York Civic Partnerships Lead

This role is about what it means to honour that legacy now.

York is a city of contrasts: heritage and change, wealth and inequality, influence and marginalisation. This role asks what it means for JRF, in its home city, to live up to its founding memorandum today. This is relational, outward-facing work that keeps asking “what would Joseph do?” of today’s challenges such as extreme wealth inequality, precarity and the climate emergency.

You will work alongside communities, civic partners and institutions to build trusted relationships, develop new approaches and contribute to change that is rooted, collective and built to last. As York Civic Partnerships Lead, you will deepen JRF’s role as an anchor institution, helping ensure that the resources we steward are used in service of our mission and of the city.

You will be part of JRF’s Regional Programme within Emerging Futures, a long-term, place-based initiative backing people, organisations and coalitions who are building alternatives to extractive and exclusionary systems in the North East and York.

What you will do

You will play a central role in how JRF listens, connects, and acts in York. This includes:

• Building trusted relationships with civic partners, community organisations, and local stakeholders
• Supporting community wealth building across the city, including work with the York and North Yorkshire Mayoral Commission
• Leading a flagship collaboration with the University of York and community partners to reimagine Seebohm Rowntree’s poverty mapping 125 years on
• Convening people and ideas that strengthen York’s ecosystem for just and regenerative change
• Contributing to shared learning, research, and programme development across the regional team
• Evolving JRF’s anchor practice in York so that our assets and influence are clearly in service of our mission

About you

You work relationally and think systemically. You are comfortable with uncertainty, able to hold multiple perspectives, and skilled at building trust across different spaces. You are motivated by questions of power, wealth, and justice, and by how institutions like JRF can use their position to support deeper transitions rather than short-term fixes.

You might come from civic, community, research, policy, or cross-sector work. What matters most is how you show up, with integrity, curiosity, and a commitment to working in service of transitions to support just and regenerative futures.

To find out more, please visit

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