Durham Area Lead

Permanent, Full Time (35 hours per week)

Are you based in County Durham, with a deep understanding of its places, communities and power structures? Do you bring the relationships, strategic insight and commitment needed to support community‑led, just and regenerative futures in Durham?

About the role

This is an exciting opportunity to be the Durham Area Lead within the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s (JRF) Regional Programme, part of the Emerging Futures team. Rooted in the North East and York, the programme is a long‑term, place‑based initiative focused on supporting transitions towards a more equitable and just future where people and planet can flourish.

Building on the region’s rich history as a birthplace of industrial innovation and social change, the Durham strand of the programme backs people, organisations and coalitions who are building alternatives to broken systems and creating the conditions for this work to take root and thrive. We act as funders and field‑builders: resourcing and nurturing infrastructures, communities, networks and individuals so that transformative work can grow and evolve.

As Durham Area Lead, you will be embedded in place, alongside the communities you work alongside, helping to support, shield, connect and nurture those demonstrating what just and regenerative futures could look like in County Durham.

You will foster relationships and build partnerships with local authorities, universities, funders, businesses and grassroots groups to support work in service of fairer futures in and around Durham. You will provide strategic direction and insight on how we fund, partner and programme in the area, bringing together research, learning and practice to deepen our approach to place‑based work.

Combining third‑horizon thinking with practical delivery, you will help to design and grow programmes, coalitions and infrastructures that can evolve over time. You will also contribute to team culture and strategy as a senior member of the Regional Team, connecting the work in Durham with JRF’s wider Emerging Futures agenda across the North East and York.

About you

• Based in County Durham, with strong knowledge of the county’s economic, social and political context, and deep curiosity about how these might evolve in the future.
• An understanding and interest in solidarity economy and community wealth building.
• Skilled at building and stewarding complex, purpose‑aligned partnerships across public sector, community organisations, social enterprises and local businesses, enabling groups to collaborate around shared, transformative goals.
• Confident working directly with communities on issues that matter to them, facilitating group‑based work and nurturing community‑led social infrastructure and enterprises.
• Able to work strategically within place, synthesising research, insight and practice to develop coherent approaches that connect local action to long‑term systemic change.
• Comfortable navigating complexity and uncertainty, spotting opportunities in evolving policy and political landscapes, and shaping emergent strategy, budgets and programmes that can adapt over time.
• A relational, values‑driven leader – someone who can hold space, ask good questions, listen deeply, and grow coalitions and teams in ways that centre equity, diversity, inclusion and social justice.

If you’re an inspiring, Durham‑based leader who enjoys bringing people together, developing pioneering approaches and helping communities build lasting alternatives to unjust systems, we’d love to hear from you.

Equal Opportunities & Disability

Applications are welcome from all, regardless of age, disability, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief, race, sex, sexual orientation, trans status or socioeconomic background.

We positively encourage applications from people from marginalised backgrounds, including but not limited to those with experience of living in poverty.

We are committed to being an anti‑racist organisation and operate an anonymised recruitment process so that bias is eliminated from the shortlisting process.

We are a Disability Confident Employer. We shall also offer interviews to disabled candidates who meet the minimum criteria for the job. If you have a disability, please tell us if you would like to be considered for an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme.

If you have any additional needs and need reasonable adjustments to be made to the interview process, please let us know.

Benefits

We offer a supportive and flexible workplace. For details about our benefits, please refer to JRF Benefits.

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