Youth/Children Jobs
At Outward Bound, young people leave behind their everyday lives to venture into a new world of endless opportunities. Could you be our next Director of Finance and Resources as we embark on our new strategy, ‘The Next Horizon’?
The Outward Bound Trust partners with schools, colleges, employers and youth groups to teach young people most important lesson they could ever learn: to believe in themselves. Young people’s lives are filled with pressures and challenges. They need the means to help them cope and thrive in this noisy and uncertain world – now and in the future.
We provide opportunities for young people to seize the moment and empower them to discover and embrace their unique strengths. At Outward Bound, young people leave behind their everyday lives to experience unfamiliar environments, and through challenge and adventure, young people learn to thrive and grow. This is where they discover who they are and what they are truly capable of.
The vacancy
You will be central to the leadership and management of Outward Bound and realising the ambition set out in The Next Horizon, leading the financial stewardship of the organisation. You will both oversee the management of the organisation’s financial resources and provide leadership in their utilisation to further the charity’s mission. You will also be responsible for the organisation’s environmental sustainability journey, and for IT, Digital, and trust-wide systems and processes.
The location for the post-holder is flexible, although will require frequent working from the Head Office near Penrith and regular travel for Board, Senior Management and other meetings.
About you
The successful candidate will be central to the leadership and management of the charity in the coming years working closely with the CEO and the Senior Leadership Team. You will be astute, collaborative, risk aware, have an attention to detail and thrive on working in a fast paced environment.
A fully qualified accountant with proven experience at a senior level in a finance role with responsibility across the whole finance function, you will have substantial financial leadership and commercial acumen. Experience in a national level organisation of comparable complexity is also required.
You will be a creative and entrepreneurial leader, able to develop your team members to their full potential. You should be committed to embedding the values of equity, diversity and inclusion into everything that you do.
A full job description and person specification is available on our website.
To inspire young people to realise their potential through learning and adventure in the outdoors.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
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.
The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) is a charity with a £200m endowment and a mission that matters. We exist to prevent children becoming involved in violence. We do this by funding great initiatives, leading cutting-edge research and working for change - scaling up and spreading the practices that make a difference.
The Chief Operating Officer (COO) has a critical role in ensuring we succeed in this work. You have a key leadership role in overseeing the overall health of the Fund in partnership with the Executive Director. The role oversees our finances, people management and – for the right candidate –much of our grant-making and project management.
Key responsibilities
You’ll lead on key organisational governance processes and ensure the Fund makes wise decisions, by:
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Being a leading member of our Directors’ team, overseeing all elements of the Fund’s work.
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Ensuring that the Fund operates as efficiently and effectively as possible by prioritising the right activities and matching resources to deliver on our mission.
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Ensuring we have the right long, medium and short-term financial plans in place and that we maintain close control over our financial decisions and spend.
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Informing our Board and our Risk and Audit Committee on our financial performance and risk.
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Ensuring the Fund’s investments are well managed through supporting the Endowment Investment Committee (this does not require investment experience).
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Managing our Grants and Evaluation Committee (this decides which evaluations we should fund) and ensuring it operates effectively.
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Ensuring that any ambiguities in the organisation are identified and removed.
You make sure that the Fund has the people, tools and resources in place to excel. This will require us to:
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Hire, develop and inspire the very best people: Managing our Head of People, you will ensure that we hire the best possible staff, compensate them appropriately, provide necessary and effective training, maintain a strong focus on staff well-being, manage and develop staff effectively and address poor performance when required.
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Provide staff with the tools they need to perform: Managing our Head of Grant Operations, you will ensure that we have the tools we need to deliver, including management information, databases, systems and processes and office facilities.
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Track performance: Track performance against our goals efficiently and effectively, championing a system of accountability and action to review, identify and empower the right people to act on delivering according to the plan.
