The Youth Endowment Fund
Assistant Director of Public Affairs and Partnerships
Reports to: Director of Change, with significant engagement with Director of Public Affairs and Comms and CEO
Salary: £75,500 per annum
Location: Central London or Hybrid
Contract: 2-year fixed term – potential to extend. Open to 0.8 FTE for the right candidate
Closing date: Friday 26th September by 12pm
About the Youth Endowment Fund
We’re here to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence. We do this by finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice.
Last year, 244 people in England and Wales tragically died after being assaulted with a knife. Of these, 32 were children. Every child captured in these numbers is an important member of our community and society has a duty to protect them. Even when violence doesn’t strike directly, we know that the fear of violence has a terrible effect on children’s lives.
The Youth Endowment Fund exists to try and permanently change things. To succeed, we must build an exceptional body of knowledge about violence affecting young people and how we reduce it. This knowledge has to be both rigorous and highly relevant to those making decisions about how to support vulnerable young people. We need to find out what works and what doesn’t through evidence synthesis, data analysis and qualitative research into children’s lives. We need to convert this into highly accessible content on what works, how delivery organisations need to change their practice and how the systems they operate in need to be reformed. We then need to work with the right people that can make change happen, across systems, policies and practice, to have a real impact on reducing violence affecting children’s lives.
We can’t do this alone, we have to build and maintain brilliant partnerships across government, with other funders and with wider society. We are looking for an exceptional individual to lead on this work. We also need to have an eye for the future. Our present endowment must be spent down by April 2029. We need someone who can lead on planning for the future.
Key responsibilities
You ensure that we:
· Are ready for the future: Born with a ten-year endowment, the YEF has become the leading authoritative voice on how to reduce violence affecting children. We must spend down this endowment by April 2029, so need to start thinking about after this date. You will lead on ensuring we have a great plan for post 2029. You will spot the best opportunities, assess them and, over time, take them. This includes both building great external relationships and also ensuring there’s a clearly articulated, inspiring narrative – filled with facts, examples and case studies - of what has been delivered to date and what needs to happen between 2029 and 2039 to double down on our mission. To do this, you will orchestrate the expertise and knowledge of colleagues across the organisation – ensuring that what you need comes together perfectly.
· Build and maintain great relationships across government: We have an increasingly large number of relationships across government – providing advice and support on what works to prevent violence. You will be ready to offer advice to colleagues on those relationships where needed. You will build new relationships and maintain them where they are needed so we are ready for the future. You will be really well organised too ensuring that internal colleagues know which relationships they own and making sure that key regular meetings are in place. We have a simple process that tracks these relationships; you will make this process work well for us – with minimum bureaucracy and maximum effectiveness. You will also provide help and advice and coaching as YEF colleagues think through how best to get system changes to happen that will ultimately reduce violence.
· Build great relationships with other organisations that will be key to the future: As the lead organisation on reducing violence affecting young people, we increasingly receive and see a host of opportunities to partner with other organisations including funders on projects, co-funding and research. You will support this work – leading on relationships that are essential in making us ready for the future. You will spot the opportunity, build relationships, bring in other YEF colleagues, pull together key information, write brilliant documents where needed, win others over. In short, you will make great things happen.
As a senior member of staff in the organisation you also:
- Lead on culture: Build and maintain a culture where it is natural to perform well and support colleagues brilliantly.
- Deliver on strategy: Contribute to setting the strategy, delivering results, and building and modelling the culture that we need to succeed.
About you
You are this sort of person:
· You make things happen. You’re organised, delivery-focused, and produce high-quality work, even under pressure. You work independently and to a high standard. You are quick at really understanding something so you can make good decisions quite fast. You put plans together and make them happen. Wherever you work, people think of you as someone who makes things happen. You do it in a generous, kind way that means people are feel delighted to see you succeeding, never trampled upon.
· You like bringing order and clarity to a big project that involves lots of people. You are at home bringing order to a big project: working out who is going to do what by when, having a regular steering group to ensure progress, keeping everyone on side and delivering a great result at the end.
· You understand how government works – as in really understand. You understand the nuance of how decisions are made within government. You understand that there is no such thing as ‘the department’s position’ (instead there are different views competing) and that while some decisions are very rational, some are more about personalities and politics. You find the process of how decisions get made within government departments, and with Number 10 and the Treasury, fascinating.
· You are fantastic at spotting how to get something done in Whitehall or Westminster. You are really good at thinking about how to make change happen. To some, Westminster and Whitehall can seem like a blob but you are brilliant at spotting how to make change happen there. You can think through the intricacies of who to get onside, who to get advice from, who to persuade and how to get the job done. You have a track record of doing this.
