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Engagement Manager, RIVER ACTION UK
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Engagement Manager, RIVER ACTION UK
Engagement Manager
Salary: From £42,000 - £52,000 per annum (depending on experience) • Permanent • 37.5 hrs/week (Mon–Fri) + 25 holiday days (plus Christmas/in year extra) Location: Home-based with regular travel across the UK and London • 3-month probationary period • Reports to: Head of Department Line Management: May lead a Senior Engagement Coordinator
Join the fight to save our rivers
We’re River Action, a fast-moving campaigning organisation tackling toxic pollution, sewage, and water shortages that are destroying Britain’s rivers. Our team of positive disrupters earns influence to drive immediate change—shutting down polluters, restoring ecosystems, and proving rivers can thrive again. Together, our rivers form a lifebacking network for communities, wildlife, and the future.
You’ll demand respect at the highest levels of power, then channel that force to protect and bring rivers back to life.
What We’re Looking For
We’re expanding our Public Affairs function as River Action gains profile, influence, and policy impact. The Head of Engagement will be our crucial bridge between grassroots campaigners, decision-makers, regulators, businesses, NGOs, strategic partners, and communities.
This senior leadership role demands strategic oversight of both stakeholder engagement and community mobilisation, ensuring River Action’s ground-up activism and top-down influence work together to make rivers clean, polluter-free, and vibrant again.
Key Responsibilities
1. Strategic Stakeholder Engagement
- Develop, deliver, and refine River Action’s stakeholder engagement strategy for high-impact change.
- Map, prioritise, and cultivate key relationships with senior leaders across government, regulators, businesses, NGOs, academia, and civil society.
- Identify opportunities to shape policy, transform regulation, and cost polluters while securing media and political traction for our campaigns.
- Monitor influential developments and risks at the regulatory and political level to address threats or capitalise on openings.
2. Cross-Cutting Engagement Leadership
- Steer both stakeholder and community engagement, ensuring a link between grassroots pressure and institutional reform.
- Provide strategic direction for:
- The River Rescue Kit (community toolkit for grassroots campaigns).
- Catchment-based campaigning (aligning local actions with national impact).
- Cross-sector collaborations that tap into scientific, economic, and political arguments against river pollution.
- Ensure actionable insights from communities and partners feed into policy, legal, and campaign decisions.
- Develop top-quality frameworks to amplify community voices in advocacy, regulation, and governance.
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3. Public Affairs & External Influence
- Work directly on River Action’s Public Affairs strategy, engaging with:
- Parliamentarians and Whitehall officials.
- Key regulators (Environment Agency, Ofwat, SEPA, DEFRA, MPs, Peers, Defra).
- Business, think tanks, and legal experts to shape decision-making.
- Represent River Action at stakeholder forums, roundtables, conferences, and court cases.
- Coordinate an alliance of government, NGOs, and the public through impactful Policy and Advocacy.
4. Strategic Partnerships
- Forge critical alliances with NGOs, universities, industry, and financiers to:
- Develop joint campaigns and rallies.
- Strengthen River Action’s credibility in environmental policy arenas.
- Leverage financial and technical resources to accelerate change.
5. Cross-Team Leadership
- Collaborate closely with Campaigns, Communications, Legal, and Development teams to ensure unified messaging and impact.
- Provide strategic counsel to senior leadership on campaign planning and organisational priorities.
- Lead the Senior Engagement Coordinator (where applicable) to align our community efforts with organisational goals.
6. Communications & Influence
- Serve as public face and voice for River Action, amplifying our calls for change.
- Spearhead media engagement, preparing briefings, stakeholder updates, and advocacy materials.
- Identify and nurture influential campaigners and advocates to mobilise evidence and stories.
7. Monitoring & Reporting
- Update engagement records in CRM systems.
- Measure stakeholder influence and community mobilisation against KPIs, reporting progress clearly.
- Suggest improvements to strategies based on ongoing feedback and results.
What You’ll Bring
Must-Have Qualifications
- Senior experience in stakeholder engagement, public affairs, advocacy, or partnerships (government, NGOs, public sector).
- Muscle memory for relationship-building – know how to connect with decision-makers and hold their attention.
- Skilled at refining ‘good ideas’ into strategies that shift policy or opinion.
- Experience managing grassyroots programmes, tools (think toolkits!), or crucially aligning local with national influence.
- Understanding of:
- How politics, policy (early legislative process!), and regulation tick.
- How grassroots organising can influence laws, court cases, and holdings.
- A Versatile communicator: convincing legislators, students, CEOs, and querstons all at once.
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Nice but Helpful
- Nuanced knowledge of water/carrier law, rural/integrated agriculture, or create-l_AUTH_ternt forces behind pollution sponge policy or ecology.
- Fluent in Westminster, Whitehall, Scottish-Welsh sector concepts (if applicable).
- Combat in business partnerships or financier discussions (don’t be a boy and girl with corporate green).
- Track record of driving top-down and bottom-up campaigns, including one or two Citizen-science-backed wins.
Why You’ll Love It Too
- Do great work at lightning pace—we define that sores circuit to problematic sessions, ignore bureaucracy.
- Workin in a unculatively different space where advocacy, scientists, musicians, and community invisibles come snakes.
- Grow your expertise: Nature and the need for long-term organisational compute and Policy Instrate scholars.
- Great perks with highversal benefits and gallivanting abroad (seriously worth the London travels).
Equity & justice matter to us. Perfectionism kills teams, so if your experience is close enough (we’ll love you anyway!) please apply.
Written Submission (Your Challenge)
In up to 750 words:
- Select your ideal members to tackle a proposed Clean Water Bill. Which ones? Why weight and influence?
- How will public/private partnerships connect local artifacts/chains property-to-property and chains of external pressure?
- How could we know we’re helping change at all? (Brainstorm metrics.)
- The one wild card preventing our vision and how you tackle it!
We judge by clarity of vision, strategy, and will to win— not past-water-policy experience.
How to Apply
E-mail one package to jobs@riveractionuk.com with subject "Engagement Manager":
- CV (2 pages)
- Cover Letter (2 pages): Give us purpose! Your drive here overlaps with our mission narrative.
- Mission Answer (2 pages): Your strategy submission above.
Only complete applications count. Files must be PDF.
Sift Deadline: Rolling, but do not miss 5pm Wednesday 15th July.
Interviews: Two stages—preliminary creative session (15 mins) + board panel. Via conference call in weeks starting July 19 and July 26.
Notify us in your cover letter of date preferences. Our door is open to questions: jobs@riveractionuk.com.
Together, we’ll clean rivers.
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