Working with colleagues, you’ll ensure we award grants, manage grantees and oversee evaluations efficiently and effectively. This will require us to:
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Make excellent decisions about our grants: Working with – and potentially managing1 - the Assistant Director for Programmes, Impact and Partnerships, you will help to ensure that our processes for assessing funding applications achieve our organisational priorities for evidence generation. This requires you to understand what partners are trying to do, whether it’s likely to work, whether it will help us build an accessible and trusted body of knowledge, and whether we can build on it to make long-term change happen.
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Evaluate our programmes: Working with - and potentially managing - the Assistant Director of Evaluation, you will help to ensure that we select and partner with high-quality evaluators to understand how well different activities work.
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Ensuring the team maintains effective monitoring processes: Working with your team, you will develop the necessary skills, processes and decision-making processes to identify when things aren’t going to plan and respond accordingly.
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Build strong relationships with your external partners: You and your team will build strong, trusting relationships with the projects the YEF funds and the evaluators that we work with. Your team will be known for being attentive yet assertive and measured and efficient in the reporting information we expect. You will become well connected in the sectors that we are working in.
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Identify opportunities to scale up projects: You will be proactive in identifying projects that would benefit from capacity development support or that may be ready to scale up their work, collaborating with Impetus to deliver on this.
In support of these goals you will also
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Lead and build a team that is so much more than the sum of its parts: Working with your direct reports you will build a culture that brings the very best of the different skill sets and approaches in your team. You will lead this team, providing exceptional direction, culture and clarity.
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Make it easy to be effective when working in your team: You will bring clarity, lean processes, clear accountabilities, timely decision-making and effective systems so that people working in your team comment on how easy it is to get things done.
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See your primary team as the Directors team: As a core member of the Directors team, you will be part of making the most important decisions about the short-term and long-term strategy of the Fund. You will build and model the culture and values that we need to make a real difference. You will leave ego at home and look to make the rest of this team a great success.
Person specification
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You are excellent at leading on finance in an organisation: You find it easy and straightforward to develop and oversee, large organisational budgets and ensure timely preparation of management accounts. You’re excellent at financial forecasting and understand how to make judgements and recommendations based on future scenario planning. You have experience reporting to Boards on financial performance and health, and leading on organisational external audits.
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You are strategic about finance: You’ve got real skill in distilling complex financial information into simple, easy to understand reports and presentations that enable good decision-making. You see your knowledge of finance as a way to serve Director-level colleagues with overall decision-making. You also understand how to navigate competing priorities and how to calculate and articulate risk and reward, knowing few decisions are straightforward.
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You get teams to use data well: You understand that accurate data and excellent management information tools enable good decision-making. You understand how management information databases (like Salesforce) work and would be able to maintain and build a culture of recording data and maintaining data quality within big teams. Ideally, you have experience working directly with Salesforce.
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You get things done and are brilliant at improving things: In previous jobs, you have held significant responsibility for ensuring challenging projects are delivered on time. You like finding ways to make things operate better for everyone. You are excellent at designing and putting in place effective systems and processes.
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You are a low ego and effective leader: You have a track record of building and leading effective teams. You are thoughtful about how to get a team working well and people tend to warm to you and respect you. You are not afraid of managing someone brighter and better than you or of addressing poor performance. You leave ego at home. You work very well in a team. You like taking responsibility for things. You can balance the task, the individual and the team.
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You are interested and experienced in both staff development and financial planning: You are equally at home thinking about the processes and approach we need to recruit and develop great staff as you are thinking about how we control our expenditure and report our finances.
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You learn fast but remain humble: You are quick at getting your head around things. It wouldn't faze you to have responsibility for organising things that are new to you as long as you have an expert to ask advice from. You like learning and developing. You know how much you don't know as well as what you do.
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You are interested and thoughtful about grant-making and evaluation: You may not be an expert in grant-making, but you have experience of how charities think and approach applications for money. You have enough cynicism to know how these things can go wrong, but not so much that you can’t make them go right. You may not be an expert in evaluation, but you care about finding out what works.
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You are an excellent strategic thinker: People say that you are good at seeing the big picture as well as the detail. You have experience of wrestling into place a strategy for a project or organisation. You would be able to describe the strategy of the work you are leading at the moment. You are able to see things from different points of view.
