Senior innovation consultant jobs in kings heath, west midlands

This is a unique opportunity for an experienced leader to help diversify the environmental sector by scaling a Black-led nature organisation to be able to demonstrate leadership on a national scale and promote and serve the interests and needs of ethnically marginalized communities in accessing nature.

Our Ambition
We’re on an exciting journey of growth. Our vision is to become a nationally recognised, well-resourced Black institution for learning about and caring for nature.

We aim to:

• Be the go-to resource for people of colour learning about the natural world and accessing outdoor spaces with confidence.
• Be the go-to resource for mainstream environmental organisations seeking to understand Black and Brown perspectives on nature.
• Strengthen networks and community among POC-led nature organisations across the UK.

Our operating income for 2025-2026 is £230,000. Our ambition is to generate an income of over £1 million by 2027-2028, growing to a 15+ staff team.

How the COO will support our vision

The role of Chief Operating Officer is central to helping us achieve our ambitions, ensuring that Wild in the City has the resources, infrastructure and working environment to achieve its annual plans, long term aims and deliver high-quality programmes.

We are not expecting the COO to implement the key areas of operations alone, we will work together to prioritise and generate the resources to build a team to cover the functionality required for steady growth. We are also motivated to ensure that the role’s salary is reviewed to meet market expectations as the role grows, dependent on funding.

This role needs an exceptional candidate who enjoys making a role their own, who is motivated by turning strategy into impactful action and who finds fulfilment in supporting others to achieve.

The COO will ensure that;

• We secure ongoing, long term financial resources, creating stability and underpinning growth, and scaling into operations in multiple regions, nationally
• We grow our staffing to provide a steady infrastructure and achieve our strategic objectives, including creating operations, fundraising, communications and research teams, and increasing our field team.
• We retain our relational, open, authentic, personable, dynamic, collaborative, innovative culture as we grow.

Who We're Looking For

We are looking for a dynamic and dependable Chief Operating Officer (COO) to help realise our vision.

We’re seeking an emotionally intelligent, commercially competent, and values-driven leader who can bring clarity, stability, and energy in a fast-paced and mission-led environment. You will thrive in turning strategy into action and impact, and in driving Wild in the City forward in scaling our delivery and leadership on a national scale.

You will bring:

• Proven experience in operational and strategic leadership
• Strong financial and commercial acumen, including income generation, budgeting, and long-term planning
• A successful track record of managing people, partnerships, and multi-disciplinary teams
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills across staff, volunteers, partners, and board members
• Emotional resilience, sound judgement, and a calm, authentic presence
• A genuine connection to our mission and values

We welcome people from all backgrounds to fulfill the role of COO. We are mindful of the lack of diversity within senior leadership in the environmental field and encourage those from Global Majority backgrounds to apply.

Why Join Us?
This is an exciting time to join Wild in the City, we hope that you will make an application. As COO, you’ll play a central role in shaping the next chapter of our development - growing our influence, supporting Black leadership in nature, and helping transform access to the natural world for communities of colour.

About the role

Working in close collaboration with the Senior Mass Fundraising Lead, the role will manage and deliver a variety of community-led fundraising initiatives and dynamic challenge events that engage supporters and generate vital unrestricted funds for children affected by neuroblastoma.

The role focuses on building strong relationships with fundraisers, volunteers and ambassadors, providing guidance, support and motivation to help them surpass their fundraising goals. The Community and Challenge Events Fundraising Manager will both steward existing and reactive contacts, as well as be confident in securing new networks, including representing the charity in presentations and other public speaking opportunities.

This role comes at an exciting time of growth in the fundraising team, with new colleagues joining the charity and a team focused on growth of income over the coming years. This role is crucial in this plan and will take the existing community and events programme to new heights.

Who we are looking for

Person specification:

• Demonstrable experience working in challenge events and/or community fundraising
• A proven track record of being results-driven and working to and achieving fundraising targets
• Significant experience of developing and delivering fundraising plans
• Experience of supporter/donor stewardship activities
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Good interpersonal skills with the ability to network and build new and existing relationships

See our Recruitment Pack for the full role description and specification and for more information about Solving Kids' Cancer UK.

