Supporter development executive jobs in Leeds

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE - OPERA NORTH

STRATEGIC FINANCIAL LEADERSHIP IN THE ARTS

Opera North, one of the UK's leading opera companies, is seeking an accomplished Director of Finance to provide strategic financial leadership and ensure robust financial management across the organisation.

Reporting to the General Director, you will lead the financial operations and governance framework of Opera North and its affiliated organisations, working closely with the Board of Trustees and Senior Leadership Team to devise sustainable financial strategies that deliver the company's artistic ambitions and strategic priorities. You’ll be taking over from a well-respected senior finance leader who is moving on after years of brilliant service, leaving a legacy to build upon and facilitating a substantial handover period.

This is a senior role requiring significant experience in complex financial and regulatory environments, with strong charity accounting knowledge highly desirable. You will lead a dedicated finance team while building productive partnerships with stakeholders across the organisation, external auditors, and professional advisers.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategic Leadership

• Lead financial operations and governance across Opera North, Opera North Trading Ltd, Opera North Future Fund and Friends of Opera North
• Contribute to company strategy across all business areas, providing financial analysis and guidance on activities, plans, targets and business drivers
• Work with the General Director and Board to develop sustainable and viable financial strategies

Financial Management & Reporting

• Provide budgets and financial modelling, offering robust challenges to planning processes where necessary
• Produce regular management accounts, annual income and expenditure budgets, improving their effectiveness as managerial tools
• Prepare information on capital expenditure, property management and reserves management to enable effective Board assessment
• Ensure timely and accurate compliance with requirements of Arts Council England, Charity Commission, Companies House and other external stakeholders

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead, manage and support the continuous professional development of the finance team
• Support the development of financial skills and awareness across budget-holders to achieve continuous improvement in financial planning, forecasting and budget management
• Develop procedures and policies to support the company's financial performance

Compliance & Governance

• Liaise with providers of professional services including auditors, tax advisers, insurers, lawyers and pension providers
• Work closely with the People Team to ensure efficient payroll and pension arrangements in line with legislative and HMRC requirements
• Maintain awareness of changes to leadership and governance legislation, communicating implications to non-finance colleagues
• Ensure an effective governance framework is in place

BENEFITS PACKAGE

• Competitive salary commensurate with experience
• 35 hours per week
• 33 days annual leave inclusive of 8 statutory holidays
• Pension scheme: Opera North contributes 5.5% of basic pay after 3 months' service (employee contribution 2.5%)
• Professional development opportunities
• Access to Opera North performances and cultural activities
• Based at the Howard Opera Centre, Leeds

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS

Qualifications & Professional Standing

• Full professional accounting qualification (ACA, ACCA, CIMA)
• Professional membership of recognised accountancy body

Experience

• Senior manager or director level experience
• Substantial professional experience in a complex financial and regulatory environment
• Preparing and presenting management accounts, reports and data at board level
• Liaising with auditors and other professional advisers
• Management of a payroll function
• Managing teams

Technical Knowledge

• Knowledge of relevant legislation affecting financial reporting and taxes
• Good knowledge of VAT and Gift Aid
• Strong Excel skills
• Comfort with different accounting software

Skills & Attributes

• Excellent communication skills with ability to explain complex financial information to stakeholders with varying levels of financial knowledge
• Ability and willingness to review and improve internal systems
• Commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion

HIGHLY DESIRABLE

• Knowledge and experience in charity accounting
• Understanding of charity law and guidance
• Knowledge and experience in preparing creative tax reliefs
• Professional experience of the arts sector

ABOUT OPERA NORTH

Opera North is one of the UK's most vibrant opera companies, creating extraordinary experiences for audiences across the North of England. The organisation values creativity, collaboration and cultural impact, operating with a strong commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.

EQUITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

Opera North promotes equity, diversity and inclusion in our workplace and makes recruitment decisions by matching our needs with the skills and experience of candidates. As we work to address underrepresentation in our workforce, we are particularly keen to hear from applicants from the global majority or those with other protected characteristics.