· You write really well. The idea of writing one or two pivotally important longer documents (30-40 pages) for the organisation that makes the case for something and pulls in content from lots of colleagues, synthesising and making it all fit together sounds interesting. You know – from experience – that you would be good at it.
· You win people over. People tend to warm to you and respect you. You easily build good relationships with both very senior and very junior people. You can be at ease talking to a senior politician or a 15 year old. It is important to you to be humble. You acknowledge how much you don't know as well as how much you do.
· You are great at building lasting partnerships with other organisations. You have experience of building partnerships or collaborations with other organisations, winning them over, doing conflict well when you need to, communicating clearly so that the work gets done and people feel as good as possible about it.
· You are a team player. You work brilliantly in a team. You are not motivated by being the individual winner. You want the team as a whole to succeed. You enjoy coaching other people so that they perform excellently in a meeting. You are not possessive of your contacts. You don’t care who gets the credit as long as things get done. You like the idea of being part of a small, well-motivated team and are ok with the downside of this – that we don’t have a lot of junior admin staff to do the jobs we like less.
· You think and communicate really well from the big picture to practical reality. You’re a strategic thinker who can see the big picture without losing sight of the detail. You find it quite easy to summarise in a few sentences, a few pages or a few words a complex argument or case. Whether speaking or writing, you break down complicated concepts in ways that make sense to different audiences – without oversimplifying. You bring clarity where others bring jargon.
· You care about our mission. You can be easily motivated to do work to prevent violence. This is something that matters to you. You believe in getting people to do things that are most likely to save lives, rather than just things that sound good.
· You’re committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Not just in theory – but in how you work, who you listen to, and what you prioritise.
While it’s not a criterion, we are especially interested to hear from applicants who have lived experience of violence affecting young people.
It’s also important to us that the people we hire do not discriminate. We believe in being inclusive and giving everyone an equal chance to succeed. Applications are welcome from all regardless of age, sex, gender identity, disability, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, race, sexual orientation, transgender status or social economic background.
Secondments
We are open to candidates that would prefer to join us on a 2-year secondment or career break. Secondment candidate should ensure that their current organisation is in support of this in principle, all candidates will go through the full interview process. Candidates should state clearly in their covering letter if they would like to join us as secondee.
Hybrid Working Details
The office is based in Central London. Those living in and around London are expected to be in the office for a minimum of 2 days per week. If you live outside of London and work remotely, you’ll be expected to work from the London office 2 days per month.
As part of our commitment to flexible working we will consider a range of options for the successful applicant. All options can be discussed at the interview stage.
To Apply
To apply, please send a CV and cover letter, and complete the monitoring form click on "Apply for this" button by Friday 26th September 2025.
When applying for this role, please ensure that your cover letter can answer, within a maximum of 1000 words (there is no need to be this long though) the following questions:
1. Tell us in two paragraphs about something you made happen. We are keen to find someone who is good at be a self-starter, organised and finding the way to make something happen. Tell us what you were trying to get done, how you organised the task and how you made it happen.
2. Summarise in one or two paragraphs your experience of working with or in central government. We are keen to find someone who knows how decisions are made in government and has seen them being made.
3. Tell in two paragraphs about someone or an organisation you won over or built a good relationship with.Tell us how you went about it. We are keen to find someone who quite easily builds good relationships with other organisations.
Interview Process
This will be a two-stage interview process. The first stage interviews will take place in the week commencing 13th October 2025. Second stage interviews are currently scheduled for the week commencing 20th October 2025
PLEASE NOTE: We do not sponsor work permits and you will be required to provide proof of your eligibility to work in the UK.
Benefits Include
· £1,000 professional development budget annually
· 28 days holiday – 3 of which are taken between Christmas and New Years - plus Bank Holidays
· Employee Assistance Programme – 24hr phone line for free confidential support
· Volunteering days - 4 half days per year
· Death in service - 4 times annual salary
· Flexible hours. Core office hours 10am – 4pm
· Financial support including travel and hardship loans
· Employer contributed pension of 5%.
Personal Data
Your personal data will be shared for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes our HR team, interviewers (who may include other partners in the project and independent advisors), relevant team managers and our IT service provider if access to the data is necessary for performance of their roles. We do not share your data with other third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and we make you an offer of employment. We will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you. We do not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.
We exist to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence.

Role: | Finance & CRM Administrator
Reporting to: | Financial Controller, with a dotted line to the Directors/Fundraising team
Purpose of job: | To work with the Finance and Fundraising teams to provide excellent finance, CRM & other systems administration. This will support income generation, research, data capture and information security throughout the Museum. Responsibilities include maintaining financial records, managing and maintaining a CRM database of contacts, supporting other digital systems, and some general administrative duties including IT support.