Benefits of working with SKC include:

• Home-based and informal flexible working.
• 5% employer pension scheme contribution.
• 32 days holiday, including bank holidays, with the opportunity to buy additional leave.
• Access to 24/7 confidential helplines for counselling and legal and tax advice.
• Well-being check-ins with manager and optional Well-being Action Plan.
• Regular opportunities to meet in person as departments and the full team.
• Training opportunities – we care about our staff and volunteers, and encourage opportunities for professional development.
• A child-centred charity with a passionate and dedicated team.
• Regular staff survey for the opportunity to provide feedback experiences and make suggestions.

Location: Home-based within England with regular travel to London and elsewhere in the UK as required

Interviews: Friday 4 July 2025

As a safeguarding charity whose work and practice are underpinned by safeguarding principles to protect children and young people and enhance their welfare, we always work in accordance with legislation, statutory guidance, and best safeguarding practices. All our roles require a basic criminal record check.

The Rainy Day Trust is seeking a Chief Executive Officer to lead our small but mighty charity as we enter an exciting new strategic planning cycle. If you’re an enthusiastic, dynamic leader ready to roll up your sleeves and drive real change for those who’ve worked in the home-improvement sector, this is your opportunity to steer an 182-year-old charity into its next decade.

About Us
The Rainy Day Trust provides practical, financial and emotional support to people who work - or have worked - in the home-improvement and enhancement industries (builders’ merchants, DIY, garden centres, tradespeople and related sectors). We deliver grants, debt relief, apprenticeship funding, fuel-poverty assistance, legal advice, counselling and e-learning, partnering with industry peers to tackle poverty through both direct intervention and prevention. We pride ourselves on punching above our weight to ensure every beneficiary lives with dignity.

The Role
As CEO, you will work in partnership with the Board to finalise and own our new five-year business plan, ensuring its successful delivery. You’ll combine strategic vision with hands-on leadership. overseeing service delivery, fundraising, financial stewardship and regulatory compliance, while modelling our core values of transparency, fairness, energy, inclusivity and compassion.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership: Co-create, implement and evaluate the new five-year strategy, business plan and budgets.
• Operational Management: Lead a small core team and manage partner relationships (e.g. Maximus for casework). Ensure high-quality, cost-effective service delivery and robust risk controls.
• Income Generation: Devise and deliver a diversified fundraising strategy (corporate partnerships, events, digital campaigns) to secure financial stability in a demanding climate.
• Governance & Compliance: Act as Nominated Individual to the Charity Commission; support the Board in trustee recruitment, training and governance best practice.
• External Relations: Serve as chief spokesperson; build and sustain partnerships across the home-improvement sector to raise awareness and influence.
• Culture & Values: Foster an organisational culture of learning, innovation, professionalism and integrity that reflects our values at every level.

Key Details

• Job Title: Chief Executive Officer
• Salary: circa £70,000 per annum
• Contract: Permanent, full-time (evenings and occasional weekends; UK travel required)
• Location: Head office in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, with travel across the UK

Person Specification

Essential

• Graduate or equivalent vocational qualification.
• At least 10 years’ senior-management experience in a comparable organisation (charity, social enterprise or commercial).
• Proven track record of income generation across varied channels.
• Experience of strategic planning, budget management and regulatory compliance (Charity Commission, SORP).
• Strong leadership skills: able to inspire small teams and foster collaborative partnerships.
• Excellent communicator, both orally and in writing; adept at presenting complex issues succinctly.
• Financially literate: able to interpret spreadsheets, set forecasts and manage risk.

Desirable

• Experience in the home-improvement, construction or retail sectors.
• Familiarity with mental-health or preventative-welfare work.
• Background in formal collaborations/joint ventures.

Attributes

• Values-driven, demonstrating integrity, empathy and inclusivity.
• Strategic thinker with a results-oriented, commercial mindset.
• Resilient under pressure, well organised and adaptable to changing priorities.
• Curious and innovative: open to new ideas and continuous learning.

If you would like to receive an Information Pack for this role with details on how to apply, please send an expression of interest and (optional but appreciated) a CV or professional profile in confidence to our consultant, Jenny Hills via the apply button. For an informal and confidential conversation about this position, please contact Jenny at the above address with suitable times to speak.

Closing date for applications: 9am, Monday 30th June 2025

As leading charity recruitment specialists and a certified B Corp, Harris Hill is committed to high and ever-improving standards of equitable and inclusive recruitment. We actively welcome applications from all sections of the community regardless of age, disability, gender, race, religion, sexuality and other protected characteristics.

