Social enterprise coordinator jobs in Newcastle

Social entrepreneurs scaling their ventures face a specific set of challenges including income generation, hiring, governance, hard calls about growth and risk, all alongside scaling their social impact. We’re recruiting learning and enterprise development managers who’ve lived that journey themselves, to bring first-hand credibility and challenge directly to the entrepreneurs on our scale-up and scale-up-plus programmes.

You’ll hold ownership of SSE’s scale-up approach, shaping our learning content on strategy, profitability and the systems that hold a growing venture together – grounded in what actually works, not just what’s written down. Facilitation sits at the heart of this role. You’ll design and deliver learning programmes and group sessions for cohorts of entrepreneurs as well as leading 1-2-1 coaching and diagnostics, and delivering Action Learning Sets, SSE’s long-standing peer-coaching method (training provided).

We’re looking for people who’ve founded or led a VCSE with an annual turnover of £100,000 or more and held financial accountability such as statutory reporting to the Charity Commission and, where relevant, Companies House, reporting to a board or funders, and making hard calls about growth, income and risk.

You’ll succeed in this role if you believe in what social entrepreneurship can achieve and want to turn your experience into supporting social ventures to scale and create more impact in their communities and beyond

The School for Social Entrepreneurs backs people with purpose — entrepreneurs building organisations that change their communities. We're looking for a National Partnerships Lead to work directly with our CEO, driving high-priority national funding partnerships, diversifying our income, and building the relationships that fund our impact. 

You'll identify major funding opportunities, negotiate with trusts, corporates and government partners, and lead complex proposals from first conversation through to a signed agreement — including the budgets, risk assessments and value propositions behind them. You'll also act as a sounding board for the CEO, pressure-testing ideas and sharpening how we tell our story to funders. 

We're looking for sustained experience supporting a CEO or senior leader, a track record of leading multi-million pound funding initiatives end-to-end, and the versatile writing skills to move between board papers and detailed funder tenders without losing accuracy under pressure. Sharp budgeting and numeracy matter for this role, alongside real comfort building trust with senior external stakeholders. 

This position is for someone who thrives on ambiguity, enjoys solving complex problems, and wants their work to directly fund entrepreneurs changing their communities. 

We can’t fix issues like poverty, inequality, health and climate change alone. We are fully conscious of the scale of the challenge that faces the country and the urgent need to respond. That’s why the School for Social Entrepreneurs exists, to empower and equip people with entrepreneurial ideas and solutions to grow the social economy. The social economy is a movement of organisations and enterprises that prioritise people and planet. Together, we are committed to tackling the greatest social and environmental challenges of our time.This is a new and exciting role at a significant time of growth for the School for Social Entrepreneurs. In the coming year. we are developing new programmes, working with leaders who are developing small community led social and environmental projects as well as leading larger charities and social businesses developing social investment and housing solutions.

We’re not a traditional funder. Our grants tend to be small, but they punch above their weight, helping social and environmental entrepreneurs take the next step to grow their organisations. Our grants run alongside learning programmes, challenging and supporting leaders. We’re innovative in how we do this, through both traditional and enterprise grants. We lead on Match Trading™, a grant that challenges leaders to grow their trading income, and we are working on further grants innovations.

You will work with our Grants Team, Project Co-ordinators and Assessment Lead to develop and support grant management across a range of programmes. Your role will be to lead on specific programmes, including supporting assessment, onboarding and grant management. You will ensure that grantees are fully supported to manage their grants and ensure that grant management is compliant, auditable, efficient, and timely. You will support the development of grant policies and processes, writing grant paperwork and documentation, overseeing payments, and reporting to the wider Programmes Team and others about our work.

You don’t need to have managed grants before, but you do need to have a good understanding of a wide range enterprises and charities, gained through experience of training, business consultancy or development support. You will have a good understanding of business models, legal structures and financial systems that social and environmental organisations and community run and owned businesses may use. You will need to understand social enterprise finances, be able to read accounts, budgets, cashflows and have a good knowledge of social enterprise income streams.

We need someone who understands how hard it is to start up and grow social and environmental enterprises and can support people from diverse backgrounds in managing their grant, finances and growing their business.

Are you up for the challenge?

Interviews: Friday 18th and Friday 25th September (online)

Doing Good Recruitment is proud to be partnering with Cornerstone Place on the appointment of an Operations and Project Coordinator.