The successful candidate must have the right to work in the UK or be ready to obtain it.

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES

All Opera North employees are expected to:

• Represent company values and purpose to create extraordinary experiences every day
• Work collaboratively with all team members
• Act as an ambassador for Opera North, following all policies and procedures
• Ensure everyone visiting Opera North is welcomed and treated with respect

APPLICATION PROCESS

Broster Buchanan are acting as recruitment partner for this appointment.

To apply, please send your CV and covering letter to Lucy Rider at Broster Buchanan

Application deadline: 13th March 2026 Interviews: 25th & 26th March

For a confidential discussion about this opportunity, please contact Lucy Rider at Broster Buchanan.

If you require any adjustments to the application process, please let us know.

About Us 

The Good Ancestor Movement is a UK-based advisory and consultancy firm supporting individuals and organisations to redistribute wealth in ways that are reparative, regenerative and aligned with their deepest values. We work with wealth holders to challenge traditional models of accumulation and tax avoidance, and instead imagine futures where wealth actively contributes to social equity, economic justice, and ecological resilience.

We support clients to shift from extractive to regenerative practices, helping them translate their values into meaningful action through redistribution, reparations, and investment aligned with justice. 

Our programmes, like Reimagining Wealth, invite individuals to understand the wider impacts of their capital and take intentional steps toward responsible stewardship.

Good Ancestor Movement’s consultancy work includes strategy design, values-aligned redistribution planning, and building tools and systems that support collective accountability and transformative impact. We are committed to building a regenerative economy where wealth is mobilised in service of repair and liberation. 

Resource Mobilisation Team 

The Resource Mobilisation team at the Good Ancestor Movement helps liberate and steward financial flows in service of justice, reparation, and systemic change. The team works with wealth holders, funders, and movement partners to design values-aligned redistribution strategies, manage pooled funding vehicles, and co-create tools and practices that shift the culture of wealth. Our work includes grant and investment operations, grantee relationship support, community learning, and strategic resourcing design rooted in equity and care.

About Your Role

As a Resource Mobilisation Lead you will join our Resource Mobilisation team at Good Ancestor Movement in an exciting time for our organisation’s growth. You will be working closely with Kiki Mager, Director of Resource Mobilisation, although you will be working alongside our entire team and contribute to the organisation’s bold aims and ambitions within your role. 

After having run 5 cohorts of our political education journey Reimagining Wealth, we launched a trial community of practice for wealth holders collectivising them around a pledge to redistribute. This community of practice is called Catalytic Collective and includes a pooled resourcing vehicle, the Roots Fund, to which members commit funds which are then being redistributed through a participatory governance model, the Accountability Circle, led by movement leaders. We have just completed our first pilot year of this resourcing vehicle including the release of our first round of 3-year funding commitments. To ensure the ongoing feasibility of this vehicle we are looking for a passionate new team member to tend to the ongoing development and scaling of this work.

The Catalytic Collective, Accountability Circle and Roots Fund formed in response to findings of a research and report that we commissioned with Decolonising Economics into Resourcing the Solidarity Economy. This report is the bedrock for our emergent resourcing vehicle and wider organising of wealth holders around wealth redistribution and stewardship practices centred in collective liberation. It also informs our educational programmes, our consultancy offerings and Transformative Investment Practice development.

As our Resource Mobilisation Lead, you will primarily support the management and ongoing development of our resourcing vehicle with Catalytic Collective (CC), the Accountability Circle (AC), the Solidarity Partners (SP) receiving funds and our wider wealthholder community. Your roles here will include: 

• Liaison with our fiscal host Social Change Nest and ensuring processes and grantees (‘Solidarity Partners’) experiences are in alignment with our mission and intentions. 

