•  Based in Melbourne / Hybrid

Left Write Hook is a survivor-led charity running a world-first program: eight weeks of trauma-informed writing and non-contact boxing for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse and gendered violence.

Every facilitator in the room is a past participant - someone who came in to heal and stayed to lead. The program helps survivors reclaim their bodies, rewrite their stories, and reconnect in community. This is more than recovery. It's rewriting what's possible through a trauma‑informed, survivor‑led model of healing and leadership.

Ripple Opportunities is working with Left Write Hook to help them find their next Programs & Operations Manager (Social Impact). Could it be you?

Why you might love THIS job

• From one boxing gym to a national movement: Donna Lyon started Left Write Hook at her local boxing gym: nine survivors, a Facebook ad, and a room charged with something that hadn't existed before. What followed was a book, a film, and now: a university research trial, philanthropic backing, and a national waitlist 700 deep. The opportunity in this role isn't just keeping programs running - this is an organisation mid-leap, and it needs the ops & coordination muscle to match.

• Impact in action: 14 programs delivered. 150+ graduates. 24 paid survivor roles created in 2025 alone. The documentary premiered at MIFF, won Best Feature Documentary at the 2025 AIDC Awards, reached 3M+ viewers, and now streams globally on Netflix. Featured by Marie Claire, The Guardian and ABC, and backed by philanthropic and research partners including the University of Melbourne, Left Write Hook is becoming a national model for survivor-led healing, leadership and recovery.
• In a nutshell: You own end-to-end delivery of LWH's flagship eight-week programs - venues, facilitators, coaches, logistics, timelines, participant comms, compliance - safely, consistently, on time, across multiple locations. As you settle in, you'll turn what you learn on the ground into smarter systems. This is the role that takes LWH from scrappy to scalable.
• The delivery rhythm: Monday morning you map what’s active, what’s pending, and what could derail Saturday if nobody jumps on it now. By midweek you’re coordinating facilitators around day jobs, confirming venues, sorting care box logistics, and keeping participants informed without things feeling clinical or chaotic. Then a grant lands. A regional pilot opens up. A venue suddenly falls through. You’re already activating plan B and C, while quietly blocking out Friday afternoon to rebuild the workflow so this whole problem becomes far less likely next time.
• Your style: Frankly, you’ve probably never met a rogue spreadsheet or chaotic calendar you didn’t want to sort out immediately. You’re the kind of person who naturally becomes the steady centre of a fast-moving environment: responsive, calm, resourceful, usually three steps ahead. Beneath the systems brain, you’re deeply people‑oriented - quick to build trust, thoughtful in how you communicate, and attuned to what people might be carrying into the room.
• What you bring: You might come out of production, events, operations, startups, or community programs. Different worlds, same energy: you hold a lot at once, keep things moving, and quietly make the whole operation smarter - whether that’s tightening a workflow, automating repetitive admin, or building a system everyone wishes had existed six months earlier. Importantly, you know how to drive delivery while staying gentle when it counts - slowing down, listening, and balancing speed with care and clarity.
• A culture you’ll feel: Small team, big heart, high standards, fast pace. Shaped by lived experience, the work sits close to real stories, real emotion, and real recovery - so how you communicate and show up under pressure matters just as much as your coordination skills. There’s a strong culture of initiative, adaptability, creative problem solving, and ownership across the work.
• The practicalities: Full-time, fixed term contract, Melbourne based, with a hybrid setup including two days from a co-working space. Salary sits between $85,000-$100,000 FTE based on experience, plus super and salary sacrificing benefits. Some flexibility outside standard hours comes with the territory as programs occasionally run on weekends and around facilitator availability. You’ll need a driver’s licence (travel to venues and transport of program materials) and full, unrestricted working rights in Australia.

What's involved

70% Program Coordination & Delivery

Keep every active program cohort moving like the operational wizard you are. Venues? Locked in. Facilitators? Prepped. Participant comms? Sent on two channels. Chaos? Politely declined. You’re the behind‑the‑scenes anchor, making sure facilitators and participants feel held by clear plans, calm communication and reliable follow‑through.

20% Systems & Process Improvement

See something that could run better? You’ll probably fix it. As you build familiarity with the programs, you’ll help reduce admin drag and introduce smarter ways of working across the organisation, without losing the human touch. If ChatGPT, a beautifully optimised Airtable, or shaving 45 unnecessary minutes off a recurring process sparks genuine joy - you’ll fit right in.

10% Reporting, Compliance & Cross-team Coordination

Help keep the operational backbone strong - impact tracking, funder reporting, records, cross-team coordination, and making sure information moves cleanly across the organisation instead of disappearing into the void. You’ll bring the kind of structure and follow-through that keeps things credible, connected, and ensures nobody’s digging through twelve folders looking for “FINAL_final_v3_USETHISONE”.

Next Steps

If any of the above resonated with you but you don’t tick every box:

You should throw your hat in the ring, whatever those years of experience look like in your personal impact journey. We’d love to hear from you! We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply early.

Questions? Reach out to us at [email protected] using the subject line: Programs & Operations Manager - Left Write Hook enquiry via EthicalJobs.

Further details about what to include on your application is provided via the Ripple Opportunities portal.

Submit an application via clicking 'Apply Now'.

Ripple Opportunities works with the country's leading social impact businesses to match them with the next gen of impact operators and creators. www.rippleopportunities.com.

A position description is attached.