Volunteering Communications and Relationships Specialist

The Volunteering Communications and Relationships Specialist is responsible for fostering strong connections with Guide Dogs volunteers through strategic communication initiatives. This role aims to enhance the volunteer experience, drive engagement, and improve volunteer retention rates.

Key Responsibilities

• As part of the Volunteering Good Practice and Relationships Team, deliver the Volunteer Relationship Marketing plan to ensure effective communication and engagement with Guide Dogs volunteers. 
• Utilise data-driven insights to create tailored communications content relevant to their segment, focusing on enhancing the volunteer experience and retention rates.
• Regularly review completed communications for reporting and continuous improvement.
• Contribute to the design of volunteer journeys, incorporating cross-selling and retention strategies, to provide a consistent and enriching experience for volunteers.
• Deliver integrated, relevant, and consistent communications to volunteers through mass and tailored channels -email, direct mail being the key channels, alongside creating content for the volunteer facing platform when available.
• Work to deliver against annual plans and budgets to support volunteer communications and surveys.
• Collaborate with Fundraising and Operations teams to align service-specific engagement activities with the overall volunteer relationship plan.
• Maximise the use of existing creative content and commission or directly create new content as needed to support the Volunteer Relationship Marketing program.
• Monitor and moderate volunteer social media activities, collaborating with relevant departments to respond to volunteer-specific inquiries and feedback.
• Support lead generation initiatives and manage lead pools for relevant cross-selling opportunities.
• Actively contribute to the Volunteering team and wider organisational initiatives, serving as a subject matter expert on volunteer engagement.
• Collaborate with external agencies and service providers as needed, ensuring alignment with organisational objectives and standards.

How to apply 

Further details on the full role are attached below. When you are ready to apply, submit an online application form via this page.

If you would like to have an informal conversation about the role before applying, or require any accessibility support to apply, our friendly recruitment team is ready and waiting to help. Call them on 0118 3540345 or drop an email to [email protected].

As part of your application ensure you provide evidence and examples of how your skills & experience meet the criteria as set out in the attached job description. You will also be asked to complete a few job-specific questions as part of this application process, so please be prepared to write your answers to these questions.

If you want to know more about the teams who work at Guide Dogs, you can find it on our Careers Page

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

Guide Dogs welcomes applications from all sections of the community and actively encourages diversity to maximise achievements, creativity and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability or nationality. 

As a Disability Confident Employer, we are proud, whenever possible, to offer an interview to all candidates that meet our selection criteria, and who indicate they wish their application to be considered under our Disability Confident interview commitment. For more details, visit our careers site.

If you are successful you will need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK via our digital ID checking supplier; in addition, we cannot offer visa sponsorship at this time.

Safeguarding

Guide Dogs is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children, young people and adults at risk of harm with whom we work. We expect all our employees and volunteers to fully share this commitment.

At Guide Dogs, we believe in fair and equitable hiring practices. A criminal record will not automatically disqualify an applicant from consideration for a position. Each case will be evaluated individually, taking into account the nature of the offense, its relevance to the role, and the time that has passed since the incident. We encourage all candidates to disclose relevant information, and we assure you that it will be handled confidentially and fairly.

Guide Dogs follow Safer Recruitment practices to ensure we are safeguarding the vulnerable people we work with. As part of this, we require a full work history with any gaps accounted for & a minimum of 2 professional referee details fully covering the past 5 years. If you are applying for a disclosure role, please note that you will be required to undergo an enhanced DBS check and sign up to the DBS update service.

For high volumes of applications, we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than advertised.