• Relationship management and primary contact for Solidarity Partners 

• Leading the development and/or fine tuning of a grant management system (GMS) to improve oversight and streamline processes together with one of our movement partners and manage the GMS once implemented, particularly as the number of grants mobilised will increase.

• Supporting the AC with admin related tasks like the scheduling of meetings, direction on discussion points and the refinement of their own governance. 

• Administering CC agreements and resourcing commitments including confirming & signing funding agreements with CC members, sending out reminders about funding cycle renewal and exploring approaches to open up the resourcing pool for wider funders to contribute as a one-off without being a CC member.

• Notice, reflect on and feed into ongoing learning and development around the processes and systems in place and what might we need to consider to further improve these in alignment with our vision and mission. 

• Manage the process of mobilising resources from our wider wealth holder community and others to commit boldly.

• Support with story telling proposition and narrative pieces to support building momentum around the resourcing vehicle 

Alongside this workstream, you will also: 

• Steward our Capital Campaigns process to support ad hoc relational and strategic resource mobilisation opportunities meeting needs of aligned organisations in the new and regenerative economy space. 

• Contribute to ideation and creation of tools and practices that further activate and guide wealth holders and wealth advisors in their journeys towards just transition aligned redistribution and stewardship practices. 

About You

• You will care deeply about justice and the transition to a fairer economic system.

• Through your lived, academic and/or work experience you will deeply connect with the problems of the current system;

• You feel excited about contributing towards building life-affirming infrastructure for a young but growing social purpose organisation;

• You have the capacity to engage in self-reflection and a commitment to doing the work of embodying anti-oppressive practice;

• You can see yourself being comfortable communicating in a thoughtful and empathetic manner with a range of stakeholders across our community including: Movements, community groups and grassroots organisations; New Economy movement partners, wealth holders and wealth advisors; 

• You will not be tied to how things have always been done and will be excited to explore new and emerging concepts with a curious and open growth mindset.

• You have experience of (or are excited about) collaborating with or working in small emerging teams with ambitious goals and much experimentation;

• You are able to work independently to tight deadlines while working closely with colleagues, proactively communicating your needs and any changes to agreed timelines;

• You have experience of (developing and) administering funding or resourcing processes, are committed to critically reflecting on existing practices and you bring creativity and courage to implement change;

• You ideally have experience of managing CRM tools, digital community platforms such as Notion, Basecamp or Teachable, and developing and executing communications strategies;

We understand that the issues we work on disproportionately impact on low-income, marginalised and minoritised communities. We are an organisation led by a Black female founder and CEO and as an inclusive employer that values both lived experience and professional experience, we hope to be able to attract applicants from a range of backgrounds for this important role. You do not need to have a university degree for this role, nor is it essential for you to have experience in the new economy ecosystem: we care about your character, your experience and your ability to demonstrate leadership and practice personal growth. 

We’re recruiting an experienced, creative and hands-on communications specialist to work with Platform Places and Footwork over the next 10 months – to develop our bold narratives and inspiring content that help drive locally-led neighbourhood transformation.

• Target start date: 11th May 2026 
• Time input: 3 days per week (0.6 full-time equivalent), with flexibility for up to 4 days per week in certain busy periods, by mutual agreement
• Remuneration: £55,000-£61,500 per year (pro rata) depending on experience
• Flexible working: Work hours can be flexible as long as role objectives are met
• Location: Hybrid, remote or in-person (option to work from our London office). Monthly in-person team days in London, plus occasional trips to partners in Newcastle, Sheffield, Liverpool, Bristol and London and learning gatherings (expenses covered). 
• Contract type: PAYE employment contract. 10 months fixed term.
• Eligibility: Applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK.

About us

In 2025, Platform Places integrated with Footwork Trust, becoming what we call ‘civic partners’. Together we facilitate locally-led neighbourhood transformation – so people have the power to live affordably, sustainably and together. 