While it’s not a criteria, we’re especially interested to hear from applicants who have lived experience of youth violence.
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.
All appointments will be made on merit, following a fair and transparent process. In line with the Equality Act 2010, however, the organisation may employ positive action where candidates from underrepresented groups can demonstrate their ability to perform the role equally well.
Additional benefits include
£1,000 professional development budget annually, 28 days plus Bank Holidays, four half days for volunteering activities.
If you’re interested
To apply, please send a CV and cover letter, and complete the monitoring form click on "Apply for this job" button by 5pm, Friday 31st May 2024.
We will plan to host the first round of interviews the week commencing the 3rd June 2024.
You’ll be required to provide proof of your eligibility to work in the UK. 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.
Your 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.
The people we are looking for do not discriminate and 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.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as the applications come in. Don’t miss your opportunity, apply now!
The Walcot Foundation is an independent grant-making charity located in Lambeth, South London, providing a range of economic and social support directly to young people, schools and community groups in order to transform their prospects in the borough. To strengthen this mission the Foundation set up the BounceBack programme, now in its third year, working with a consortium of 10 place-based charities and community interest companies in South London to help young people find paid work.
As part of a joint project, the BounceBack partner organisations are looking for an experienced employer engagement professional to help them develop, manage and build stronger relationships with employers and broker work experience and employment opportunities for the Lambeth young people they support.
Please submit a proposal/cover letter of no more than three pages. Please note this would be a freelance consultancy role. In the proposal please include why you’re qualified for the work, and how you would approach this project. We strongly encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds to apply.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Closing Date: 5 May 2024
Ref 6622
In this Senior Technical Lead - Entrepreneurship role, you will use your deep expertise in innovative finance and enterprise development to lead and support the delivery of enterprise development programmes, both existing and upcoming, across various countries.
You will help shape SCUK's commercial strategies by providing strategic and commercial insights, guide existing initiatives, and sharing through best practice.
You will be instrumental to achieve the Innovation Hive's system change goals for entrepreneurship as a means to delivering impact, influencing not just the Save the Children movement, but also the broader NGO sector and beyond.
The Innovation Hive are a team focussed on achieving transformative, systemic, change for children, for our organisation, for our sector and beyond. To do this we run a corporate venturing function at SCUK backing innovation projects that will help us maximise the impact potential of existing and new resources, and increase funding directed towards Save the Children's mission. Our purpose is clear: to transform, build and champion new growth opportunities and business models, moving at pace and collaborating inside and outside of or organisation to do this.
Key Accountabilities include:
Technical
- Use deep technical expertise and proven experience on innovative finance and delivering enterprise development programmes to lead on the delivery and/or support of existing (eg. 3 Ukraine, Kumwe Hub) and upcoming (eg Turkey, Nigeria, Ethiopia) Enterprise Development programmes to exit point.
- Use proven commercial experience to support the development and delivery of the strategy to explore SCUK's commercial opportunities such as shared value partnerships.
- Provide guidance and advice on existing SCUK commercial initiatives.
- Work on the development of a “best-practice” advisory service for SCUK to support Enterprise Development programmes for local contexts.
- Working collaboratively across SCUK, Save the Children International, LIFT Lab, Save the Children Global Ventures, Kumwe Hub and Country Offices and others to design and support the implementation of those projects.
- Lead all aspects of an end-to-end opportunity, including origination, due diligence, design, committee approval, go-to-market strategy and oversight of delivery.
- Contribute commercial acumen to project design, delivery and evaluation.
- Provide strategic and analytical insight through the generation of accurate and compelling reports and presentations, including for internal and external stakeholders.
Thought Leadership
- Achieve the Innovation Hive's system change goals for entrepreneurship, influencing not just the Save the Children movement, but also the broader NGO sector and beyond.
- Influence and engage senior leaders with gravitas to build high-level buy-in for and understanding of your work.
