follow through as necessary with corrections and adjustments.
• To receive, process and account for expenditure by grant partners, including reviewing supporting documentation.
• To produce reforecasts where required by the donor, with input from grant budget holders.
• To work in conjunction with the fundraising and relevant project team during proposal development. Provide support on budgeting, ensuring budget is in alignment with the proposal, is realistic and provides ARTICLE 19 with favourable terms. Provide guidance on finance donor compliance that will inform the proposal and budget development.
• Ensure that proposals comply with ARTICLE 19’s internal policies, in particular full cost recovery principles and policies.
• To support compliance of grants with ARTICLE 19 financial policies where appropriate, e.g. anti-bribery and corruption, both internally and compliance by our partners, raising any concerns with the Grant Finance Manager.
• To monitor grant cash flow and ensure payment requests are made and processed in the finance system in timely manner to the donor.
• To review grant cash requests from Regional Offices.
• To business partner International Office teams who are majority grant funded. This includes producing monthly management accounts; supporting budget holders to prepare annual budget and coordinate responses to the budget holder.
• To consider how improvements can be made to procedures for processing transactions, reporting and any other issues which would contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of ARTICLE 19’s finance function.
• Support the finance team in any audit process, including internal, statutory and donor audits.

What you will bring to the role

Knowledge and Skills
• Qualified accountant with a CCAB recognised qualification (if UK based), or HBO or HBO + work and thinking level with a degree in Accounting (Registered Accountant, RA (Financial), Management, Business Administration, Controlling (if based in The Netherlands) or working towards qualification, or qualified through relevant work experience.
• Understanding of accounting for restricted income and expenditure in line with international nonprofit financial reporting standards and donor requirements.
• Understanding of double entry and how to make corrections and adjustments in accounting systems.
• Excellent Excel skills, including vlookups, sumifs and ability to self-learn in this area.
• Ability to work quickly, methodically with close attention to detail.
• Experience in partner due diligence and partner finance management, including reviewing financial capacity, assessing financial risk, and supporting partners to strengthen financial systems and compliance.
• Good inter-personal skills including experience of working cross-culturally, across different time zones and with people from different cultural and professional backgrounds.
• Ability to work to tight deadlines and in high pressure situations whilst maintaining a calm and positive attitude.
• Ability to negotiate but understanding where the ‘red lines’ are and to gain compliance with them through dialogue.
• Awareness of digital security issues and ability to communicate through secure means of communications.
• Fluency in written and spoken English, and Dutch (if based in The Netherlands). 

Experience
• Experience in restricted grant reporting, ideally in an international development
context.
• Experience of business partnering in a complex environment.
• Experience in producing grant budgets in compliance with donor requirements, and that
recover overhead and central costs.
• Experience of working with overseas partners and offices, understanding different
cultural and regulatory environments.
• Understanding of compliance, external and internal audit process and internal controls.

Other
• Right to work in your preferred location required. ARTICLE 19 is not able to support a visa or relocation for this position.
• Knowledge and/or experience of working for a human rights organisation will be an advantage.
• Commitment to work with our vision, mission, core values and objectives.
• This role may be required to travel to regions where we operate

DESIRABLE
• Excellent written and spoken one other ARTICLE 19 language (Arabic, French, Spanish and Portuguese)
• Experience supporting teams working with vulnerable individuals and appreciation of specific security risks associated with financial information and transactions.
• Experience of reporting to institutional donors such as the EC and/ or US donors.

Our Reward Package
• Salaries are determined by our salary scale.
• We offer comprehensive benefits including a range of well-being plans; generous paid leave and public holidays; family friendly policies; an attractive leave policy; and wellness days.

Our commitment as an equal opportunities’ employer
Our mission is to welcome everyone and create inclusive teams. We celebrate individuality and encourage you to join us and be your authentic self at work with the freedom to have responsibility, autonomy, and creativity within your role.

Our Culture and our Values
We are a people centred and flexible employer, friendly and a passionate global organisation who live and breathe the same mission and values. We strive to be agile and work collaboratively and are committed to DEIB and staff wellbeing.

Like many organisations we inspire towards what we call core values. Here is a summary of what we expect from ourselves.

Integrity:
• We hold ourselves to the high standard we set for others.
• We are coherent on matters of law and policy wherever we work in the world.
• We value visibility, objectivity and the accuracy of our work.

Transparency:
• We know good information can enable powerful action.
• We are clear, open and honest in our dealings with each other and the outside world.

Collaboration:
• Our network of supporters and partners is the lifeblood of our organisation.
• We seek to build productive and inspiring relationships based on the trust our partners, supporters and donors place in us.

Diversity:
• We respect each other and we listen to each other.
• We actively defend those whose voices are marginalised.

Accountability:
• We say what we mean and we do what we say, speaking with once voice wherever possible.
• We work hard to make sure our learning and reporting is the best it can be.

Tenacity:
• We never give up
• We are tenacious and will find every possible avenue to seek changes in law and practice to secure the freedoms associated with our mission.

Innovation:
• We are proud of our expertise and are always ready to share what we know.
• We seek to explore the boundaries of our field for benefits of the freedom we protect