About Platform Places

Platform Places is a national cross-sector collaboration and not-for-profit social enterprise with a mission to unlock town centre buildings for amazing ideas that help us live affordably, sustainably and together. We convene councils, community leaders and asset owners around the country to build powerful partnerships, to unlock buildings for local benefit. We support these Partnerships with access to funding, technical expertise and networks.

Our deeper intention is to localise and democratise who owns, controls and transforms town centre and neighbourhood buildings, so that communities can:

• design spaces to meet local needs – whether affordable space for arts, music, healthcare, local food, housing, nature connection, reuse & repair, childcare etc
• retain and reinvest the wealth generated by these buildings.

We’re inspired by pioneers like Hastings Commons, Stour Trust, SAFE Regen, Civic Square, Nudge Community Builders, Makespace Oxford and other members of the Mycelial Network.

About Footwork Trust 

Footwork (UK charity Footwork Trust) supports local people to transform their neighbourhoods for the better and builds alliances to make this possible.

Since 2022, Footwork’s ‘People and Place’ programme has supported over 50 community innovators to turn their bold ideas into lasting positive change, in response to a local social or environmental challenge. Often reviving land and buildings for community use, they are part of a growing force for fairer, locally-led regeneration, making the places they call home more resilient and equitable. 

Through national and local events, Footwork creates spaces for peer support and shared learning, showcases inspiring examples, and convenes built environment practitioners to enable true collaboration with community partners. 

Together, Footwork and Platform Places co-facilitate the Mycelial Network for Community Asset Developers.

About the Local Property Partnerships pilot, 2024-2027

Thanks to National Lottery players, Platform Places and partners have received almost £2.5 million over three years from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. The funding is being used to enable communities to come together and secure long-term spaces for the activities and services that they need the most.

This fund and programme resources local leaders in neighbourhoods in Newcastle, Sheffield, Liverpool City Region, Bristol and London – working towards shifting multiple buildings into long-term local ownership. We’re also supported by our national partner organisations Architectural Heritage Fund, Power to Change and Social Investment Business. Our intention is that this work will lay the groundwork for a larger follow-on funding programme, which catalyses England-wide adoption of this approach.

The role

We’re looking for an experienced, creative and hands-on communications specialist to join our small team and network of local and national partners.

The Communications Lead will focus on our key programmes, with the below time distribution. The challenge and opportunity is to hit the ground running and drive communications across our key channels – to help attract allies, funding and support, and inspire replication of these approaches in neighbourhoods around England.

2 days per week, ‘Local Property Partnerships’: 

• You’ll lead on promoting, and sharing learnings from, Platform Places’ exciting pilot programme (funded by National Lottery Community Fund) – which is localising and democratising who owns, controls and transforms town centre buildings in five neighbourhoods across England. 

0.75 days per week, ‘People and Place’: 

• You’ll promote, and share learnings from, Footwork Trust’s ‘People and Place’ programme – which supports community innovators to turn their bold ideas into lasting positive change for their place. 

0.25 days per week, Wider movement building: 

• You’ll work on ad hoc broader communications opportunities that support our mission and the programmes – for example, creating a content piece with local or national partners from our wider network, or pitching a media story that cuts across all our programmes.

This involves the following areas of responsibility: 

1. Build on our working communications strategy
2. Work with co-directors to develop our bold, inspiring core messaging, and update our boilerplate narratives
3. Manage digital channels for Platform Places and Footwork: a) plan and create regular social media content; b) write newsletters (approx. quarterly); c) upload and edit website content, on Squarespace (drag-and-drop editor) and occasionally Wix (guidance available).
4. Strategic media relations: build journalist relationships and pitch stories (local or national), op-eds and comments
5. Work with local and national partners to share inspiring and compelling stories
6. Develop practical how-tos and templates, together with partners (you'll have support initiating partner relationships)
7. Provide comms guidance to local programme partners
8. Support co-directors and partners with speaking engagements and event opportunities

You’ll start from a strong foundation of communications activities, along with our established tone, visual identity and branded templates – with lots of freedom for new ideas. 

