Job purpose

This role will provide strategic leadership of our work to build the Runnymede Trust’s community engagement activities.  At its core, the aspiration for our engagement function is to ensure our work is relevant, active and supportive of those communities that we work with, and on behalf of. We are committed to ensuring that our work is rooted in the lived experiences of the UK’s diverse minority ethnic communities and  that we  build and sustain reciprocal relationships within these communities so that   they both benefit from our work and can help shape future priorities. 

You will be responsible for ensuring the effective and efficient management of Runnymede’s community engagement strand, working alongside our research, policy and communications functions. This is an essential and  growing part of our work that expands opportunities for participatory and community-engagement driven research in collaboration with organisations external to Runnymede, and spread across the different regions.

Thoughtful and careful relationship management and stakeholder engagement are critical to this role, as you develop our relationships with individuals, organisations and academics. You will be skilled in working in collaboration and mobilising others to engage with Runnymede’s projects and campaigns and will possess political sensitivity and awareness. You will have a deep understanding of intersectionality between racism and other forms of marginalisation and exclusion, and demonstrable commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.

Responsibilities and main duties

• Take the lead on developing and implementing a community  engagement strategy for the Runnymede Trust, leading our engagement work across all our research and policy projects and outputs.

• Develop growing networks of individuals, organisations and academics for public and community engagement efforts, including building relationships across sectors with other race equity focussed organisations, grassroots and community groups, funders and institutions that will support the Runnymede Trust to influence change.

• To support our research and policy teams by sourcing a broad base of people and communities who can contribute to our research in an ethical, supportive and mutually beneficial way, ensuring we consult and listen to their perspectives and experiences enabling them to meaningfully shape our work.

• Lead in cultivating an academic network across the country interested and active in the racial justice space.

• Lead Runnymede’s convening work to ensure we are a bridge for community-based activists, organisations and academia, ensuring we take an intersectional approach to our convening work. 

• Work across departments to ensure our Engagement function is ingrained in, and supported by, each organisational function (research, policy, operations and communications), embedding our engagement strand as a core pillar of the Runnymede Trust. 

• Collaborate with other functional leads to design and implement projects and initiatives, leading on designing and delivering bespoke engagement mechanisms for current and future projects.

• Support the Runnymede Trust’s fundraising efforts by building relationships with funders and by identifying and cultivating funding opportunities to grow the engagement work and capacity.

• Own the development of our stakeholder and contact management approaches - developing our CRM system and ways of working to improve how we manage and steward our organisational relationships.

• Coordinate events, on a national and local level and across a range of issues, as per organisational demand, need and engagement strategy.

• Represent the Runnymede Trust externally across different forums and networks, including in the media, and contribute to other external events as a key ambassador for our work.

• Line manage, support and develop the Engagement Officer and other programme delivery staff as required.

• As a member of the Runnymede leadership team, contribute to wider organisational strategy, risk management, and  the cross-cutting work of the organisation to bring about more collaborative and effective ways of working and organisational coherence.