Communities Lead: Spatial Justice & Local Impact

Makespace Oxfordshire; Oxford; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

Makespace Oxfordshire invites a Communities Lead to steer strategy for community development across its spaces. You will lead the Communities Team, steward the National Lottery funded Common Rooms project, and align work with spatial justice and ecological resilience.

You’ll build capacity, nurture partnerships with residents, creatives and local organisations, translate vision into deliverables, manage multi-year programmes, and ensure high-quality outcomes across Oxfordshire.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience of community development and support for social enterprises, community groups, creatives and/or not-for-profits.
• Experience of planning and managing projects, budgets, programmes and partnerships across multi-year timeframes.
• A demonstrable passion for spatial justice and/or lived experience of tackling spatial injustice
• Proactive in organising events and programmes to support community needs and build resident capacity, at a planning level.
• Strategic vision: able to hold the wider picture across the hubs and mission projects and turn it into clear priorities.
• Confident in managing and supporting others to do their best work.
• Excellent time and project management skills.
• Excellent communicator, adept at bridging and forming networks, and at building rapport with a diverse range of community members and stakeholders.
• Excellent at building relationships with residents and local communities, with the ability to respond to needs and address conflicts as they arise.
• Ability to work on own initiative and be self-motivated.
• Ability and willingness to travel across Oxfordshire, and to work occasional evenings and weekends.
• Experience of setting up or running community spaces, and of recruiting, supporting and developing volunteers.
• Experience of monitoring and evaluation, ideally story-based or participatory approaches.
• Experience of designing and delivering learning programmes.
• Knowledge and connections across other community development work in Oxfordshire.
• Familiarity with concepts relating to spatial justice, meanwhile space and community assets.
• Strong connections to networks and social justice organisations in the local area
• A knowledge of and passion for working towards climate justice and social justice
• Ability to use and develop Makespace systems, e.g. GDrive, Slack, Monday.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Communities Team and set the strategy, mission and yearly plan for community development.
• Oversee multi-year, funded projects like Common Rooms under National Lottery programmes.
• Cultivate partnerships with residents, community groups, creatives and local organisations.
• Translate vision into deliverables and keep an eye on the bigger picture while ensuring high-quality delivery.
• Manage and develop volunteers and staff, balancing strategic leadership with hands-on guidance.

Skills

Community development

Project management

Budget planning

Stakeholder engagement

Strategic planning

Team leadership

Networking

Facilitation

Conflict resolution

Monitoring & evaluation

Tools

GDrive

Slack

Monday.com

Job description

Makespace Oxfordshire invites a Communities Lead to steer strategy for community development across its spaces. You will lead the Communities Team, steward the National Lottery funded Common Rooms project, and align work with spatial justice and ecological resilience.

You’ll build capacity, nurture partnerships with residents, creatives and local organisations, translate vision into deliverables, manage multi-year programmes, and ensure high-quality outcomes across Oxfordshire.