At Cornerstone Place, we are seeking an exceptional candidate to join our growing team at an exciting stage of our development. This is a rare opportunity to work directly alongside our Co-Founders, helping to build and scale a multi-award-winning social enterprise tackling one of the UK's most urgent social challenges: the shortage of genuinely affordable homes for people in the greatest housing need.

The role is offered on a permanent basis, with flexible remote working and occasional travel for partner meetings, site visits and sector events across England.

Who We Are

Cornerstone Place is a multi-award-winning social enterprise with a bold ambition to transform how social housing is delivered in the UK.

We exist because too many people lack access to safe, stable and affordable homes. Through our Impact First Social Housing® model, we create 100% social housing with 0% profit, ensuring homes and the long-term value they generate remain focused on social impact rather than financial extraction.

Working in partnership with local authorities, charities and asset-locked housing providers, we develop homes that are environmentally sustainable, designed for long-term community benefit and built to support the people who need them most.

As we enter our next phase of growth, we are looking for someone who wants to help build an organisation capable of creating lasting systemic change.

The Role

Working closely with both Co-Founders, the Operations and Project Coordinator will play a key and highly varied role across strategy, project development, partnerships, operations and organisational growth.

You will help progress new housing projects, support strategic partnerships, conduct research and analysis, contribute to thought leadership activity and assist in developing the systems and processes that enable Cornerstone Place to scale its impact.

This is not a traditional support role. It is an opportunity to become a key contributor within a small and entrepreneurial organisation, gaining first-hand experience of how a mission-led organisation is built while helping drive meaningful work forward.

Day-to-day, you might be researching a new housing opportunity, preparing briefing materials for local authority partners, supporting partnership development, analysing policy changes affecting the sector, attending meetings with stakeholders, or helping design and improve the internal systems and AI-enabled tools that support our work.

As your experience grows, you will be encouraged to take ownership of projects and workstreams, helping turn ideas into action and strategy into measurable impact.

We understand that the areas of focus are somewhat unique to Cornerstone Place and that finding someone with direct experience across all elements of the role is unlikely. As well as appropriate experience we will also be evaluating applicants based on a wider set of criteria. We are looking for someone with values aligned to ours, a demonstrable ability to learn and implement new skills, the right attitude and a desire to get behind our mission. Your supporting letter (see below) will be critical in this regard.

About You

You are intellectually curious, highly organised and motivated by the opportunity to tackle complex social challenges.

You enjoy moving between strategic thinking and practical execution, are comfortable working in environments where priorities evolve, and are proactive in identifying ways to create progress and solve problems.

We are particularly interested in people who demonstrate:

• Are motivated by creating meaningful social impact
• Enjoy learning quickly and adapt rapidly and apply new knowledge effectively.
• Can improve workflows and identify practical solutions.
• Can communicate clearly and effectively with a wide range of stakeholders.
• Use technology confidently to improve efficiency, insight and decision-making

You do not need previous experience in housing to be successful in this role. We are open to candidates from a wide range of professional, educational and personal backgrounds.

You may be an early-career professional seeking exceptional development opportunities, or someone looking to apply transferable skills to a role with meaningful social impact. What matters most is your potential, values and commitment to our mission.

Our Commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Cornerstone Place is committed to equitable and inclusive recruitment. We actively welcome applications from all sections of the community, regardless of age, disability, gender identity, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality or socio-economic background.

We believe diverse perspectives help create better solutions to complex social challenges and strengthen our ability to deliver meaningful impact.

We recognise that great candidates do not always meet every requirement listed in a job description. If this opportunity excites you and you believe you could contribute to our mission, we encourage you to apply.

How To Apply

We are partnering with Doing Good Recruitment on this campaign. Please click Apply to submit your up-to-date CV and a one page supporting letter following these guidelines.

In no more than one page, please outline why you would be keen to work at Cornerstone Place and what you could bring to the role. Where possible, please provide some examples across the following areas.

• Your motivation for creating meaningful social impact
• Enjoy learning quickly and adapt rapidly and apply new knowledge effectively.
• Improving workflows and identifying practical solutions.
• Communicating clearly and effectively with a wide range of stakeholders.
• Using technology confidently to improve efficiency, insight and decision-making

Using AI: We want to hear your authentic voice. If you use AI, it should only support clarity, flow, or correcting typos—not replace your own perspective. This is your opportunity to show your genuine motivation, passion, and real experiences