Community Network Development Manager

Circa £35,000 per annum

London (with flexibility to work from home as required)

35 hours per week

For more than 210 years the Royal Horticultural Society has been the force behind the nation’s gardening. Our charitable purpose is to inspire passion and excellence in the science, art and practice for horticulture. Our vision is to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place. As a charity, the RHS aims to inspire a wide range of audiences by demonstrating the wonders of gardening through all that we do including gardens and shows, in our publications and online, and through our work in the community.

Community gardening volunteers, in programmes like Britain in Bloom and It’s Your Neighbourhood, are amazing people that use gardening to transform towns, cities and villages across the UK. This role is to work in our Communities’ Team, responsible for helping volunteers grow their skills and knowledge and build connections with others.

As Community Network Development Manager, you will be responsible for developing and managing a programme of activities for the RHS to help community groups and their volunteers, prioritising those that that will have the most impact.

Developing, testing and rolling out ways to share skills and knowledge with groups, through training, workshops, resources and mentoring schemes will be central to the role. While building a network of experts, organisations and enthusiastic volunteers who can help provide and deliver content will be key to delivering benefits on scale.

You will help to develop and enhance the community gardening network by creating new ways for groups to connect with and share their experiences with other groups, people and organisations in order to help strengthen the fabric of our community.

You will need to be comfortable working in innovative ways, as developing new workshops, tools or pilots and evaluating them before managing a rollout will all fall within your remit. A confident self-starter, with excellent communication skills, you will lead on your own programme of work but you will also need to work with a range of partners, so building strong internal and external relationships will be key to success in this role.

As a team, we are inspired and motivated by the amazing volunteers who participate in our programmes, and your work will have a direct impact on them and their communities. You will want to ensure they have high quality experience of engaging with us.

Reporting to the Community Development Manager, you will work as part of a small but highly motivated team of five people.

The RHS provides a number of great benefits for employees including:

• Free access to all RHS Gardens, Shows and Libraries
• Employee discounts including airport parking, hotels, retail and gym membership
• 25 days holiday (increasing 28 and 30 with service) and option to buy/sell
• Monthly Garden Magazine and access to Horticultural advice
• Sponsorship for External Studies

It’s never been more exciting time to join the Royal Horticultural Society. We are making a landmark £160 million investment in the future of horticulture over the next 10 years. This will allow us to bring the joy of gardening to millions more people and make some of the most significant and exciting changes in the history. Join us and be part of the history.

All applications should be received by 24 May 2021.