Community & Impact Manager

Location: Home-based in the UK – London or Manchester - with regular travel across the UK and internationally as required.

Salary: £35,000 - £40,000 per annum, depending on experience

Contract: Permanent, full-time

Working pattern: We offer a fully flexible working environment

Annual leave: 25 days of annual leave per annum, plus 3 additional days over Christmas

Additional Benefits: Comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)

The role

We are looking for an experienced Community & Impact Manager to join the Common Purpose team.

This is a role for someone who is passionate about people, curious about what makes connections meaningful, and motivated by the difference those connections can make. You will bring people together around shared interests and challenges, create opportunities for them to learn from one another, and help turn those relationships into action and impact.

You will work with clients, participants and alumni to build active communities around our programmes and areas of shared interest, expertise and experience. You will identify opportunities for people to exchange knowledge, solve problems, collaborate and contribute to the wider work of Common Purpose.

Alongside this, you will help us understand and demonstrate the impact of our work. What happens after people take part in our programmes? How do they apply what they have learned, what do they do differently, who do they influence and what outcomes do they contribute to?

You will gather evidence through conversations, interviews, research and data analysis, turning what you discover into clear insights, compelling case studies and evidence of impact and return on investment. This will help clients and colleagues understand the longer-term value of Common Purpose's work, while informing how we develop our programmes and communities.

The two parts of the role are closely connected. By understanding the difference our work makes, you can identify opportunities to bring people together around common challenges. By building stronger communities, you can create further opportunities for learning, collaboration and impact.

You might spend one day interviewing alumni to understand how they have applied their learning, spotting a common challenge across the network and bringing together practitioners to explore it. The next, you might analyse feedback and outcome data, develop an impact case study with a client, or design an experience that helps a group of people build relationships and work together.

We are looking for someone who can move comfortably between these different activities: someone who combines creativity and energy in working with people with the analytical skills to ask good questions, find patterns, assess evidence and communicate what it tells us.

This is not simply an alumni engagement or impact measurement role. It is about connecting people, ideas and evidence to demonstrate the value of our work, strengthen our communities and create opportunities for that value to grow.

Building communities of practice

• Developing communities around shared interests and challenges – identifying themes emerging from our impact work and network and turning them into purposeful communities of practice
• Building strong relationships with alumni and practitioners – understanding their expertise, experience, interests and aspirations and developing meaningful relationships over time
• Designing community experiences – creating online and in-person opportunities for people to exchange expertise, explore shared challenges, collaborate and learn from one another
• Developing targeted communities – identifying different groups within the wider network and creating focused communities around sectors, issues, professional interests, geography or areas of Common Purpose expertise
• Activating the network – identifying opportunities for alumni and practitioners to contribute to programmes, events, mentoring, research, thought leadership and other Common Purpose activity
• Connecting people and expertise – bringing together people who can share knowledge, develop partnerships, support one another or work together on issues they care about
• Developing community communications – creating communications that maintain meaningful engagement and give people clear reasons to participate, contribute and stay connected

Understanding and demonstrating impact

• Developing our approach to impact and ROI – creating systematic ways to understand and demonstrate the outcomes and longer-term value of Common Purpose programmes for participants, organisations and wider communities
• Working with clients to understand outcomes – engaging with clients before, during and after programmes to identify what success looks like, gather evidence and understand the longer-term effects of our work
• Gathering impact evidence – using interviews, surveys, data, follow-up conversations and other approaches to understand what participants have done differently and what outcomes have followed
• Measuring return on investment – working with clients and colleagues to identify meaningful measures of value and, where possible, connect programme participation to organisational, professional or social outcomes
• Building an evidence base – capturing stories, outcomes, examples and data that demonstrate the longer-term value and impact of Common Purpose's work
• Identifying patterns and insights – looking beyond individual stories to understand what the wider evidence tells us about leadership, learning, influence and social impact
• Developing impact stories and case studies – identifying compelling examples and working with participants and clients to turn them into useful evidence for client relationships, communications, fundraising, programmes and business development
• Sharing insight across Common Purpose – ensuring what we learn from participants, alumni and clients informs programme design, client conversations, communications, fundraising and organisational strategy

Turning insight into organisational value

• Identifying opportunities – using impact evidence, client conversations and community insight to identify opportunities for new programmes, partnerships, research and other Common Purpose activity
• Supporting client relationships – providing clients with useful evidence and insight about the outcomes of their programmes and helping them understand what happens beyond the programme itself
• Strengthening the Common Purpose proposition – bringing evidence from participants, alumni and clients into how we describe, design and improve our work
• Maintaining high-quality information – ensuring our CRM and other systems allow us to understand relationships, engagement, expertise, outcomes and impact across the network

What you’ll bring

We are looking for someone who combines impact and insight capability with strong relationship-building and community skills. You will be comfortable working with clients and senior stakeholders, but equally comfortable conducting an interview with an individual participant or analyzing data across hundreds of people. You will be curious about what happens after a programme and skilled at turning conversations and evidence into something useful.

