Community Development Manager

Job Description

The RSPB has a mission to put people at the heart of our work and to engage with a large and diverse audience. An exciting opportunity has arisen in the RSPB England Engagement Team, of community development manager. This role will help provide direction on our work with communities in England, supporting people internally and externally to take action to save nature.

We are looking for someone with strong experience working in the field of community engagement, who knows how to listen, consult, and co-create with communities, and build great partnerships.

The successful postholder will thrive from the opportunity to share their expertise with colleagues across RSPB England and will confidently influence others and provide direction and energy to this important and developing work area. They will champion change and possess strong leadership and communication skills to build relationships with colleagues.

This is a varied role which is split between providing advice and support to teams internally (approximately half the time), the line management of a small team, leading focused work areas within community engagement, and some direct delivery with communities.

They will routinely input into the development of community engagement elements in project proposals and funding bids, helping teams to help ensure that the interests of local communities are met, alongside the objectives relating to important species and habitats.

The postholder will also provide direction for two specific areas: working with communities in urban locations, where they will help set best practise and support the two priority urban locations of Greater Manchester - where they will line manage the community officer - and the West Midlands - where they will assist the local area team. They will also oversee our exciting nature & wellbeing work with support from the head of engagement, and will line manage the nature & wellbeing manager. The postholder will also line manage a community development officer.

To a smaller extent, the role will develop their own project ideas with associated funding bids to deliver activities which support community work in alignment with our strategy.

This role is England-wide, managing a small geographically dispersed team. The role reports to RSPB England’s head of engagement and is a member of the England Engagement Leadership team, working alongside peers to help champion wider society objectives relating to people.

We welcome applications from candidates with the following essential skills, knowledge, and experience. When applying for this role, please state on the application form how you meet each of these criteria in turn:

• Demonstrable experience of working with communities at a large scale to co-create interventions that achieve shared objectives, including building a sustainable project legacy.
• Demonstrable experience of developing and working in a variety of partnerships to achieve shared outcomes.
• Project Management experience, including data gathering, project evaluation, and report writing.
• Experience of developing and implementing coherent strategies and activities that achieve innovative and effective community activities.
• Experience of providing strategic operational advice and guidance on community involvement to people at all levels and building effective stakeholder relationships.
• Ability to lead and coach a team, develop others, manage performance effectively, set clear objectives, and foster a positive working environment.
• Excellent planning and organisational skills with the ability to manage and deliver a diverse workload whilst ensuring effective prioritisation.

Desirable criteria:

• Experience of community engagement in a nature or conservation setting.

Additional Information

We are committed to developing an inclusive and diverse RSPB in which everyone is supported, valued, and able to be their full selves. People of colour and disabled people are currently underrepresented across the environmental sector. If you identify as a person of colour and/or disabled, we are particularly interested in receiving your application. Please get in touch if you would like to request any reasonable adjustments.

This role is an England-wide role, and the role holder can be a homeworker, based in one of our regional offices in Birmingham, London, Brighton, Newcastle, Lancaster, Exeter, Norwich, or Sandy, or be a hybrid worker. This role requires occasional travel, and it is not essential to be able to drive. This role is available full-time, 0.9 FTE, or 0.8 FTE (5, 4.5, or 4 days per week).

The deadline for applying for this role is Sunday 5th of March 2023 at 11.59 pm and interviews will be held on 22nd of March 2023 on Microsoft Teams.

Additionally, we will be holding an optional online recruitment briefing session prior to the application closing date which is open to all prospective candidates and provides the opportunity to learn more about the role.

Should you have any queries about this vacancy, or to register your interest in the briefing session, please contact Engagement Senior Administrator Lauren.Brown@rspb.org.uk or Head of Engagement Ellie.Taylor@rspb.org.uk.

Before applying for this role please read through the candidate guidance notes attached to the top of the advert.