Programme Development Officer

Full time: 35 hours per week  

Fixed Term Contract: 12 months 

Closing date for applications: 25th September 2024  

First interview: Provisionally 9th October 2024  

Second interview: 14th October 2024 

About Us  

The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) is the central charity which supports the federation of 46 independent Wildlife Trusts working for nature’s recovery across the UK, Alderney and the Isle of Man. The Wildlife Trust’s vision is of a thriving natural world, with abundant wildlife and healthy natural habitats playing a valued role in addressing climate and ecological emergencies, and everyone is inspired to take action for nature’s recovery. 

Collectively, The Wildlife Trusts have more than 900,000 members, look after over 2,300 nature reserves, operate 123 visitor and education centres and own 29 working farms. The role of RSWT is to ensure a strong voice for wildlife at a UK level and to provide strategic leadership, support and development for The Wildlife Trusts. We provide shared expertise in areas such as climate change, digital fundraising, nature-based solutions, policy and safeguarding. We facilitate UK-wide communities of practice to share learning and replicate successful approaches so that together we are more than the sum of our parts. We support the individual Wildlife Trusts to be a strong force for nature in their local areas and to work together to achieve an even greater impact as a collective. 

The Wildlife Trusts are on a mission to bring about a people-powered nature and climate recovery by empowering people to take meaningful action for nature and to create an inclusive society where nature matters to everyone, everywhere. We are ambitious in our desire not just to slow, but to reverse the declines in nature. Together we have developed a bold, new collective strategy which outlines our vision and the actions we will take to restore nature over the next eight years. 

Central to our strategy are our three goals which set out what we are striving to achieve by 2030 in pursuit of our vision of a thriving natural world. Goal 1 is to put nature into recovery with abundant, diverse wildlife and natural processes creating wilder land and seascapes where people and nature thrive. Goal 2 is to inspire people to take action for nature and climate, resulting in better decision-making for the environment at both the local level and across the four UK nations. And Goal 3 is to enable nature to play a central and valued role in helping to address local and global problems, such as by helping tackle climate change and supporting wellbeing and education. 

Achieving these ambitious objectives means that we must develop new ways of working which increase the scale and impact of our work. Therefore, we have embarked on a programme of strategic transformations that are essential to achieving our goals, and which will result in a stronger and more effective Wildlife Trust movement for the long term. RSWT is leading the transformation programme across The Wildlife Trusts including in community organising, equality, diversity and inclusion, and funding nature’s recovery. The Wildlife Trusts have existed for over 100 years thanks to a strong membership base and traditional fundraising activities. 

About You  

Do you want to be part of a team leading the field in the development of large-scale nature restoration projects driven by private and public investment into nature’s recovery? 

In Wales, the Wildlife Trusts are setting an ambition to scale up and increase the pace of natures recovery. We have a proven track record of delivering nature conservation projects. However, we now need to scale this to all Wales programmes. We now have support teams from political advocacy, green financing and corporate engagement to match our unique ability to deliver nature restoration at the local level. In the past 18 months, The Wildlife Trusts have been developing new approaches to funding nature’s recovery from the private sector as well as maintaining close links with funders. These are exciting times and we are building on our unique position to develop major programmes with partners across Wales. 

We need dedicated expertise and capacity to work with Wildlife Trusts to bring this work into coherent programmes and develop models and plans that build revenues for nature’s recovery allowing much greater investment. This post is designed to provide the expertise and capacity to work alongside Wildlife Trust staff who are already committed to developing these programmes. 

You will be from a nature restoration background with an ambition to drive forward a step change in scale and pace of action. You will be organised and motivated, able to take the initiative and lead the effective delivery of nature restoration programme development in Wales. You will have an understanding of issues facing nature. You will likely have experience in project development work and, ideally, an understanding of Welsh partners. You are used to keeping accurate records and can present clearly and professionally. You will be a great communicator, with a personable style who can work with many different people across the wonderful variety of geography and activities of the Wildlife Trusts. 

You relish challenging the status quo and problem-solving. This is a new and ambitious role which will evolve following your appointment so you should be excited by the flexibility and opportunities to take an innovative approach. 

The Wildlife Trusts value passion, respect, trust, integrity, pragmatic activism and strength in diversity. Whilst we are passionate about promoting our aims, we are not judgemental and are inclusive. We particularly encourage applications from people who are underrepresented within our sector, including people from minority backgrounds and people with disabilities. We are committed to creating a movement that recognises and truly values individual differences and identities. 

RSWT take our Safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously. Please click here to read our commitment statement.  

As a Disability Confident employer, we are committed to offering an interview to anyone with a disability who meets all the essential criteria for the post. Please let us know if you require any adjustments to make our recruitment process more accessible.  

RSWT are committed to increasing diversity of its staff through its Levelling the field recruitment pledge and will offer an interview to any ethnic minority applicants that meets all the essential criteria for the post.  

Please be aware we may not accept applications if we have reason to believe they have been wholly produced using generative AI tools.  

This role may be subject to a DBS check.