You will bring:

• Impact and evaluation experience – experience gathering evidence of outcomes, impact, value or ROI and turning it into useful insight
• Strong relationship-building skills – you build trust quickly, maintain relationships over time and are comfortable working with clients, participants, alumni and senior stakeholders
• Research and interviewing skills – you know how to ask good questions, explore people's experiences and draw out meaningful evidence without leading the conversation
• Community and network experience – experience building communities, networks, membership organisations, alumni networks or similar stakeholder groups
• Data confidence – you are comfortable working with databases, engagement data and other information to identify patterns and understand what is happening across a network
• Strategic thinking – you can connect individual experiences and evidence to wider organisational goals and identify what the information means for Common Purpose
• Strong written communication – you can turn evidence, conversations and complex information into clear stories, reports, briefings, case studies and recommendations
• Client confidence – you are comfortable having structured conversations with clients about outcomes, value and impact and can present evidence clearly and credibly
• Creativity and initiative – you are naturally curious about what could be done differently and enjoy creating new ways for people to connect, contribute and learn
• Cross-organisational confidence – you are comfortable working across teams and can build support for ideas without relying on formal authority
• Good judgement – you understand the importance of trust, confidentiality and appropriate use of personal information when working with clients, alumni and their stories
• A genuine interest in Common Purpose's work – you are interested in leadership, learning, different perspectives and the ways people influence organisations and communities

All applicants must also

• Have excellent written English, oral communication and interpersonal skills
• Be confident building relationships through in-person, phone and online conversations
• Be comfortable working independently while also contributing actively to a collaborative team
• Be able to manage a varied workload, multiple relationships, projects and competing priorities in a fast-paced environment
• Be willing and able to travel within the UK and globally, including occasional early mornings, evenings and short periods away from home
• Be confident and proficient in Microsoft Office, Zoom, CRM or database systems and other digital collaboration tools
• Be comfortable working with data and using evidence to inform decisions
• Be committed to Common Purpose's independent and non-aligned approach to its work

What we offer

• Purpose – the opportunity to work with a global community of people who are contributing to organisations and communities in different ways
• Influence – the opportunity to shape how Common Purpose understands and uses one of its most important long-term assets
• Variety – exposure to different sectors, generations, cultures, organisations and perspectives through your work
• Growth – continual development of your community, impact and strategic practice, alongside access to internal learning and development opportunities
• Responsibility – meaningful ownership of the development of our alumni communities and approach to impact
• Flexibility – a remote-first and flexible working environment
• A global network – the opportunity to work with alumni, colleagues and partners across different countries and contexts

About Common Purpose

Common Purpose is a global non-profit organisation that develops people to navigate the complexity, influence and competing interests that shape the world around them.

Our work is built around three disciplines:

1. Navigating complexity – sensing, interpreting and acting on what is changing in the world.
2. Navigating influence – staying accountable to the consequences of the power you hold.
3. Navigating legitimacy – having, and granting others, the ground and courage to challenge across boundaries that are not theirs to control.

We bring these disciplines to life through experiential learning. Participants encounter different perspectives, enter unfamiliar environments, engage with people and organisations beyond their usual experience, and work through real questions and situations. Our programmes create the conditions for people to test their assumptions, understand the consequences of their decisions and develop the confidence to act differently.

Our alumni are an important part of this work. They extend the relationships, ideas and experiences created through our programmes long after a programme ends.

Over 90,000 professionals and nearly 75,000 students worldwide have taken part in Common Purpose programmes.

Next Steps

If you are someone who enjoys building meaningful communities, developing trusted relationships and understanding the longer-term impact of people's experiences, we would love to hear from you.

Please send us your CV and a cover letter explaining why you are interested in the role and what you would bring to Common Purpose.

We would particularly welcome evidence of your experience building communities or networks, gathering impact or insight, developing relationships, or turning information and conversations into something useful for an organisation.

Common Purpose is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and will consider candidates based on the relevance of their skills, experience and potential.

If you have any access requirements during the recruitment process, please contact us at hr@commonpurpose.org.