Director of Policy and Advocacy

About Sustain

Sustain is a powerful alliance of around 100 national organisations – working with hundreds
more at local and regional level. We believe everyone should have access to healthy and
sustainably produced food that protects people, animals and planet. We run highly effective and
creative campaigns, advocacy, networks and demonstration projects, to catalyse permanent
changes in food and farming policy and practice, and equip people and communities with the
skills to achieve change.

About this role

Director of Policy and Advocacy is a senior leadership role within Sustain, working across a
range of policy, project and campaign areas. We are seeking a strong leader, with management
experience and a keen interest in promoting solutions to many of the biggest challenges
currently facing us: climate change, restoration of nature, and achieving a healthy, fair,
diverse and sustainable system for food and farming. Leadership includes senior oversight:

• On ‘policy’, of the priorities, coherence and cross-fertilisation between our various
  projects and campaigns and the priorities identified by our alliance members, expert working
  parties and project/campaign leads.
• On ‘advocacy’, of Sustain’s range of approaches to achieving change – e.g. campaigning,
  partnership working, standards-setting as well as soft influence, at national and local level.

The Sustain alliance – members and colleagues – represent a rich source of expertise and
well-proven, viable solutions to many of the challenges that face us. These need to be
supported and replicated at scale, with barriers to adoption removed. It is the job of the
Sustain alliance to cultivate the movement, win the policies and other support for solutions,
and accelerate the process of change.

As a Director, you will have a key role in supporting the development of new and fundable areas
of work, as well as contributing to organisational strategy and decision-making for Sustain.
You will also hold strong people leadership skills, as the role oversees key teams at Sustain
with five direct reports, and will support the delivery of our organisational plan.

Job details

• Gross Annual Salary: £60,945 full-time pro rata. This is a pay level 11 salary effective
  from 1 April 2024. This salary increases annually in April each year according to Sustain’s
  payscale and progression, subject to satisfactory performance. In addition, Sustain matches
  pension contributions up to 5% of gross salary.
• Hours: Full-time (35 hours / 5 days per week)
• Location: Role is office-based in Cambridge Heath, London. Sustain offers working from home
  up to half of working hours, on request and subject to agreement after probation. Travel within
  London and across the UK will be required.
• Position type: Permanent contract, subject to funding
• Annual Leave: 31 days Annual Leave (comprises of 20 days Basic Annual Leave + FTE
  proportion of public holidays + office closures) rising annually by 2 days to a top limit of 36
  days
• Equal Opportunities: Sustain is committed to being a welcoming and inclusive employer,
  including recruiting for diversity. Read more about our approach here.
• Right to Work: Entitlement to work in the UK. Sustain is not able to assist with
  applications for work permits and cannot employ people living or working outside of the UK.
• Other details: Cycle to Work scheme available on salary sacrifice basis.

Tasks and responsibilities

The Director of Policy and Advocacy for Sustain will have a varied and stimulating workload,
working closely with the Chief Executive and in collaboration with Sustain’s senior management,
project and campaign leads, project partners, Sustain alliance members and associates, and
strategic funders. The postholder will provide strategic leadership on a range of policy,
campaign, influencing and communications matters relating to advocacy for healthy and
sustainable food and farming. The work will include:

Policy, advocacy and campaign development

• Creating an advocacy strategy for Sustain, working with colleagues and members, and
  building productive relationships with key audiences and partners, including an annual
  programme of activities and events.
• Leading on publishing policy reports, evidence submissions, statements and press releases,
  and overseeing those generated by Sustain colleagues and/or wider alliance activities.
• Overseeing key policy, advocacy and campaign themes, to ensure these are pursued
  effectively and prioritised within advocacy and campaign work, with line-management
  responsibilities in relation to relevant campaign coordinators and their teams.
• Providing everyday advisory and/or skills-building support or other opportunities for
  colleagues to develop their policy, influencing and communications work.

Stakeholder relationships

• Ensuring that members of the Sustain alliance are engaged in policy and advocacy and
  benefiting from the opportunities provided by their alliance membership.
• Building trusted relationships with a range of alliance members, government departments,
  elected representatives, project and campaign partners, journalists, media outlets, funders and
  opinion formers; and cultivating opportunities to work together to achieve positive change,
  including potential partnership initiatives.

Leadership in organisation management

• Working with the core team to ensure that this work is adequately resourced, and budgets
  are managed effectively, understanding and contributing to how this fits within Sustain’s
  overall financial management, resource use and fundraising needs.
• Developing compelling and impactful activities, evidence-gathering, partnerships and
  funding bids and feeding into development of impact reporting and theories of change.
• Leading on one or more operational priorities, working with the senior team and other key
  members of the staff team to ensure that tasks happen in a timely and effective way.
• Maintaining excellent financial records, contact databases and mailing lists, in line with
  good governance, data protection and accountability.
• Ensuring that monitoring, evaluation and learning is undertaken in relation to the
  campaigns and advocacy work, to help shape the way these develop, and to ensure that this
  informs reporting to funders and Sustain’s Council of Trustees, organisational learning and
  development of future activities.

