6 Volunteer training design practitioner jobs in Bristol

Lead Trainer and Facilitator — Programme Delivery

Salary: £40,000 – £45,000 depending on experience
Contract: Fixed term, 12 months
Hours: Full-time (37.5 hours per week)
Location: Home-based, with regular travel across England (approx. 8-10 days/month)
Closing date: 8 September 2026, 6pm BST

We're looking for a passionate and highly skilled individual to lead our training and facilitation function: not just delivering sessions, but owning the standards, quality, and people behind them.

You'll work closely with a Co-CEO in a genuine co-design model, holding complex, emotionally charged group dynamics with confidence, and building the systems and people that keep our delivery consistent and strong.

The single most important thing we're looking for: real experience facilitating resistant, defensive, or emotionally guarded groups, and the ability to hold discomfort in the room without softening content or letting avoidance take over.

We welcome applicants from non-traditional routes into this work, including activism, advocacy, and lived experience, provided you can evidence it.

Full details, including the person specification and how to apply, are in the attached job description. Please read it before applying, as our application process asks for specific evidenced examples rather than a general cover letter.

We strongly welcome and encourage applications from people who are Black, Asian and otherwise racially or ethnically minoritised, disabled, LGBTQ+, or from communities underrepresented in sexual and reproductive health and rights and the charity sector.

Note: all applicants must already have the right to work in the UK. We cannot sponsor visas.

This is a varied, rewarding role for someone who wants to make a real difference in the community while helping to shape high-quality welfare benefits advice services. As a key member of the senior management team, you will lead a team of welfare benefits caseworkers, supporting colleagues with complex welfare benefits issues, offering regular supervision, and bringing the team together through advice meetings that encourage learning, collaboration and consistent good practice. You will also work with the senior management team to review data, identify trends and contribute to the development of our services. 

Working with our Head of Service, you will help recruit, train and supervise a small team of advice support volunteers. You will also have opportunities to share your expertise by delivering occasional welfare benefits training to volunteers and external partners.

Alongside your management responsibilities, you will provide specialist welfare benefits advice casework. The role includes flexibility in appointment scheduling, allowing you to respond to changing workflows and emerging needs across the service.

We are looking for someone with up-to-date welfare benefits knowledge, strong casework skills, and the confidence to support and develop others. You will bring excellent communication and organisational skills, sound judgement, emotional intelligence and a collaborative approach to leadership. Ideally, we are looking for someone with strong management experience, but we will also consider highly skilled caseworkers with the right aptitude, who are ready to take the next step in their career.

North Bristol Advice Centre is an innovative and forward-thinking charity that has been delivering advice support in communities since 1984. We are inclusive, values-driven, and prioritise excellence and quality, as well as providing caring and person-centred support. We actively support the wellbeing of our staff with flexible/hybrid working, relaxed dress-code and an active Wellbeing Group, and provide ongoing training and opportunities for professional development. 

The role is full-time, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

Hours: 35 per week. Occasional evening/weekend work may be required

Salary: £35,292 – £37,037 (pro rata) (+ 4% employer contribution to contributory pension scheme – after qualifying period)

As a Community Support Coordinator, you will lead the delivery of our Community Support Volunteer service across Bristol, Bath, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.

You will help people affected by Motor Neurone Disease (MND) to access high-quality, safe, inclusive and person-centred support. Working closely with volunteers, health and social care professionals, and local partners, you will build strong community connections, facilitate access to relevant information and services, helping people make informed choices about the support available to them.

This home-based role offers the opportunity to connect communities, strengthen volunteer networks, and ensure people have choice, control and access to the support they need.

Main Responsibilities

• Lead, support and develop a team of Community Support Volunteers
• Recruit, induct and retain volunteers, ensuring safe and effective service delivery
• Respond to enquiries and referrals, providing information, support and signposting
• Build strong relationships with health and social care professionals and community partners
• Support local branches and groups to understand and respond to community needs
• Promote inclusive, accessible and needs-led support that enables personal choice and control
• Facilitate effective communication between volunteers, staff and local stakeholders
• Support safeguarding processes and respond appropriately to concerns
• Monitor and record activity, outcomes and key performance information
• Contribute to service development, continuous improvement and regional teamwork

About You

• Experience leading, managing or coordinating volunteers, ideally within the voluntary sector
• Strong communication, interpersonal and relationship-building skills
• Experience identifying and responding to support needs using a person-centred approach
• Understanding of care and support services and the role of volunteering within them
• Knowledge of safeguarding principles and risk management
• Ability to build networks and influence a range of stakeholders and partner organisations
• Flexibility to work occasional evenings or weekends
• Full UK driving licence and ability to travel across the region.

