Community Grants Manager

Macmillan Cancer Support; Greater London, Baildon, Glasgow; Hybrid; GBP 35,000 - 50,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday plus flexible options

Pension matched up to 7.5%

120+ learning and development offers

Flexible working patterns

Holiday buying and selling scheme

Job summary

Macmillan Cancer Support is seeking an Operations Lead for Community Grants to oversee the design and delivery of equitable grant programs. You will transform strategic goals into practical realities and collaborate with various teams to ensure effective delivery. The ideal candidate will have experience with community initiatives, strong organizational skills, and a commitment to equitable funding practices. The role offers a hybrid working model, competitive benefits, and opportunities for professional development.

Qualifications

• Experience working with community organizations or community-led initiatives in diverse contexts.
• Experience designing and operationalizing grant programs or funding models.
• Experience of co-design or participatory approaches, including working with people with lived experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead the operational design and refinement of community grant programs.
• Translate strategic direction into clear program designs.
• Develop accessible application materials that promote equitable access.

Skills

Operational focus

Collaborative working skills

Analytical skills

Organizational skills

Excellent written communication

Job description

Overview

Contract type: 18-month fixed term contract

Full time: 34.5 hours, we are open to a conversation about how you work these hours

Location: Hybrid between home and our London, Glasgow or Shipley offices. The requirement to come into the office is once a month, but you are also able to attend more frequently should you wish to as there is always a space here for you to work. There will also be occasional travel for meetings and events.

About us

At Macmillan you\'ll find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer. We\'re going all out to find even better ways to help even more people who need our support. Our values are at the heart of who we are and everything we do, inspiring our thinking and guiding our actions.

Our new organisational strategy sets out how we’ll fight even harder to make every pound raised count for even more. With your help, we’ll transform cancer care for good.

About the role

You will play a key role in turning strategic intent into operational reality for Macmillan’s Community Grants.

Working closely with the Community Grants Strategic Lead and the Community Grants Delivery Group, you will lead the operational design and delivery of community grant programmes, ensuring they are equitable, evidence‑informed and grounded in lived experience. You will be responsible for developing grant products, refining processes, enabling delivery teams and embedding learning‑led, adaptive ways of working.

This role is central to ensuring our Community Grants Model remains practical, accessible and responsive in a changing environment — supporting community organisations and people with lived experience to shape and deliver meaningful change.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the detailed operational design and refinement of community grant programmes, including criteria, processes, tools and guidance.
• Translate strategic direction into clear, deliverable programme designs that enable consistent and high‑quality delivery.
• Develop accessible application materials, resources and support pathways that reduce barriers and promote equitable access.
• Enable effective delivery by working closely with Business Support and Delivery Group colleagues to ensure processes are workable, efficient and consistently applied.
• Oversee programme‑level risk management, documentation, version control and decision‑making processes.
• Embed learning and continuous improvement across programmes, ensuring evaluation findings, partner feedback and lived experience inform design iteration.
• Support test‑and‑learn approaches, contributing to organisational learning.
• Work collaboratively to ensure lived experience is meaningfully embedded in programme design and operationalisation in relational, ethical ways.
• Represent the Communities & Participation function in internal and external meetings, networks and collaborations.

About you

You will bring strong operational focus, collaborative working skills and a commitment to equitable community funding. Key requirements include:

• Experience working with community organisations or community‑led initiatives in diverse contexts
• Experience designing and operationalising grant programmes, funding models or community‑focused initiatives
• Experience of co‑design or participatory approaches, including working with people with lived experience
• Experience of adaptive, test‑and‑learn approaches, product ownership or iterative programme design
• Strong analytical and organisational skills, with attention to detail and the ability to manage multiple workstreams
• Excellent written communication skills, producing clear and accessible guidance and programme materials
• Ability to work effectively in a matrix environment, building trusted internal and external relationships
• A clear commitment to equity, inclusion and relational approaches to community funding.

In return

In return, we offer a range of benefits including:

• 25 days holiday plus flexible bank holiday options, increasing by 1 day every year of service up to 30 days
• Pension matched up to 7.5%
• 120+ learning and development offers, with access to external professional qualifications
• Flexible working patterns, such as compressed hours, flexibility to work earlier or later around our core working hours of 10am-4pm
• Holiday buying and selling scheme, life insurance, free wills, retail discounts and much more

Recruitment process

To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed.

So we can support you to be at your best during the application or interview process, please contact Macmillan TA Team [e-mail] for advice and reasonable adjustments.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

We welcome applications from everyone who meet the criteria and strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under‑represented at Macmillan. Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy is available here, along with our internal employee representation body, ‘Our Voice’ and 8 Employee Network groups to promote fairness and belonging.