The Welcome is a community café and support centre providing a safe space to access the basics — housing, healthcare, education, employment support and nutritious food — for disadvantaged individuals and families, alongside opportunities to build skills, connect with others and improve mental health and wellbeing.
As General Manager, you'll be responsible for the smooth day-to-day running of the charity: managing our staff and volunteers, overseeing the café and our full range of services, maintaining our finances, and driving fundraising and partnerships. Working closely with the Board of Trustees, you'll play a key role in delivering our mission and ensuring The Welcome's long-term sustainability — increasingly important as we shift from grant reliance toward a broader base of individual, business and community support.
Day to day, you'll be leading a small team covering our café, our advice and support services, and our education, employability and wellbeing programmes — while keeping an eye on the budget, compliance, and the relationships with funders, partners and the local community that keep us going.
What You'll Bring:
Essential
Experience managing or coordinating operations in a charity, social enterprise, or community setting.
Ability to lead and support small teams of staff and volunteers.
Competence with basic financial tasks — budgets, reports, cost control.
Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
Highly organised, with the ability to manage multiple priorities at once.
Understanding of safeguarding, GDPR and basic charity compliance.
Desirable
Experience with grant applications and fundraising.
Familiarity with café or social enterprise management.
Lived or professional experience of community development or working with underrepresented groups.
Basic digital skills (Microsoft Office, spreadsheets, email platforms, social media).
Understanding and knowledge of the wider community we serve and the specific challenges faced by the residents of Longridge and Shaw Heath.
Lived experience of the challenges facing Longridge and Shaw Heath is genuinely valued here — you don't need a conventional charity-sector CV to be the right person for this role.
Why Join Us:
Autonomy and impact: at this size, you'll genuinely run the organisation, with visible impact and real decision-making authority.
A distinctive, tangible mission: a named community, a clear rationale, and a physical, visible service — our café — where you can see the difference you're making every day.
Local roots: based in Knutsford, ideal if you want to lead within your own community rather than commute to a head office.
Flexibility: this is an agile role, not tied to a single desk.
How to apply:
Please send your CV and a short supporting statement (no more than two pages) explaining why you're the right person to lead The Welcome, addressing the essential and desirable criteria above, to info@thewelcome.org.uk.
Closing date: Tuesday 15 September 2026, 5pm. Interviews are expected week commencing 21 or 28 September 2026.
This role involves working with vulnerable adults and will be subject to an Enhanced DBS check.
The Welcome (Knutsford) Limited, registered charity number 1142084. 146-147 Longridge, Knutsford WA16 8PD. 01565 750 905 | www.thewelcome.org.uk
A genuine next step: if you're moving up from a deputy or operations role elsewhere, this is a real first General Manager opportunity.