Essential requirement This role requires regular travel to locations that are not reasonably accessible to public transport and/or travel between locations within working hours. Applicants must hold a current valid driving licence. This is an essential requirement of the role due to the nature and location of the work. The MND Association will consider reasonable adjustments for disabled applicants in accordance with the Equality Act 2010. A lease car is provided as part of the benefits package.

Further information about working for the MND Association and full job description is available in the attached Candidate Pack.

We are committed to equality, diversity, and inclusivity. We work to remove barriers for everyone affected by MND, employees, volunteers, and stakeholders. As part of the Disability Confident Scheme, we guarantee interviews for disabled applicants who meet the role's requirements.

What We Offer

• 28 days holiday, increasing to 33 days after 5 years, plus Bank Holidays
• Access to UK Healthcare, including dental, eyecare, health screenings, and therapies
• 24/7 GP access via phone and video
• Life assurance and confidential counselling helplines
• Salary sacrifice schemes (Cycle to Work, Buy/Sell Annual Leave)
• Access to Benefit Hub for discounts on everyday shopping
• Enhanced pension scheme
• Opportunities for training and personal development

About Us

Motor Neurone Disease moves fast. It takes away time, it takes away independence and it has no cure. Every day we support people affected by MND.We fund ground-breaking research. We campaign for better care. We’re here for everyone who needs us. Because with MND, every day matters. 

This is a unique opportunity to lead fundraising for a charity at the cusp of substantial growth, with an exceptional track record of recent fundraising success, an engaged base of supporters and significant untapped potential across multiple channels.

Overview
As Director of Fundraising and Development for Plum Village UK, you will provide strategic leadership of the charity’s fundraising at this critical juncture. Building on the successful campaigns that brought our new Being Peace Practice Centre into being, you will lead the development of a sustainable, diversified fundraising operation across donor stewardship, trusts and foundations, regular giving, legacies, and partnerships, to deepen relationships of trust and gratitude with our supporters.

This role is ideal for a fundraising leader, whether from a career fundraising background or another field, who brings strategic capability alongside deep alignment with the Plum Village tradition, where fundraising itself becomes a form of engaged practice in service of mindfulness and community transformation.

Fundraising in the Plum Village tradition is fundamentally relational. It is not a matter of extracting income from a base of supporters, but of deepening the relationships of trust, gratitude and shared purpose with those who make our work possible, in ways that embody the values of the tradition. Done well, fundraising is itself a form of engaged practice. The Director will be expected to lead the function in this spirit.

The role comes with a high level of strategic ownership. An initial fundraising strategy has been developed and shared with trustees, providing a framework of priority channels, governance arrangements and resourcing for the next phase. The new Director will inherit this as a starting frame, and will then be empowered and expected to develop, refine and bring forward a fundraising strategy on their own authority, working closely with the Lead Trustee for Fundraising and presenting proposals to the board as appropriate. The role also carries operational ownership of the fundraising mechanics, including the choice and management of supporting systems, databases and tools.
 

Key Responsibilities

Strategic leadership of fundraising

• Lead PVUK's fundraising strategy, developing and refining the strategic direction, and presenting proposals to the Board for approval and resourcing.

• Set, monitor, and report on fundraising targets across all income channels, in agreement with the Lead Trustee for Fundraising and the Board.

• Provide regular substantive updates on fundraising at quarterly board meetings, working with the Lead Trustee on the preparation of board-level reporting.

• Bring forward analysis and proposals to support the Board in setting wider strategic priorities, including realistic income potential by channel and the investment required to secure it.

• Identify and manage risk in the fundraising portfolio, including channel concentration, donor over-reliance, and the sustainability of resourcing.

Donor stewardship and relationship development

• Lead the stewardship of PVUK’s existing donors, lenders, and supporters with the depth of care that this base deserves, recognising it as the most precious resource of the fundraising function.

• Cultivate and deepen relationships with major donors, including through personal contact, site visits, and tailored communication of impact.

• Work with the Chair of Trustees, the Centre Director, and other senior figures on key relationships that require their involvement.

• Steward the friendly lender base throughout the lifetime of their loans, maintaining trust and keeping them informed of the charity’s progress.