Warm Welcome Partnerships Manager

Location: Fully remote with flexible working arrangements

Salary: £38,584 per year FTE, dependent on experience

Contract: We are open to this role being part time (0.8FTE) or full time. We offer fully flexible working.

Closing date for applications: Sunday 6th July, 11:59pm

Due to high numbers of applications, prior to interview we plan to carry out initial screening calls with prospective candidates before selection for interview. We will be asking about your reasons for applying and how you think your skills and experiences align to the role.

First interviews: w/c 21st July 2025

Start Date: ASAP – this is a new post.

About the Warm Welcome Campaign

Founded in 2022, the Warm Welcome Campaign wants everyone in the UK to find a place of belonging and reconnection at a Warm Welcome Space near their home. We have a bold ambition to enable a more deeply connected society where we all have free access to welcoming community spaces. 

We resource, connect and champion a network of over 5300 Warm Welcome Spaces and bring together a growing coalition of local, regional, and national partners representing the worlds of charity, faith, business, government, and philanthropy. By working together, we can unlock the power of community spaces made by and for everyone, creating a thriving network of hope and reconnection fueled by human warmth. 

We’re working hard to reach everyone with the message that a Warm Welcome is waiting for them just around the corner, all through the year.

Throughout all our work and within our team we live out our values of being inclusive, collaborative and courageous and our personality that is friendly, adventurous and uplifting.

It’s an important moment for us – in the last year we have launched a new five year strategy which shows a clear picture of the path we have set ourselves ahead to continue to deliver and deepen our impact. In October 2024 we launched our 100% Pledge Campaign. and in January delivered a hugely successful first ever Warm Welcome Week in collaboration with a wide variety of partners.

The Opportunity

This is an exciting opportunity for an ambitious and proactive individual to work within a small (but growing), friendly and dynamic team in a varied role. If you are brilliant at engaging and mobilising a wide variety of organisations and individuals, and passionate for your input to shape work that makes a genuine difference to people’s lives, this could be the role for you.

To support the range and depth of partnerships we have and the potential we see, we are looking for a Partnerships Manager to work primarily on building partnerships with Local Authorities and public sector organisations, charities and social enterprises, faith-based and inclusion-focused organisations and other groups who might help us strategically grow and resource the Warm Welcome network across the UK (NB Corporate Partnerships are managed by our newly appointed Fundraising Lead for Corporates). The Partnerships Manager will also help develop our support for Warm Welcome Spaces, including overseeing our Champions Programme which offers more intense support and a Community of Practice to a smaller cohort of local groups. 

We’re looking for someone who thrives on the variety of connecting with a huge range of people and who is organised and systematic while at the same time has room for creativity and innovation.

Joining during an exciting period of growth, you will be inheriting a hugely diverse and highly engaged coalition of Warm Welcome Partners who have supported the campaign and local Spaces over the last 2 and a half years. At the same time, there remains a huge untapped potential in terms of possible partners and relationships to be developed and you will be working together with the Campaign Director and team to strategically identify and develop these new connections.

At Warm Welcome, we value diversity and we recognise the enormous benefits and the social imperative of bringing together diverse groups of people. We therefore warmly welcome applications from a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.

Responsibilities

Building Partnerships

● Developing our Partnership Strategy to identify and engage the best potential partners to help us grow the network and reach our ambition of 100% of the population living within a 30-minute walk of a registered Warm Welcome Space. This will involve identifying and engaging partners in geographical ‘cold spots’ for the network (utilising our mapping tool developed with UCL), as well as forming partnerships to unlock new or under-represented types of Warm Welcome Spaces (e.g. Housing Association Community Spaces, cinemas, community spaces created by new housing developments etc).

● Leading the development of our Local Co-ordinators Cluster which brings together Local Authorities and others who are leading place-based networks of community spaces.

● Overseeing and developing the Champions Programme, providing more intensive support and connections to a smaller cohort of Warm Welcome Spaces.

Engagement and Inclusion

● Developing our Inclusion Strategy to identify and engage the best potential partners to diversify our Coalition and support local Spaces to become more accessible and inclusive.

● Working with the team to develop regular engagement activities for Warm Welcome Partners.

● Producing compelling communications (written and verbal) to promote the work of the Warm Welcome Campaign and grow the depth and breadth of partnerships - to include but not limited to partnership proposals, pitches and reports.

Good Practices, Standards and Systems

● Supporting, maintaining and developing existing partnerships and manage the systems (including CRM use) needed for excellent partnerships delivery, stewardship and development.

