Background

This is an exciting and challenging opportunity to work with a driven team in one of Scotland’s most well regarded and effective local active travel and bike refurbishing charities.

The Bike Station has been based in the community for over 20 years, with a credible reputation of recycling, refurbishing and reusing donated bikes and making bikes available within the community.

Our communities continue to be under increasing pressure with the cost-of-living crisis and within a climate crisis.

Enabling more people to choose cycling has multiple financial, health and social benefits and the demand for our services has grown in recent years.

We are looking for a confident and strategic Development Manager to build strong relationships and develop services that will significantly enhance their sustainable income.

This role will create and lead our long-term unrestricted income and business opportunities.

Primary Aim

Contribute to the long-term sustainability of The Bike Station by increasing unrestricted income.

Purpose of the role

• Explore and source public giving commercial opportunities in alignment with The Bike Stations strategic objectives.
• Analyse market data to support opportunities for business development with existing and potential clients and provide recommendations to success and routes to increased revenue.
• Develop and maintain strategic partnerships and relationships developing strong working relationships with key stakeholders, influencing decisions both internally & externally.
• Develop and deliver our commercial income opportunities including our skills development programme, corporate volunteering and public giving campaigns.
• Collaborate with The Bike Stations refurbishing, skills development, community, volunteering and communications teams to ensure strong customer experience .
• Lead on developing messaging, with the support from the Communications Team, to create marketing materials that facilitates expansion of The Bike Stations commercial and giving opportunities.
• Monitor performance against budget and implementing action plans to ensure achievement of budget targets.
• Line manage Volunteer Development Officer and Communications Officer to ensure programmes of activity are well resourced, ensuring high quality with a commitment to continuous improvement and return custom.
• Such other tasks as may be required which are consistent with the duties and responsibilities of the post.

Person Specification

Real experience, aptitude, values, fit with team and a passion for cycling are more important to us than formal qualifications.

That being said this post requires strong business acumen, evidence of successful income generation and a practical and effective approach.

Essential

• Confident, self-motivated and proactive with excellent communication, organisational and people skills.
• An excellent understanding of third sector and commercial business development including charitable trading, grants and contracts.
• Evidence of securing unrestricted income through commercial and public giving campaigns
• An excellent relationship builder with people and professionals from a range of backgrounds and sectors: ideally someone with gravitas and integrity.
• Ability to process complex information, analyse data and articulate it well to a range of audiences and stakeholders.
• Experience of completing financial and resource analyses of opportunities to create sustainable options and lead on creating appropriate plans. This can include options appraisals, business plans, funding assessments.
• Experience of preparing programme budgets including financial reports and cash flow forecasts.
• Ability to problem-solve and design and implement solutions.
• Ability to manage their time effectively, multitask, work on several projects simultaneously with tight timescales.
• Proficient in the use of technology and willing to learn new ways of working as needed.
• An excellent team player and willing to share skills and knowledge with co-workers with experience developing an line managing teams

Purpose of the role

The post will engage with communities in Edinburgh, with particular focus on our Kids Bike Life programme. Kids Bike Life (KBL) is a project designed to enable more young people and their adults to choose cycling. Having started delivery of the project in 2024/25, we have built relationships with schools, young people, their adults and the surrounding communities to deliver a programme of activity to increase cycling in the area.

The role will primarily involve working with our Cycle Trainer Ride Leaders to schedule activities for the Kids Bike Life programme, developing new partnerships (with schools and community organisations) and maintaining existing relationships. Throughout the delivery of the programme you will be expected to keep records and evaluate in line with reporting requirements. You may be expected to support the Communities Manager in future fundraising bids for the project or other such community projects.

Key Responsibilities

• Plan and coordinate delivery of the Kids Bike Life programme in Edinburgh
• Engage with partner organisations, identify the most appropriate partnerships for Bike Station projects and develop and maintain relationships with
• selected partners.
• Act as the primary point of contact for partners, sharing information about the programme and dealing with their enquiries and any problems that
• arise.
• Ensure appropriate data is collected for robust evaluation of the programme, contribute to analysis and presentation of data for reporting and funding
• applications etc.
• Work with Communities Manager and Perth counterpart to ensure the projects are delivered consistently and are continually improved.
• Work closely with the Cycle Trainer Ride Leaders to schedule Kids Bike Life sessions
• Develop a strategy for the integration of cargo bikes into the Kids Bike Life project
• Coordination of any freelancers or volunteers required to assist with delivery of activities.
• With support of Community Mechanics and/or Cycle Trainer Ride Leader, design events for the programme
• Support the recruitment of staff joining the Communities Team
• Support the Communications Officer by providing relevant materials (e.g. photos, quotes etc).
• Operate within a set delivery budget that is prescribed and monitored.
• Comply with all current legislation and Recycle to Cycle policies.
• Work with the Bike Station team.
• Assist with the delivery of other communities projects and activities.
• Where necessary, assist in the development of new community programmes.

Person Specification

Experience:

• Delivering behaviour change programmes using a community development approach.
• Partnership working with local authorities, community planning partners and the community and voluntary sector.
• Ability to work independently and make decisions with minimal supervision; enthusiastic and self-motivated.
• Good level of IT literacy including use of Google suite.
• Good understanding and experience of community development theory and practice.
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of the workings of the community and voluntary sector.
• Understanding of local and national social policy.
• Developing and delivering projects in seldom heard communities.
• Excellent track record of organising, promoting and carrying through events.
• Leading group workshops and training activities.
• Contributing to successful funding applications.

Skills:

• Good verbal and written communication skills.
• Understanding of the community and voluntary sector.
• Good time-management skills and attention to detail.
• Innovative, analytical and a great problem solver.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Experience of participatory processes of community engagement.