Grants Manager

Location: Harlow, Essex. Easily commutable from London Liverpool Street/Tottenham Hale Station. We offer a free minibus service from Harlow Town Train Station and free parking onsite.

Hours: Full-time position, Blended working arrangement could be considered, with two days a week working from home. 

Reports to: Transport Solutions Manager. 

About the role:

At the Motability Foundation, we fund, support, research and innovate so that all disabled people can make the journeys they choose.  

We’re building a Transport Solutions Team that can work flexibly across all the tools in our delivery kit – from grants and innovation pilots to research, partnerships, and commercial interventions. This includes a growing portfolio of projects tackling key challenges like inclusive EV charging, complex community transport funding opportunities, and large-scale research such as the National Centre for Accessible Transport.  

We are now recruiting several Grant Managers to join this team and help us deliver our vision. This role works within a dedicated team to assess grant applications from charities and organisations applying to the Motability Foundation for grant-funding to support their work in the disability transport sector. 

This is an opportunity to join a collaborative, purpose-led team driving change in the transport system for disabled people and to work on some of the most interesting and impactful projects in the sector.   

What you will be doing:

• Manage grant delivery, including assessment, due diligence, contracting, monitoring, and closure, across our funding rounds.  
• Engage with all levels of applicant and grantee organisations to understand their work, assess their proposals, and provide support and challenge to strengthen delivery and outcomes. 
• Undertake financial, reputational, governance, and operational due diligence in line with our policies and risk appetite. 
• Produce high quality assessments of applications for review by our grant panels, including award recommendations.
• Work with applicant organisations to develop and agree contractual grant agreements. 
• Manage and monitor multi-year grant awards to ensure objectives and KPIs are achieved within agreed timescales and budgets.
• Ensuring all of our data records are kept up-to-date including reconciling payment schedules to grant records. 
• Work closely with colleagues across the TST to provide insight from delivery into programme development, and to learn from others’ work across research, innovation and partnerships. 
• Staying abreast of key issues facing the disability and transport sectors, to understand how these shape and influence applications to Motability’s grant programmes. 
• Support delivery of non-traditional funding mechanisms such as challenge prizes, research calls, or commercial commissioning approaches, contributing to assessment and management. 

Your experience:

• Experienced in assessing, managing, monitoring and evaluating grant applications or similar roles related to charitable grant making. 
• Understanding of not-for-profit structures, including charities, social enterprises and other not-for-profit organisations. 
• Experience in writing a variety of styles including academic, reports, and impact.  
• Demonstrable ability to prioritise when faced with a continuous flow of applications and variable work load.
• Experience of effectively engaging at all levels within applicant organisations leading discussions where necessary. 
• Good with numbers, and the ability to understand and interpret budgets and accounts.
• Able to engage with grant applicants and build an ongoing positive rapport. 
• Strong IT skills including experience working with the MS Office suite. 
• Experience within the disability sector and/or direct or indirect experience of the mobility challenges faced by disabled people would be advantageous, but not essential.