Tips on writing an Executive CV

When applying for a CEO, Director or senior leadership position within the charity sector, your CV needs to do more than outline your career history.

Charities are looking for leaders who can combine strategic thinking and strong leadership with a genuine understanding of their mission, beneficiaries and wider social impact. Your CV needs to demonstrate not only what you have been responsible for, but the difference you have made.

Whether you are applying for a Chief Executive, Director of Fundraising, Director of Operations, Director of Finance or another senior leadership role, your CV should provide a clear picture of your experience, achievements and leadership approach.

Showcase the Scale of Your Charity Leadership Experience

A senior job title provides context, but it does not necessarily demonstrate the scale or complexity of your leadership.

When describing your current and previous roles, consider the context in which you operated. How large was the charity? What was its turnover? How many staff did you lead? What was the geographical reach of the organisation? Who were its key stakeholders?

Where relevant, include:

• Annual turnover or budget responsibility
• Size of the team you led
• National, regional or international reach
• Fundraising or income generation responsibility
• Number of beneficiaries, members or service users
• Major partnerships and stakeholder relationships
• Board and trustee engagement
• Regulatory or policy responsibilities
• Significant organisational change or transformation

 

This helps demonstrate the level at which you have operated and allows a prospective employer to understand how your experience relates to their own organisation.

Demonstrate Strategic Impact and Organisational Change

For charity CEO and Director appointments, strategic leadership is particularly important.

Charities operate in increasingly complex environments, often balancing financial sustainability with their charitable purpose and the needs of their beneficiaries.

Your CV should demonstrate how you have helped an organisation navigate these challenges.

Perhaps you have developed and delivered a new organisational strategy, diversified income, strengthened financial sustainability, developed new services, improved governance or led a significant transformation programme.

Don’t simply list the responsibility. Explain the challenge, your contribution and the resulting impact.

For example:

Developed and implemented a new income generation strategy, increasing voluntary income by 32% over three years and providing greater financial sustainability for the organisation.

This provides much stronger evidence of leadership than simply stating that you were responsible for fundraising.

Highlight Your Contribution to Charitable Impact

Commercial achievements are important, but within the charity sector they should be connected to mission and impact.

Consider how your leadership has contributed to the organisation’s charitable objectives.

Have you increased the number of people accessing services? Expanded geographical reach? Improved outcomes for beneficiaries? Increased awareness of an issue? Influenced policy? Built partnerships that strengthened the organisation’s impact?

These achievements can help demonstrate that you understand the relationship between organisational performance and charitable purpose.

Demonstrate Your Experience of Working with Boards and Trustees

The relationship between a Chief Executive or senior leader and the Board is fundamental within a charity.

If you have worked closely with trustees, reported to a Board, presented strategic proposals or supported governance development, make this clear within your CV.

You may also have experience of:

• Board and committee reporting
• Governance reviews
• Risk management
• Trustee recruitment and development
• Strategic planning with trustees
• Supporting effective Board decision-making

 

If you have held a trustee or non-executive position yourself, this can also provide valuable evidence of your understanding of governance and accountability.

Show Your Leadership Approach

Charity leadership is about more than delivering organisational objectives. It often involves bringing people together around a shared mission and working across complex stakeholder environments.

Your CV should provide evidence of how you lead people and organisations.

This might include experience of:

• Leading through organisational change
• Developing high-performing teams
• Building an inclusive organisational culture
• Working collaboratively with trustees
• Developing strategic partnerships
• Influencing government, funders or other external stakeholders
• Leading in complex or challenging environments
• Supporting staff through periods of uncertainty

 

Avoid simply describing yourself as an “inspirational” or “collaborative” leader. Use your career achievements to demonstrate these qualities.

Make Your Fundraising and Income Experience Clear

For many charities, financial sustainability and income generation are critical strategic priorities.

If you have experience across fundraising, trading, membership, grants, philanthropy, corporate partnerships or other income streams, make this easy to identify.

For senior fundraising and income generation roles, demonstrate the scale of income for which you have been responsible and, where possible, the results you achieved.

This could include growth in voluntary income, successful capital campaigns, new funding partnerships, improved donor retention or diversification of income.

Tailor Your CV to the Charity and Its Mission

A strong executive CV should be tailored to the specific organisation and role.

Before applying, consider:

What is this charity trying to achieve?

What challenges is it currently facing?

What does the role need to deliver?

Which aspects of my experience demonstrate that I can help achieve this?

If the charity is embarking on a period of transformation, bring your change leadership experience to the forefront.

If it is seeking to grow its influence, demonstrate your partnership, campaigning or stakeholder experience.

If financial sustainability is a key priority, make your income generation and financial leadership experience prominent.

The strongest applications make a clear connection between the organisation’s needs and the candidate’s experience.

Get Your Executive Profile Right

Your opening profile is one of the most important sections of your CV.

Use it to establish who you are as a senior charity leader and the experience you can bring to an organisation.

It might highlight your experience of leading charities through growth and change, your expertise in income generation, your work with Boards and trustees, or your understanding of a particular cause or beneficiary group.

Keep it concise and credible, and make sure the claims you make are supported by evidence elsewhere in your CV.

Keep Your Executive CV Focused

A career in the charity sector can span many organisations and roles, and it can be tempting to include everything.

You don’t need to.

Give greater prominence to your most recent and relevant experience, while providing less detail about earlier positions.

Your CV should demonstrate career progression and provide sufficient evidence of your leadership capability without becoming an autobiography.

For most senior charity professionals, three to four pages can provide enough space to demonstrate substantial experience while remaining focused and easy to read.

Your Executive CV Should Tell Your Leadership Story

At senior level, your CV should be more than a list of positions and responsibilities.

It should tell the story of the leader you are, the organisations and challenges you have worked with, the impact you have achieved and the contribution you could make to another charity.

The strongest charity executive CVs combine career history with evidence of strategic leadership, organisational impact, good governance and a clear commitment to charitable purpose.

You don’t need to include everything you have ever done. Focus on the experience that demonstrates why you are the right leader for the opportunity in front of you.

 

At AWS Executive, we specialise in executive search for CEOs, Directors and senior leaders across the charity, non-profit and purpose-led sectors. If your organisation is considering a senior appointment and would benefit from a targeted, research-led executive search, we would be pleased to discuss how we can support you in finding the right leader for your organisation.

Talk to us about your next senior appointment or explore our other news and insights.