- Be an active leader in relevant community of practices (or creating those that not yet exist) that bring together stakeholders, including donors, investors, and beneficiaries, to drive the adoption of enterprise development and innovative finance mechanisms.
- Lead and build essential partnerships with organisations and industry experts to ensure the delivery of strategic projects. Including specifically in the impact finance and social enterprise space, confidently representing Save the Children at key external events and building our presence.
Learning and Organisational Development
- Responsible for bringing best practice into Save the Children – and embedding your technical knowledge and learning across the organisation, specifically regarding innovative finance and enterprise development, to build organisational capacity.
- Draft and preparation of proposals, pitch decks, and associated materials to engage diverse client groups (e.g. the Innovation Hive's Investment Committee and relevant board steering committees) to ensure the Hive's activities are communicated highly effectively and strategically.
About You
To be successful, it is important that you have the following skills and experience:
- Knowledge and proven multi-year experience on the strategic implementation and operationalization of Enterprise Development programmes.
- In-depth knowledge of current best practices in enterprise development and innovative finance, combined with established connections with industry experts and relevant networks, enabling the leveraging of these relationships for strategic advantage and collaborative opportunities.
- Demonstrated commercial expertise with a strong ability to guide and enhance commercial initiatives, leveraging a comprehensive understanding of market trends and business strategies to maximize impact and sustainability.
- Experience in senior leadership roles within a development, management consulting environment or equivalent.
- Significant experience with impact measurement, and management frameworks.
- An excellent stakeholder manager with demonstrated networking and influencing skills at all levels.
- Ability to adapt financial mechanisms to humanitarian and/or development contexts.
- Proven track record of project delivery.
- Creative and strategic in problem-solving, effectively involving multiple stakeholders with empathy and open-mindedness.
- Capable of handling complexity and uncertainty with a clear and organized thought process.
- Organized self-starter with an entrepreneurial mindset, eager to challenge the status quo.
- Quick at understanding new markets/products and passionate about impact, technology, and entrepreneurship, with a strong drive for personal and organizational growth.
- Focused on achieving targets aligned with organizational strategies and appreciative of the complexities in a global international organization.
Please note: To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately, once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.
Ways of Working:
The majority of our roles can be performed remotely in the UK, but there are likely to be times when you will be required to come to your contracted office (up to 2-4 days per month or 6-8 days per quarter). This will be agreed with your Line Manager and team and is intended to be time spent on collaborating with colleagues and relationship building.
Please note: travel costs to your contracted office will be at your own expense.
Flexible Working - We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview.
Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:
Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be "Free to Be Me". We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think.
We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences - of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability - help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.
Chief Executive Officer, Remote, 35 hrs Salary £90,097
GFS is a feminist organisation with a mission to empower girls and young women in England and Wales to live their best lives. Girls as young as 6 tell us that they cannot be themselves. This causes problems for them and society. So, we offer an early intervention service for girls living in areas of deprivation to have the greatest impact.
This is an exciting role with an opportunity to lead the charity into the 150th Year of delivery and with a new strategy to address need. It will involve working with the leadership team and all departments but also the board and their support committees, the ambassadors, and presidents as well as the wonderful team of volunteers across England and Wales.
A great deal has been done to prepare the organisation for such an important time and so now there is a real opportunity for this role to lead in being a figurehead for the charity and representing all that is achieved at GFS in national events and discussions, to best represent the girls of today.
Our new strategy is built around pillars of Impact, Brand and Sustainability with an ambition to grow in delivery as well as reputation. GFS is aware that the work done to listen to and amplify girls’ voices is important because they have so much to say about what needs to change and from a very young age. This role will be key to making this happen.
Equity, Diversity and inclusion is of strategic importance to GFS. We encourage applications from ethnically and racially minoritised, disabled and from LGBTQ+ people to build our best staff and volunteer teams and reflect the girls we serve.
This post is subject to a criminal record check with the Disclosure and Barring Service
Download the application pack and complete the application form in WORD and return by the closing date Friday 17th May.
Our mission is to support and inspire girls and young women. We create spaces where they feel safe and valued, building strong foundations.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.