Director (interim, parental cover)

This is an exciting position for an exceptional person with fundraising, campaigning, policy, communications and management/leadership experience to temporarily direct one of the UK’s leading human rights NGOs.

In this role, you’ll have the opportunity to oversee high-impact civil liberties campaigns to achieve real change and manage a high-performing multi-disciplinary team to further privacy, free expression and data protection rights in the United Kingdom.

Importantly, you’ll be an experienced fundraiser, responsible for leading our grants and major giving to maintain Big Brother Watch’s income growth, and have experience with financial reporting.

You’ll have a diverse skill-set enabling you to line manage our Advocacy Manager, Digital Communications Manager and Head of Research and Investigations. An ideal candidate will also be responsible for leading the development of policy positions on new and emerging issues alongside our talented team.

You may also share spokesperson responsibilities, taking up our role as a recognised voice on civil liberties matters in the national media, though this is not essential.

The start and end of the position will include comprehensive handover periods with the current Director, and may include a period of co-working full time with the current Director.

We recognise that applicants may not have all the skills relevant to this role, or policy expertise across all of our key campaign areas. However, if you are a committed and experienced civil liberties advocate with significant fundraising and management experience, we would like to hear from you.

About you

We’re looking for highly experienced professional with a track record of NGO fundraising and management with a demonstrable passion for protecting civil liberties, especially privacy and freedom of expression. Ideally, you’ll have a high level of experience of or interest in working on new and emerging technologies.

Importantly, you’ll have excellent political judgement. You’ll have strong knowledge of British politics, a strong network of relevant contacts and significant experience both fundraising and advocating for change.

You’ll have an entrepreneurial approach, always identifying opportunities to boost Big Brother Watch’s campaigns, resources and reputation. The ideal candidate will appreciate the importance of winning in the court of public opinion in order to win in parliament, and have the skills to do both.

You’ll be a brilliant communicator internally and externally, able to simplify complex technology issues and convey powerful messages whether in campaign slogans or in interviews as a Big Brother Watch spokesperson.

You’ll be at ease working on a strictly non-partisan, cross-party basis and grounding our campaigns and communications strategies in human rights and liberal principles. You’ll also embody our principles of equality, respect and accountability.

We’re looking for someone with natural leadership qualities, ideally with experience of managing managers, who will bring the best out of our highly capable team as a motivating and compassionate director.

If you’re committed to Big Brother Watch’s mission, we’d like to hear from you.

Job description

Fundraising

• Seeking fundraising opportunities and writing fundraising applications
• Reporting to funders, including trusts/grants and individual donors

Management and finances

• Day to day operational management of the office, ensuring policies are upheld
• Management of the Advocacy Manager, including overseeing the development of quarterly campaign plans and evaluations across our priority areas
• Management of the Digital Communications Officer and our public communications strategy/scheduling, encompassing digital fundraising
• Management of the Head of Research and Investigations, ensuring ongoing production of high-quality research, investigations and reports to support priority campaign areas
• Ensuring the highest level of quality of all campaigns, communications and research output
• Manage staff performance and development, and ensure wellbeing
• Help foster a positive, supportive work environment
• Financial management of the organisation, liaising with our accountants, with quarterly financial reporting to the Board of Directors, and maintenance of our annual budget
• Organise quarterly meetings of the Board of Directors and prepare papers, including financial and campaign updates

Advocacy

• Lead a high-performing, multi-disciplinary team to further our strategic aims across campaigns, communications, research and some litigation
• Identify advocacy and press opportunities to further campaign aims, with the team
• Oversee and ultimately authorise our public messaging, from press quotes to public stunts, in line with our strategic aims
• Work with the team to promote Big Brother Watch’s campaigns externally/in the media, supporting spokespeople or personally undertaking speaking engagements, media interviews/opinion writing, etc.
• Uphold Big Brother Watch’s reputational excellence in public fora
• Work with the team to communicate complex issues to varied audiences, whether parliament, press or public
• Identify opportunities to further our strategic aims whether in parliament, the press or through legal action
• Identify and support opportunities for the team to work with stakeholders and pursue collaborative campaigns/coalitions on key issues
• Develop and advance Big Brother Watch’s relationships with allies across Government, legislative bodies, international organisations & NGOs in a strictly cross-party manner
• Produce formal correspondence, blog posts, presentations, and other documents articulating Big Brother Watch’s strategic goals
• Reflect, evaluate and implement learning from Big Brother Watch’s performance

Person specification

Essential

• Successful experience (2y+) fundraising from trusts and individual donors for a non-profit/NGO
• Experience of budget management and financial reporting, particularly in a non-profit context
• Proven leadership in a senior management role (2y+) in a similar role or environment
• Proven experience with high-level political judgement and decision-making
• A strong understanding of the external political environment, including levers for change and knowledge of what changes the minds of decision-makers
• A demonstrated commitment to defending rights and civil liberties in the UK
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Proven ability to work successfully in a non-party, cross-party environment
• Proven ability to represent an organisation as a responsible and high-impact ambassador
• Proven commitment to organisational excellence across all outputs

Desirable

• Experience managing managers
• Expertise and experience on UK issues relating to data protection, civil liberties, privacy, surveillance and/or free expression
• Excellent and persuasive communications skills
• Aptitude for managing and building relationships with stakeholders
• Familiarity with relevant UK surveillance and data protection laws

About Big Brother Watch

Big Brother Watch is a UK civil liberties campaign group fighting for a free future. We’re determined to reclaim our privacy and defend freedoms at this time of enormous technological change. And we fight to win.

We’re a fiercely independent, diverse, non-partisan and non-profit group of campaigners and researchers who work to roll back the surveillance state and protect rights in parliament, the media or the courts if we have to. We publish unique investigations and pursue powerful public campaigns to pursue real change. We work relentlessly to inform and empower the public to collectively reclaim privacy, defend our civil liberties and protect freedoms for the future.

We’re a small, dedicated and highly effective team of seven full-time staff, in addition to contractors and volunteers.

To apply

Please see the job information pack here: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/INTERIM-DIRECTOR-PARENTAL-COVER-Job-Information-Pack-October-2024.pdf

Then, please send:

• Your CV

• A covering letter explaining your motivation and suitability for the role in line with the job description and person specification (2 page maximum)

To recruitment@bigbrotherwatch.org.uk by 9am Monday 18th November 2024.