● Leading Warm Welcome Space good practice and driving up quality standards across the network, including through developing a Warm Welcome Awards programme.

● Promoting good practice in volunteering and supporting Spaces to maximise and grow volunteering opportunities.

● Working with the team and, using our new CRM, track, measure and analyse our partnerships delivery.

● Supporting the delivery of other Warm Welcome efforts, as appropriate

Reporting to the Campaign Operations Director, you will work closely with them and other Senior Directors to grow the range and impact of Warm Welcome partnerships. The role will also work closely with the Communications team and with our two Warm Welcome Co-ordinators who deliver our Champions programme and provide a direct link between the campaign and Warm Welcome Spaces.

Person specification

Building Partnerships

● Successful experience of securing, maintaining and developing highly impactful partnerships for charitable benefit with a wide range of different types of organisations.  

● Experience of writing, creating inspiring and successful pitches, proposals and assets and verbal presentations.

● Experience of developing and delivering partnership-related strategies.

● Clear understanding of organisational motivations and dynamics related to partnerships and collaboration.

● Ability to network, finding and grabbing opportunities to make new connections and deepen existing ones.

Engagement and Inclusion

● Experience of developing impactful partnerships focused on inclusion.

● Ability to communicate across a range of mediums, to a range of audiences.

Good Practices, Standards and Systems

● A strong team player who is flexible, positive and responds with strong influencing and negotiation skills and a commitment to the organisation and team working.

● Understanding the value of accurate record keeping and the ability to create high functioning, accessible systems for the whole team’s use.

● Highly organised with ability to prioritise work to ensure deadlines are met and opportunities are maximised.

● Competent with Google Suite and Microsoft Office.

● Able to use a CRM for pipelines, relationship development, reporting and evaluation.

Working Arrangements

● Current members of the team are based across the UK, with some in London, Reading, Bristol, Manchester and Northern Ireland. Applicants must be able to travel to Bristol once a month for a Tuesday full team meeting. Given the nature of this role we would also expect the applicant to carry out a reasonable amount of travel to both Warm Welcome Spaces and partners across the UK.

● This role is fully remote, with flexible working arrangements.

● All employees, volunteers, partners, suppliers and consultants working with GFP are expected to adhere to our Code of Conduct and safeguarding policies. GFP’s commitment to safeguarding means we seek to ensure that no harm comes to people as a result of contact with the organisation’s programmes, operations or people.

● You will need to have the right to work in the UK.

Supporting your Application

● We’d be very happy to answer any specific questions relating to this role - please email us with ‘Query for Partnerships Manager role’ in the email subject line and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

● We are happy to discuss and make any reasonable adjustments you might need at any stage of the recruitment process.

● To apply, send a cover letter (max 1 side of A4) which specifically addresses the requirements listed in the person specification, along with a CV, as we will use this to shortlist applications. Email these  with ‘Application for Warm Welcome Partnerships Manager role’. Applications must be received by Sunday 6th July, 11:59pm.

● For more information, see our webite or find us on twitter at @goodfaith

The Good Faith Partnership – The Warm Welcome Campaign’s host Organisation

The Warm Welcome Campaign was incubated by and is hosted by the Good Faith Partnership. Founded in 2016, we create solutions to society’s most difficult problems by bringing together leaders and organisations from different sectors. Our clients are diverse and complex, from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to faith-based organisations, businesses, charities and funders. We connect businesses, governments, charities, philanthropists, foundations and communities to make lasting change - from incubating projects like the Warm Welcome Campaign, helping support the Home Office’s Homes for Ukraine Scheme or co-ordinating public affairs for the Patriarch of Jerusalem in the UK, US and EU.

We are relational, ambitious, curious and solution-focused. At our core, we believe in the power of strong, unlikely relationships, to drive positive social change.

Competencies and Behaviours in our Team

The core competence of everyone in our team is the ability to build trusted relationships among people with diverse perspectives and backgrounds.

We are looking for people who are:

●  Exceptional with people and committed to the power of relationships to facilitate social change

●  Collaborative, ambitious and inclusive, aligning with our core values

●  Self-starters with high levels of commitment, energy and motivation to build a vision from scratch

●  Curious and show initiative, with problem-solving skills and an ability to learn quickly and adapt to a rapidly changing context

●  Skilled at working in a complex environment with cross cultural, interfaith and political partners

●  Willing to pitch in to help other team members if needed

●  Organised with effective time management skills.