About the Role

Location & Contract: This is a full-time, permanent role. The role is hybrid working, with travel required to our Reading hub at least twice per month.

Closing Date: Wednesday 23rd July @ 12PM Midday

We may close this role sooner than the closing date advertised if we receive a significant number of applications.

Make-A-Wish UK is looking for a Stories Officer who will work directly with children and their families to help them share their lived experience of critical illness and the life-changing impact of a wish.

As the Stories Officer you will lead the development of all story-based content for Make-A-Wish UK, ensuring alignment with the organisation’s overarching strategy, annual objectives, and core content priorities with a particular emphasis on fundraising initiatives. This role is primarily focused on identifying, individually crafting, and refining compelling narratives that effectively convey the charity’s impact, as well as the lived experiences of wish children, their families, volunteers, staff, and other key stakeholders. The position involves close collaboration with internal teams to proactively anticipate content requirements, manage projects efficiently to ensure timely delivery, and uphold consistency in brand voice and messaging across all communication channels and platforms.

To see the full job description please scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Key Responsibilities

· Identifying, interviewing, and writing up case study stories from wish families, volunteers and donors to support campaigns, digital and traditional media, and fundraising efforts across Make-A-Wish UK

· Developing and manage relationships with individuals sharing their testimonials and case studies, ensuring they feel supported and informed about how their stories will be used.

· Working closely with Wishgranting colleagues to source and gather stories from underrepresented audiences, ensuring diverse representation and engagement across the charity’s communications.

· Becoming an advocate for wish children and their families, working to amplify their voices whilst ensuring compliance with up-to-date safeguarding and GDPR policies. You should be an expert in consent, safeguarding, and ethical representation, ensuring stories are shared with sensitivity and transparency.

· Supporting on the creation of wider organisational written content, from blogs posts on our website to scriptwriting for special events – with a focus on fundraising. Providing copywriting support to a range of teams during larger campaigns and projects.

· Anticipating and actively seeking out the content needs of the organisation, ensuring all content we capture has intent and purpose behind it, and considers how we can maximise the value from the opportunity, so it goes beyond one-off story to drive optimal return on investment.

Role Criteria:

· Demonstrable experience in producing written content with storytelling at its core — crafting narratives that inspire and drive measurable outcomes such as income generation, sign-ups, or content sharing.
· 2–4 years of experience in creating storytelling-focused written content across a range of formats and platforms.
· Proven experience conducting interviews in person, over the phone, and via email to gather authentic and impactful stories. The applicant should have excellent written and verbal communication skills (independently of machine learning tools), with the ability to authentically capture conversations and translate them into compelling stories that resonate with target audiences while preserving the voice of the interviewee.
· Practical understanding of a range of communications channels, including social media, PR, email, and web, with knowledge of copywriting best practices tailored to each.
· Awareness of what constitutes effective content, how to measure its impact, and how to apply insights to optimise future content creation.
· Experience working collaboratively within cross-functional teams to deliver on diverse objectives.
· Understanding of regulatory frameworks, ethical considerations, and best practices related to content capture and usage — including the responsible use of AI and machine learning tools.
· Knowledge of data protection legislation and compliance requirements in relation to content and permissions.
· Proficient in the use of Microsoft Office tools, particularly Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, to support content planning and delivery.

For full list of key responsibilities and criteria, please see job description below.

At Make-A-Wish, we believe that agile working gives everyone an opportunity to have their own work pattern that suits their role and individual needs. We believe this is the most effective way to give our best to wish children and supporters, and as a result deliver our charitable mission in the most effective way; whilst ensuring we create a happy workplace.

The organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Relevant level of DBS check will be required for this role. Employment is subject to positive references and proof of the right to work in the UK.

Make-A-Wish is also committed to attracting and recruiting diverse people as it’s vital that we strive towards ensuring that our trustees, employees, ambassadors and volunteers reflect the communities we seek to serve.

Wondering what it means to be part of Make-A-Wish? Find out more.

To apply for this role:

To apply for this role you must submit both your CV and Cover Letter, ensuring all questions below are answered in full.

General Questions

1) Are you eligible to work in the UK?

2) Will you require any reasonable adjustment during the selection stages?

3) When are you available to start this role?

Assessed Questions

1) Thinking about the context of the job description, how would you demonstrate our values of magic, inclusion and inspiration in a meaningful way in this role?

2) Please tell us about your experience as it relates to the key responsibilities for the role.

3) Tell us about a time you’ve identified and produced a story against a specific brief/campaign? How did it achieve its goals?

4) What does ethical storytelling mean to you?

Shortlisting: Shortlisting for this role will take place over w/c 28th July

Interviews: Interviews for this role will take place over 4th to 7th August. If you will be unavailable for these dates, please let us know asap.

If you have any queries, please contact jobs@makeawish.org.uk.

Benefits

- Competitive salaries
- 26 days annual leave with the option to buy/sell annual leave
- An additional day's leave on your birthday
- Birthday and work anniversary recognition gifts
- Flexible working arrangements
- Access to a pension scheme with 4% employer contributions
- Two days of additional paid leave a year to volunteer
- Access to wellbeing support, training and events, including a wellbeing and retail discount platform, Mental Health First Aiders and occupational health
- Enhanced maternity and paternity pay for eligible employees
- Cycle to work initiative

Notes

Right now over 134,000 children in the UK are eligible for a wish because they are dealing with the gruelling daily reality of life with a critical illness. When it comes to their dreams, they deserve to wish for more than a life defined by their illness. We are granting a record number of wishes yet we face an urgent challenge. The demand for wishes is far outpacing our best efforts to keep up, so it’s taking longer than ever to grant once-in-a-lifetime wishes. But the heart-breaking reality is that many families simply can’t wait this long.

In recent years, Make-A-Wish UK have led the way in establishing an evidence base for the power of wishes. We now know what we have always believed. A child’s wish can have a profoundly positive impact on their lives and the lives of people around them. It can change the child’s perception of what is possible, provide hope for the future and a lifetime of happy memories.

These are not just jobs. Being part of Make-A-Wish UK doesn’t just change the life of the child. It changes everyone who has the good fortune to be part of this wonderful organisation. It can be very emotional. It can sometimes be quite upsetting. However, above all else it is an incredibly uplifting and joyful place to be.

Attached documents

Title	File
JD	Stories_Officer_-_Website_Copy.pdf

About the Role

Key Responsibilities

Role Criteria:

To apply for this role:

This vacancy has now been closed