Application Guide
How to Apply for Director of Global Programmes
at Tearfund
🏢 About Tearfund
Tearfund is a Christian organisation uniquely combining faith-driven mission with professional excellence in international development and humanitarian response. Working through local churches and partners, they focus on restoring broken relationships with God, others, the environment, and self. This values-driven approach offers a rare opportunity to integrate faith and professional skills for global impact.
About This Role
As Director of Global Programmes, you will lead Tearfund's entire programme portfolio across development, humanitarian, and influencing work, ensuring high-quality, contextually relevant, and measurable impact through church partnerships and operational teams. This role is pivotal in shaping strategy, stewarding resources, and aligning regional and cross-organisational efforts to serve the most economically needy communities worldwide.
💡 A Day in the Life
A typical day might start with prayer and team devotions, followed by reviewing programme performance dashboards and a video call with a regional director in East Africa about a humanitarian response. You could then meet with the safeguarding team to review a case, and later join a strategy session with the influencing team on climate justice advocacy, ending with a donor call to discuss funding for a new church-partnered health programme.
🚀 Application Tools
🎯 Who Tearfund Is Looking For
- A senior executive with extensive experience leading large, complex, multi-country programmes in international development and humanitarian settings, ideally with a faith-based or church-partnering organisation.
- Deep operational expertise in programme quality, safeguarding, M&E, risk management, localisation, and partnership models, with a proven track record of measurable impact.
- Strong financial oversight skills and lived experience in the Global South, enabling culturally nuanced decision-making and authentic partnership with local churches.
- A vibrant, mature Christian faith integrated into professional life, with a desire to embed faith and prayer in programme work and team culture.
📝 Tips for Applying to Tearfund
Explicitly connect your leadership experience to Tearfund's mission of working through the local church, not just general development work.
Provide specific examples of managing large, multi-country portfolios with measurable impact, including how you handled risk and safeguarding in complex contexts.
Highlight any experience with localisation and partnership models, especially with faith-based or community-rooted organisations.
Demonstrate your lived experience in the Global South by referencing specific countries or regions and how that shaped your approach.
In your cover letter, articulate your personal Christian faith journey and how it aligns with Tearfund's values and the role's requirement to embed faith in work.
✉️ What to Emphasize in Your Cover Letter
['Your Christian commitment and how it drives your passion for this role, with specific examples of faith integration in your professional life.', 'Your track record in leading large-scale, church-partnered or locally-led programmes that deliver sustainable impact in the Global South.', 'Your expertise in programme quality, safeguarding, and risk management, with concrete results from complex environments.', 'Your strategic vision for aligning development, humanitarian, and influencing work to maximise impact through local partnerships.']
Generate Cover Letter →🔍 Research Before Applying
To stand out, make sure you've researched:
- → Review Tearfund's current global strategy and recent annual reports to understand their programme priorities and impact metrics.
- → Study their partnership model with local churches and how they measure 'church-led' impact versus traditional NGO approaches.
- → Read about their faith and prayer integration resources (e.g., 'Footsteps' or 'Church and Community Mobilisation') to see how faith is operationalised.
- → Look into their humanitarian response history (e.g., in conflict zones or natural disasters) to understand how they balance with long-term development.
💬 Prepare for These Interview Topics
Based on this role, you may be asked about:
⚠️ Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Treating the Christian faith requirement as a checkbox rather than authentically integrating it into your narrative and examples.
- Focusing solely on technical expertise without demonstrating how you lead and inspire diverse, cross-cultural teams.
- Failing to address the unique challenge of working through local churches as primary partners, which requires humility and relational skill.
📅 Application Timeline
⏰ Deadline: June 21, 2026
We recommend applying at least a few days early to avoid last-minute technical issues.
Typical hiring timeline:
Application Review
1-2 weeks
Initial Screening
Phone call or written assessment
Interviews
1-2 rounds, usually virtual
Offer
Congratulations!