About you

• You’re as comfortable with creative storytelling as you are with practical resources
• You’re a campaigner for systems change – experienced in attracting allies and creating communications for diverse audiences
• You make it sing – you turn dense or complicated materials into clear and effective narratives to shift opinion and action
• You’re a collaborator – you can effectively hold relationships with local and national partners to plan and deliver coordinated communications 
• You can ‘wear all the hats’: you get stuck in on strategy and roll up your sleeves on delivery; you know when to pitch to media and when the tactic is digital; you can knock up great copy or quick Canva graphics without aiming for perfection
• You’re efficient and resourceful, comfortable leading on comms in a small (and collaborative) team, and know how to make things happen on a small budget (and when to seek external specialists)
• You’re passionate about community-led places and social and environmental justice – and you’re knowledgeable about at least one of: high streets, property, retrofit, community business, heritage buildings, cultural venues, town planning, neighbourhood governance

We know you likely have a particular comms specialism, with more strengths and experience in some areas than others. We’d love to hear about this, and about your approach to getting stuck into the rest. 

Our team & culture 

You’ll be joining our small, agile team of six people across Platform Places and Footwork. We meet in-person on a monthly basis to have lunch together and plan ahead, and have weekly online huddles to check-in and discuss priorities.

We work flexibly around our needs, whether a caring responsibility or otherwise.

Our culture is driven by our values: generous sharing, diverse perspectives, active listening and curiosity, staying networked and joy.

This is a senior, hands-on delivery role at the heart of our ambition. We are looking for someone who is results-oriented, able to think strategically, and translate ideas at pace into high-quality, impactful delivery. You will turn strategy into action, coordinate complex activity across partners, and ensure programmes deliver tangible outcomes.

Strategic Project Delivery Manager

Salary: c. £55,000
Contract: 12-month fixed term
Hours: 36.5 hours per week (part-time considered)
Location: Remote (UK-based), with occasional travel (mainly London)
Reports to: COO
Right to work in the UK required

About FutureDotNow

FutureDotNow is a charity uniting business to close the UK workforce’s essential digital skills gap. We are the leading authority on workforce essential digital skills, with over 230 organisations signed up to the Workforce Digital Skills Charter and direct reach to more than 2 million people. Yet over 22 million working-age adults still lack at least some digital basics. Closing that gap requires coordinated, high-quality delivery at scale.

FutureDotNow is bringing focus to the digital upskilling needs of working age adults, raising awareness and bringing specificity to the action required whatever sector or role people might work in.We work with business and government to surface and solve systemic issues and provide scalable solutions every organisation can use. 

Why this role matters

FutureDotNow is entering a new phase of growth and delivery. Our priorities are to engage more businesses and provide practical tools and solutions that help organisations take action on workforce digital skills.

This is a senior, hands-on delivery role at the heart of that ambition. We are looking for someone who is results-oriented, able to think strategically, and translate ideas at pace into high-quality, impactful delivery. You will turn strategy into action, coordinate complex activity across partners, and ensure programmes deliver tangible outcomes.

You will work across a cross-sector delivery community including organisations such as the NHS, Accenture, Salesforce, Amey and Gateway Qualifications. With around 50 external contributors involved in each Sprint, clarity, pace and strong delivery discipline are essential.

For the right prson, this is a defining opportunity to strengthen FutureDotNow’s delivery capability and accelerate progress towards closing the UK’s workforce digital skills gap.

What you will do

Lead delivery across our Sprint programme and delivery community

FutureDotNow runs three 10-week Sprints each year. You will lead end-to-end delivery of the Sprint programme, ensuring activity is well structured, well-coordinated and delivers real outcomes.