Working pattern: | 35 hours per week, usually worked from 10 – 6pm. Flexible/hybrid working offered for up 40% of hours to be worked from home.
Contract: | Permanent
Salary: | £28,000-£30,000pa depending on experience
Who we are looking for
Are you fascinated by data with an excellent grasp on finance, IT and digital systems? Are you interested in the role financial, CRM & other digital systems play in how arts organisations and cultural projects are managed? Are you looking to take the next step in your arts finance, administration or fundraising career?
The Foundling Museum is transforming how digital systems underpin the foundations of this small but mighty Museum and charity. The position of Finance & CRM Administrator sits at the heart of this continued transition, following the successful implementation and migration to Shopify, Xero & Beacon CRM which began in 2023.
This new role is essential to the success of the Finance & Fundraising teams, in providing effective finance and CRM administration support. The Finance and CRM Administrator will support income generation activities including fundraising and venue hire, as well as playing a vital role in keeping the Museum’s accounting systems working effectively.
This includes processing all types of financial transactions on Xero and maintaining records on Beacon. You will work as a key part of both teams supporting the Museum’s strategy through the provision of high quality financial & other data, and the maintenance of the underlying systems.
This is an exciting opportunity for a highly organised individual with strong financial skills, an attention to detail, and a flair for collaborative working and information management. You will be looking to expand your skillset and make a tangible impact on our work, through the effective use & development of the main systems underpining our financial strategy & income generation.
Key objectives
· Supporting the Finance team with accurate & timely processing & reconciling of all types of Museum transactions & ledgers including sales, purchases, banking & cash.
· Continue ongoing migration of supporter and customer data to Beacon CRM, working with all teams
· Support all staff with SharePoint migration project ensuring effective record management
· Continue seeking opportunities to improve the use of our digital systems to increase organisational efficiencies & income generation
Key responsibilities
Finance
· Raise sales invoices
· Process credit card transactions
· Credit control & reconciliation of the sales ledger
· Financial management of shop takings
· Process bank & cash transactions
· Bank reconciliations
· Produce financial reports & other ad hoc duties as required by the Financial Controller
· Gift Aid Claims support
· Training in and promoting use of XERO to staff
CRM Administration
· Maintain and update Beacon with all fundraising transactions including applications, prospects, & funding receipts
· Process donations, pledges and ticket payments from individuals, organisations, trusts and foundations
· Day-to-day administration of the Museum’s Friends & other membership schemes
· Maintain up-to-date and accurate records of contacts ensuring that strict confidentiality and GDPR legislation and guidance is adhered to
· Monitor data quality by regularly creating and executing processes to cleanse and standardise data in the CRM
· Lead on development of improving existing CRM systems within Beacon CRM
· Assist in data capture and gathering to support fundraising compliance & applications
· Training in and promoting use of CRM to staff including building reports.
Admin support
· Basic IT support working with outsourced IT contractors and the Operations team
· Manage the ordering of office items
· Facilitate the use, internal awareness and confidence with digital systems, creating and managing logins
· Supporting the Director’s Office Project Manager with governance & meetings
Other
· To perform any other tasks as reasonably requested by the Directors, Financial Controller and Fundraising team
Person specification
Essential :
· Excellent financial, administration & analytical skills
· Experience of financial systems such as Xero, Sage or QuickBooks
- Good understanding and experience of Excel
· Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate effectively in writing, over the phone, and face-to-face with the Museum’s different stakeholders
· Solid experience working with not-for-profit databases, such as Beacon CRM
· The ability to also work independently and take initiative within a small team
· Proven, excellent organisational skills, with close attention to detail, the ability to multi-task and prioritise responsibilities
· Excellent IT skills including in depth knowledge of financial systems, CRM, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, and other cloud based digital systems
· An enjoyment of and willingness to engage with a wide variety of people and organisations
Able to act with discretion and maintain professional confidentiality at all times
· Appreciation of and support for the aims, values and ethos of The Foundling Museum
Desirable:
· An interest in and engagement with the work and ethos of the Museum
· An interest in and engagement with the arts, heritage and/or music
· Experience of working in a finance or fundraising environment
Benefits
• 25 days annual leave per year (pro rata) + bank holidays (pro rata)+ Birthday leave + Volunteering leave
• You will be eligible to join a group contributory pension scheme (3 months after your start date)
• Discount from the Foundling Museum Shop and local partner businesses
• Access to season ticket , rental deposit and cycle to work scheme loans (3 months from your start date)
• Free and discounted access to partner museums and galleries
• Free access to our fully funded Employee Assistance Programme for wellbeing – WISDOM
• Training support from our on line learning platform
Interview timetable:
Closing date: 5pm 1 Oct 2025
First interview date: 7 and 8 Oct 2025 (NB interview will include a job related task)
Second interview date for shortlisted candidates: 13 or 14 Oct 2025
How to apply:
To apply please follow the link to our application portal where you will be asked to upload a completed copy of our standard application form.