• Build and maintain a culture of gratitude and recognition that appropriately honours the contributions of all supporters.

Income channel development

• Lead delivery and growth across PVUK’s priority fundraising channels: donor stewardship, trust and foundation fundraising, regular giving, legacies and Gifts in Wills, and partnerships with values-aligned organisations and networks.

• Develop trust and foundation fundraising as a substantial new income stream, including scoping aligned funders, building peer-to-peer introductions, constructing tailored funding propositions, and overseeing high-quality application writing and reporting.

• Design and grow a regular giving programme that converts members, retreatants and supporters into ongoing monthly donors.

• Develop a structured legacy and Gifts in Wills programme that normalises legacy giving across PVUK’s communications and supports those who wish to leave a Gift in their Will.

• Develop partnerships with values-aligned organisations and networks where these support both income generation and the wider reach of PVUK’s work, in close consultation with monastics and trustees.

Operations, systems and budget ownership

• Own the operational mechanics of fundraising for PVUK, including the choice, configuration and ongoing management of databases, donor management systems, online giving platforms, and integration with communications tools.

• Manage the fundraising budget, including a discretionary supplementary budget for consultancy, training, materials creation, contracted support and light administrative resource, deployed at the Director’s judgement to develop the function effectively.

• Maintain accurate, GDPR-compliant supporter records and ensure sound data practices throughout the fundraising operation.

• Provide accurate financial reporting on fundraising performance, working with PVUK’s finance function and external accountants as required.

• Make the case for additional resourcing where evidence of need supports it, including the possible recruitment of a Fundraising Officer in due course.

Communications and storytelling

• Lead the development of compelling fundraising narratives that authentically convey the work of PVUK and the Being Peace Centre to multiple audiences, including major donors, institutional funders, individual supporters and the wider public.

• Work closely with the PVUK Communications team on the integration of fundraising communications with the wider communications strategy.

• Commission and oversee the production of fundraising materials, including written content, graphic design, video and digital assets, drawing on contracted specialists where appropriate.

• Ensure that all fundraising messaging about the Being Peace Practice Centre is agreed with the Centre Director before publication.

Working partnerships across PVUK

• Work in close partnership with the Centre Director on all matters relating to Being Peace, with agreed ways of working on messaging, external representation, and any programming commitments made to funders.

• Work with the Lead Trustee for Fundraising as primary day-to-day point of contact at board level, supporting the Lead Trustee to hold strategic oversight of fundraising on behalf of the Board.

• Work with colleagues across PVUK’s communications, dharma programming, sangha-building and partnership functions, with these working relationships developing naturally in the first months of the role.

• Draw on external advisors and specialists as needed for support and assurance, both in technical fundraising disciplines and in sector-specific knowledge.

• Engage volunteer capacity from within the community where this can valuably supplement the fundraising operation.

Who we are

IPSEA (Independent Provider of Special Education Advice) is a national charity working to ensure that children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the educational support they are legally entitled to. Since we were formed in 1983, we have helped to improve the education experience of thousands of children and young people across England. We do this by providing free and independent legal advice and casework support for families, undertaking policy work and delivering training on the SEND legal framework.

What you’ll do

Reports to: Fundraising Manager

Location: Remote, with occasional travel for funder and staff meetings 4-5 times a year

We are looking for an experienced and motivated Trusts and Philanthropy Officer to join our small, ambitious fundraising team. IPSEA has a proven track record of successfully securing grants for core costs and projects. You will be responsible for researching new funding opportunities, preparing and submitting tailored applications and reports, and managing relationships with funders through thoughtful and timely stewardship. You will also have the opportunity to shape the early development of our strategies in major gifts and wider philanthropy and contribute to this work into the future.

This is a key role in IPSEA’s fundraising strategy and will help secure long-term financial sustainability for our services. 

If you share our commitment to protecting, promoting and upholding the rights of children and young people with SEND and would like to use your fundraising skills at IPSEA, we would love to hear from you. 

What we can offer you

• 5% employer pension contributions
• Healthcare cash plan
• Flexible working arrangements
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays plus an additional day off for your birthday (pro-rata if part-time).

To apply

Visit our website to download a recruitment pack and application form.

Deadline for applications: 9am on 5 October 2026.

First-round interviews: on 16 October in London, with second-round interviews (online) in the week commencing 19 October 2026.

NO AGENCIES PLEASE.