Oversight on public communications

• Overseeing public communications in service of advocacy goals, working with expert project
  and campaign coordinators at Sustain. This will include representing the Sustain alliance
  externally – for example, with journalists, in the media, at high-level political opportunities
  such as giving oral evidence to parliamentary enquiries, chairing or speaking at panel events,
  organising roundtables or conferences, pitching or reporting to funders, etc.
• Overseeing the work of Sustain’s colleagues who lead on communications, social media,
  digital and design and parliament/public affairs to enable effective delivery of the policy and
  advocacy strategy.
• Editorial oversight and senior sign-off for Sustain’s political, campaigning and public
  communications activity, ensuring consistency of tone and approach and cultivating helpful
  cross-fertilisation of ideas and joined-up policy responses across the range of Sustain
  activities. Also ensuring that communications and public affairs activities serve and respect
  the alliance’s strategy, agreed tone, opportunities to influence, political impartiality, legal
  boundaries and our charitable objectives.

The Head of Policy and Advocacy will also:

• Undertake other tasks and responsibilities that may arise from time to time.

Personal specification

Sustain is seeking a professional, experienced, strategic Director of Policy and Advocacy with
fantastic team-working, influencing and alliance-building skills, who shares our commitment to
healthy, fair and sustainable food and farming, and who has the following skills and
experience:

Essential

• Background and preferably several years of senior experience across campaigns, advocacy and
  policy development, preferably in an area relevant to Sustain’s work, and with experience of
  working collaboratively to develop policy positions.
• Demonstrable experience of running successful national or local campaigns to achieve
  change.
• Demonstrable understanding of campaign, advocacy and influencing approaches, tools and
  tactics.
• Several years of senior experience managing people and teams to high performance standards.
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to work with a range people and organisations,
  navigating diverse viewpoints to build consensus, whilst driving forward a shared agenda.
• Exceptional oral and written communication skills in fluent spoken and written English, and
  experience of upholding high editorial standards in internal and public communications.
• Demonstrable ability to set strategic priorities, create organisation policy positions and
  to deliver priority messages to key audiences in various settings and media types.
• High levels of strategic thinking and self-motivation, as well as the ability to respond to
  rapidly changing circumstances.
• Excellent project management, time management, and organisational skills and the ability to
  work under pressure and to meet deadlines.
• Willingness and aptitude to line-manage other people working on relevant areas of work.
• A demonstrable commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and racial justice.
• Energy, enthusiasm, creativity and tenacity.

Desirable

• A personal interest in healthy, fair and sustainable food and farming.
• Established contacts and positive working relationships with relevant organisations,
  journalists, media outlets, elected representatives and their teams.
• Experiencing of chairing and/or facilitation, helping people with diverse viewpoints to
  work together in common purpose.
• Experience of working in alliance or coalition and an understanding of the associated
  benefits and challenges.
• Experience of commissioning external providers, such as for research, polling or other
  tools, evidence and data useful to campaigns, advocacy and public communications.
• Experience of developing fundable initiatives, funder relationship development, monitoring,
  reporting and funder stewardship.
• Experience of budget management and financial reporting.
• Experience of integrating diversity, equity, inclusion and racial justice into work
  programmes, and practical and policy ideas on how to improve this within an organisation and in
  advocacy activities.
• Experience of devising, developing or implementing improvements to operational matters
  within an organisation, preferably in a charity or the third sector.
• Experience of how smaller and third-sector organisations manage their funding.
• Understanding of the culture, opportunities and boundaries of the not-for-profit and
  charity sectors, especially in this role with regards good governance, charitable objectives
  and political impartiality.

Diversity

The person appointed will contribute to the mutually supportive culture of Sustain (including
colleagues, partners, participants and audiences) in which equality and diversity are not just
respected but promoted. Visit our website here for some
useful advice if you are applying for a job at Sustain.

Sustain is recruiting for this role as part of our Ethnicity Confident and Disability Confident
schemes. Applicants who meet all the essential criteria, and who let us know voluntarily (via
our Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form) that you would like to be considered in this way, will
have an enhanced chance of gaining a first-stage interview.

Sustain welcomes applications from everyone regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, class,
socio-economic background, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion and/or
belief. We are happy to discuss and consider flexible working at the point of hire. We
particularly encourage applications from people from ethnic minority backgrounds, people with
diverse identities related to gender and sexuality, and people with disabilities. This is
because these groups are currently underrepresented at Sustain. Where two or more candidates
are judged to be of equal merit, priority may be given to a candidate who belongs to a group
less represented at Sustain.

Discuss the role

This role is a senior leadership position within Sustain. For this role, we are offering
opportunities for an online or telephone conversation with the Chief Executive Kath Dalmeny for
you to be able to ask questions about the role. These conversations will be 20 minutes long,
confidential and will not influence the interviews or decision-making process. Participation is
not a requirement for applying for this role. Please email [email protected] indicating your preference for ‘morning’
or ‘afternoon’ on either Wednesday 20 or Wednesday 27 March. Slots will not be available
earlier than these dates, but it may be possible to arrange a time after these dates, up to the
day before the closing date, subject to availability.