Director of Policy and Engagement

Our client, a well–known anti–poverty charity is looking to recruit a Director of Policy & Engagement on a maternity contract of up to 12 months. This great charity provides front–line advice, advocacy and campaigning and policy work on behalf of people in London beneath pension age, who are experiencing issues around benefit payments, disability and housing or who are at risk of homelessness. The services they provide have become even more essential during the current cost of living crisis.

The role:
As Director of Policy & Engagement, you will lead the organisation's policy, public affairs, and campaigns function, shaping and delivering local and national influencing to drive change on social security and housing issues. You will ensure the voices of people with lived experience are central to all of the organisation's work, embedding meaningful participation across the organisation, in governance, services, policy and campaigns.

You will also oversee strategic external communications to support the organisation's influencing, brand and fundraising objectives and will direct all fundraising for your department including managing funder relationships, identifying opportunities and leading on bid writing and reporting.

This is a senior leadership role with responsibility for influencing policy and practice locally and nationally and representing the charity as a spokesperson in the media, with government ministers, MPs, and other senior stakeholders.

You will manage a small multidisciplinary team of four, ensuring integrated effective delivery across the organisation.

The role will cover strategic leadership, policy, public affairs & campaigns, stakeholder & media engagement, external communications, embedding participation, fundraising leadership, team leadership and cross–organisational Integration.

The person:
The successful candidate will be a strategic, politically astute leader with experience of leading policy, public affairs and campaigns at a senior level. They will have experience of integrating research campaigns, participation, external communications and fundraising to deliver impact locally and nationally. They will have excellent media stakeholder and political engagement skills, with experience of acting as a spokesperson for an organisation. This person will value and embed lived experience in all aspects of their work and will have a strong understanding of social security and housing policy.

This person will also have substantial experience of leading on research for social policy influencing purposes in addition to having developed and shaped policy for an organisation in a charity which works towards combatting poverty and other social justice issues. Having managed political and media engagement and external influencing activities in the past, this person will be an effective relationship manager both internally and externally, in addition to having provided knowledge based leadership to small teams in the charity sector. In addition to being a highly effective project manager, this person will be a very strong communicator both verbally and in writing, and will be fully committed to the aims and objectives of this anti–poverty charity.

This organisation is an equal opportunity employer. People with lived experience of poverty, from global majority backgrounds, LGBTQIA+ individuals and disabled people are strongly encouraged to apply. We welcome evidence of experience from both work and non–work settings such as volunteering and personal life.