Political Advocacy Officer

Political Advocacy Officer

We’re looking for an experienced Political Advocacy Officer to join an important charity helping vulnerable children across the world.

Position: Political Advocacy Officer

Location: London/Hybrid

Hours: Full-time - 36.5 hours per week

Contract: Permanent

Salary: £30,874 per annum, £3,200 London weighting and a good range of benefits

Closing date: 26th April 2024

About the role:

As a Political Advocacy Officer, your role will be to work with policy and programmatic experts to help influence government, parliamentary and sector targets, coordinate events, and play a part in mobilising the organisation’s tens of thousands of UK supporters around our cause of standing with the world’s most vulnerable children. You’ll find yourself working with key political stakeholders, parliamentary networks, and committees.

Key areas of responsibility include:

• Grow the organisation’s influence through developing and maintaining new relationships with key political contacts to achieve the organisation’s advocacy goals and support the implementation of the advocacy strategy.
• Monitor, analyse and brief key internal contacts/stakeholders on parliamentary and political activity relevant to the organisation with a particular focus on issues affecting most vulnerable children, faith and development, and fragile contexts.
• Lead the organisation’s engagement with parliamentary processes (such as WPQs, oral questions, etc.)
• Coordinate and lead the planning and delivery of political events (including annual political party conferences), supporting others where necessary.
• Carve out moments of political engagement of the organisation’s colleagues and support them through those engagements - including the organisation’s leadership and Policy and Programmes team.
• Represent the organisation in relevant sector forums to help develop strong relationships with peers.
• Work with the Media and Comms Strategy Manager to create, craft and place political opinion pieces and statements in targeted media.
• Work with policy experts and Policy and Campaigns Advisor to develop and disseminate advocacy positions to influence government, parliamentary, supporter, and sector targets.
• Work with the Media and Comms Strategy Manager and the Public Engagement Department to mobilise supporters around our cause of standing with the most vulnerable children.

About you:

We’re looking for someone with creativity and drive, who is confident engaging and building relationships with political decision-makers and networks.

You’ll need superb writing skills, good working knowledge of and/or interest in UK government and politics and be skilled in building relationships to influence change. Experience in international development, and/or UK politics is desired but not required. We are looking for a team player with enthusiasm and a willingness to learn and grow. Most importantly, you must be passionate about advocating alongside and for children in the world’s poorest and most fragile places, and ensuring their needs and voices are heard at the highest level of government and parliament.

Key skills required for this role:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent level of thinking gained through experience.
• Good working knowledge of and interest in UK government and politics.
• A demonstrated ability to engage decision-makers and opinion formers and to influence them to achieve change.
• Excellent written communication skills, with an ability to understand and explain issues affecting the most vulnerable children for a range of audiences.
• Understanding of the organisation’s Christian foundation and approaches to social justice, and an ability to communicate these sensitively and appropriately.
• Well-organised, able to work to deadlines, balance multiple demands, and deliver quality results.

About the organisation:

The organisation is an international children’s charity working with children, their communities, and with supporters and partners, in almost 100 countries. Through long-term development projects, emergency responses and advocacy they’ve helped bring lasting change to millions of children, over more than 60 years. As a Christian organisation, everything they do is motivated by their faith as they strive to reflect God’s unconditional love.

As a child-focused organisation, they are committed to the safeguarding of children, therefore any offer of employment is conditional upon the successful completion of applicable background checks, including a criminal records check.

The organisation is a registered organisation operating the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme (MDS) and they shall check with your previous employers about your behaviour and conduct. They will be requesting you to complete a form known as a Statement of Conduct. For more information see: The Misconduct Disclosure Scheme.

Please note the organisation can only consider applicants who presently have the right to work in the UK and all candidates must be personally committed to the Christian faith and be able to respect, uphold and work within our client’s Christian mission, values, culture and faith statements. This individual will represent and speak on behalf of a Christian charity and as such the Occupational Requirement for an active Christian faith is justified under the Equality Act 2010 Schedule 9, Part 1, clause 3.

You may also have experience in areas such as: Political Advocacy officer, Advocacy, Advocate, Director of Advocacy, Campaigns, Director of Campaigns, Campaigning, Advocacy and Campaigns, CEO, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Programme Director, Head of, Head of Policy, Head of Campaigns.

PLEASE NOTE: This role is being advertised by NFP People on behalf of the organisation.