Head of Core Campaigns

Closing date: Tuesday 14th January 2025 at 9am

Working arrangements: Remote working, permanent, regular or ad hoc (with frequent travel to London if not London-based) Please note that we also have approximately 3-4 team retreats per year which could be located anywhere nationally.

We have an exciting opening for someone to join our team as Head of Core Campaigns. Playing a senior role in our Impactful Campaigns department, you’ll help run and win campaigns that make the UK a better place but you’ll also be a key player in shaping the overall direction of 38 Degrees – including the culture, the team, and organisational strategy.

Day-to-day, you’ll be developing campaign and public affairs and media strategies and guiding teams to put those plans into action.

No one day will be the same: sometimes you’ll be responding quickly to a news moment and other times working on longer term projects and campaigns, often needing to change direction or reprioritise quickly and decisively.

You’ll be a champion of our supporters and come up with ideas and tactics – from digital tools like petitions, to media and working with external partners and allies – that will engage huge numbers of people, and allow us to make real change in the world. We need a campaigns expert who understands politics, the media, digital campaigning, partnership working and what it takes to win campaigns.

The Head of Core Campaigns leads the Campaigns team, overseeing and supporting the development of plans and supporting the team to run impactful, highly engaging campaigns, which aim to shape the country to be fair, respectful and sustainable; and the Public Affairs and Media team, to ensure that we’re taking every opportunity to show decision-makers our muscle and boost our brand and reputation.

Your background and experience

To succeed in this role, you’ll need excellent communication skills, sound political judgement, the ability to thrive when working at pace and to role model a collaborative approach. This is not a hands off role, and you’ll be expected to lead the team, and our ‘one team’ way of working culture, by example.

We are looking for someone who understands 38 Degrees, our model and our organisational culture already, and our fierce determination to change our country – campaigning to do so without fear or favour, whoever is in power.

With experience at working at, or with a similar organisation to us, you’ll be able to demonstrate the ways we can use our greatest strengths – our supporters and our rapid reactivity – to win campaigns by using campaigning, public affairs and media tactics and opportunities to greatest strategic effect.

You’ll have loads of experience in digital-first campaigning, especially knowing how to use a large email list to spark activism, but also will love using a range of digital tools and platforms to give people the power to influence decision-makers.

You understand how to translate complex issues into everyday, understandable language and you’re experienced in running digital and offline campaigns that create change in local, national, political and corporate issue areas.

As you’ll oversee our small Public Affairs and Media team, you’ll know what makes Westminster tick, and how to influence politicians and journalists in every part of the country.

You’ll have experience of working in productive and positive environments, and you’ll have insight into how teams can be set up for success in a campaigning space.

You’ll be adept and experienced at project management, understand the pressures the team face working in a fast paced reactive environment, and be able to get the best of people in this context to help deliver on longer term, strategic goals alongside making the most of quick reactive opportunities.

And most of all, you will be a positive, practical person who can work with others, bringing them with you, to solve problems in a collaborative way.

About us

38 Degrees is one of the UK’s biggest campaigning communities, involving over a million supporters who campaign to make the UK a better place. We’re united by a shared vision to create a fairer and more respectful UK and a more sustainable world.

In the space of a week, millions of supporters could be campaigning on anything from protecting our NHS and stopping cuts to Universal Credit, to saving local green spaces and protecting our democracy.

38 Degrees is fiercely independent. We are primarily funded by small donations from hundreds of thousands of members of the public from all over the UK. This independence means we never have to hold ourselves back from taking on those with power and can truly listen to our supporters.

Why you’ll want to work here

The 38 Degrees culture is honest, kind, supportive, courageous, and respectful. We move fast, and frequently change plans to respond to events. We work hard but we also have fun.

We regularly enjoy team away days and social hours.

Benefits include:

27 days holiday per year (plus bank holidays); Office closure between Christmas and New year; 9-day fortnight (office closed every other Friday); 4pm closure on the alternate Friday; Flexibility to work 90 days per tax year (30 day maximum per travel in any location as per approval process); One month paid sabbatical leave after 5 years of service; Employer pension contribution; 24 hour employee assistance programme; Enhanced family leave policies; Cycle to work scheme; Employer paid annual flu vaccination; Rental deposit loan; Contribution to eye tests/glasses; Learning and development budget.

Our commitment to Diversity & Inclusion

We’re especially keen to hear from people who’ll bring lived experience of the issues we work on and who’ll make our team more diverse as a result. So if you’re Black, Asian or from any other minority ethnic group, if you’re disabled, LGBTQIA+, or if you’re from a working class home, your application will be especially welcome. And thanks to our flexible home working approach and network of offices, we have a staff team that is increasingly based across the UK. We’re keen to continue diversifying geographically, so that we’re rooted in our supporters’ communities.

To make sure that we are able to reach our goal of a diverse team we have equal opportunities monitoring requirements. Your application will not be complete without the equal opportunities monitoring form.

38 Degrees is committed to inclusive working practices, so during the application process we commit to:

• • Paying for childcare whilst you’re at 38 Degrees interviews or tasks
  • Paying for your travel costs to the office and back – and for overnight accommodation if you’re travelling from a long distance for an interview although at present the majority of interviews are held online using zoom.
  • Making any reasonable adjustments – for example ensuring we have a BSL interpreters organised in advance if you’d need one
  • If there anything else you’re concerned about or think we could provide, please let us know.

To be successful in your application you must meet the essential requirements for this role and answer the questions below which are part of the selection criteria. Without completion of this task your application cannot be considered.

The successful candidate must have the right to work in the UK at the time of appointment.

Application Questions (max word count: 2000 words across all questions)

1. What attracted you to apply for this position at 38 Degrees?
2. Tell us about a project or achievement at work where your leadership made a major impact: what was the outcome, what was your role?
3. Thinking about your leadership role in teams, tell us about a sensitive or difficult decision you have led or implemented which had an impact on others. How did you handle this? What was the outcome and what did you learn?
4. 38 Degrees is currently adapting to our new political environment, having until recently only ever existed under a Conservative led government. What are some of the challenges and opportunities the change of government could mean for our public affairs and media work?