On this application form you need to provide:
- Your contact details
- Details of relevant achievements in recent posts, as well as any relevant education and professional qualifications that are appropriate to the post
- What makes you a good fit for the role, for example, giving evidence of your ability to match the criteria outlined in the Person Specification
- An explanation of why you wish to work for us
- Details of your notice period and names of 2 referees, together with the capacity in which they have known you, and an indication of when in the process they can be contacted (please note we will not contact your referees without your express permission)
PLEASE NOTE: the application portal will request a CV. This is not necessary and can be ignored. Where it requests a CV please only upload the completed application form, and the optional Equal Opportunities form (if you wish to submit one).
Please get in touch with us details found on our website if you have any access requirements, for example if you would prefer to send your application via video.
Please note that any offer of employment will be subject to receipt of satisfactory references and proof of right to work in the UK and also may be subject to a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check.
Please also note that this job description will not form part of your contract or your terms and conditions of employment. Duties and requirements of the role may vary from time to time in accordance with the needs of Foundling Museum, its strategy and the directions from its Director.
About the Foundling Museum:
A seaman, a composer and a painter, and the moving story of the charity they started 270 years ago. The Foundling Museum is a recipe of art and care, which still looks after kids today. Coram, Handel, Hogarth, what’s not to love? Grayson Perry CBE, Foundling Museum Trustee
The Foundling Museum explores compelling stories of love, loss and care through art, music, writing and emotive objects.
The Museum is the UK’s only arts and heritage institution dedicated to the public understanding of lived experiences of care. Inspired by three great 18th-century activists - campaigner Thomas Coram, artist William Hogarth and composer George Frideric Handel - our mission is to inspire change and transform lives through the power of the arts. We believe in creative action that brings past and present together, to stimulate imaginations and enrich lives.
The Foundling is also the birthplace of creative philanthropy – combining art and fundraising to publicly support lived experiences of care. At the Foundling, the term ‘care’ refers to children’s social care, including foster care, adoption, kinship care, local authority care and children’s homes. Central to our work is well-being through exhibitions, events, collections, research and arts programmes with care leavers, looked-after children, and early years (birth to five years old).
Examples of our work include:
- Art projects which explore how our historic story of care still resonates today by addressing stigma and supporting mental health. We do this by working in a connected way, establishing collaborations with local health and community partners.
- ‘Tracing Our Tales’, our flagship training programme for care-experienced young people which was named Learning Programme of the Year at the 2022 Museums and Heritage Awards. Supported by our Learning Team, trainees learn art or creative writing skills in weekly sessions led by dynamic artists and poets, to build a creative portfolio.
- Exhibitions, collections and displays, ranging from tiny, touching identifying tokens left by mothers with their babies, to composer George Frideric Handel’s will. Around the Museum, you’ll find works of art by contemporary artists like Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, Tracey Emin and Michael Craig-Martin, as well as 18th-century artists William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds.
For an overview of our charitable activities, and relationships with funders, please view the Foundling Museum Annual Report 2024/2025 on this link.
The Foundling Museum is the only cultural institution in the UK to celebrate the lives of care-experienced people, and those who care for them.

The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as applications come in. They're ready to hire as soon as they find the right person. Don't miss your opportunity, apply now!
This is a critical and exciting leadership role for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust which will take the Trust forward to the next phase of organisational growth, building on the superb achievements to date of our retiring CEO.
You’ll need passion and energy to work on some of the most profound challenges of our time. Nature needs its champions, and you’ll need to harness all of your skills, all of your personality, and your network to grow our influence, our impact, and our outcomes. You’ll excel at galvanising others to take action enabling us to achieve our aims and ensure bumblebees are thriving and valued by everyone.
This is an incredible opportunity to join a very special organisation with passionate and high-performing teams who are truly dedicated to our vital purpose.
Please refer to the CEO pack for further information.
The Trust is an Equal Opportunities employer. This means that whilst seeking employment or during such employment with the Trust, we will seek to ensure equality of treatment for all persons regardless of sex, race, age, marital or civil partnership status, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity status.
At the Trust, we have a clear goal: to be the place where a diverse mix of talented people want to come, to stay and do their best work. We pride ourselves on reaching for our vision, through the hard work and dedication of our passionate and creative employees.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.