You will:

· Plan and deliver Sprints end to end, including kick-offs, check-ins and in-person workshops developing agendas, content and facilitation materials

· Coordinate the setting of sprint and year-end goals, milestones and priorities aligned to FutureDotNow’s strategy

· Track actions, risks and interdependencies across sprint teams, maintaining momentum and resolving blockers

· Grow and energise the delivery community, fostering collaboration and accountability

· Produce core delivery outputs such as plans, dashboards, reports and briefings

· Update the Membership Growth and Marketing Manager on new insights, tools and solutions being created through the Sprint programme, which may form part of the FutureDotNow member offer

Lead delivery of our sector strategy to engage more businesses and drive action

Working with Marsh (our sector strategy sponsor) and sector leads, you will help turn engagement strategies into practical action across sectors.

You will:

· Support the onboarding, development and coordination of sector leads and the delivery of clear action plans

· Drive delivery against agreed sector plans and milestones

· Track progress against growth and engagement measures, including Charter signatories and membership

· Ensure sector activity connects into FutureDotNow’s wider programme, so learning is shared and amplified

Lead delivery of the Workforce Digital Skills Summit

You will play a central role in delivering FutureDotNow’s flagship annual event, bringing together around 200 senior leaders from business, government and civil society.

You will:

• Lead development and delivery of the Summit programme and content
• Work with the CEO to shape the agenda and speaker line-up
• Brief and support speakers, facilitators and contributors
• Oversee on-the-day delivery, ensuring a high-quality participant experience
• Ensure strong post-event outputs that extend impact beyond the event

Content development and commissioning

Where workstreams are led by FutureDotNow (rather than partners), you will play a key role in content creation. Working closely with the COO, you will be involved in developing core content for deliverables, which may involve analysing data from partners, producing reports, or creating tools/resources.

You will:

· Draft, shape or edit content, such as guidance, tools, playbooks and insights, using templates, existing material or raw inputs from partners

· Commission and manage suppliers where specialist expertise is needed

· Lead and coordinate delivery through a clear milestone plan, ensuring alignment of output delivery with events and campaigning activity

· Maintain high standards of quality, consistency, evidence and accessibility ensuring all content meets FutureDotNow’s brand and tone.

· Design and run pilot activity to test and refine tools before wider rollout

Skills, experience and attributes

 Essential

· Proven experience delivering complex projects in multi-stakeholder or cross-sector environments

· Strong end-to-end project delivery skills, including planning, risk management and reporting

· Excellent written communication, with the ability to turn complexity into clear, practical outputs

· Experience designing and coordinating workshops, events or programmes

· Confidence working with senior external stakeholders and partners

· Ability to manage multiple workstreams and priorities

· Comfortable working in a small, fast-paced organisation with evolving priorities

· Strong digital capability and confidence using collaboration and CRM tools

Desirable

· Understanding of the digital skills landscape or related policy areas

· Experience of coalition, membership or not-for-profit environments

· Familiarity with employer engagement, sector bodies or government

Values and mindset

· Purpose-driven, collaborative and action-centred

· Strongly results-oriented, with the ability to translate strategy into high-quality delivery at pace

· Comfortable taking ownership and solving problems independently

· Values clarity, structure and high-quality delivery

· Motivated by FutureDotNow’s mission and improving outcomes for working-age adults

Application Process

Our application process is designed to be straightforward and proportionate, while giving candidates a clear opportunity to demonstrate their skills.

· Stage 1: Submit a CV and short cover note outlining your interest in the role and relevant experience.

· Stage 2: Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a short initial interview.

· Stage 3: Candidates progressing from the first interview will be asked to complete a short practical task, reflecting the type of work involved in the role.

· Stage 4: A final shortlist will be invited to a final interview.

We aim to keep the process clear, fair and respectful of candidates’ time.

To apply:

Please send the below information 

· Your CV, and

· Short supporting statement (max 500 words) covering:

• Why you are interested in the role
• A brief example of delivering a complex project or programme across multiple stakeholders
• Experience producing or shaping content (not just managing it) for example analysing data producing reports, or creating tools/resources

The closing date for applications is at midnight on Sunday 15 March due to the high volume of high-calibre applications.