Community Engagement Officer
£30,000 - £34,000 (dependent on relevant skills and experience) plus generous benefits
Location: Home-based, with occasional travel to Football Foundation offices and other sites
We are the Football Foundation - the Premier League, the FA and government’s charity that delivers outstanding grassroots facilities, more and better places to play, transforming lives and communities where it is needed most.
To help us with this important mission, we’re looking for a Community Engagement Officer to join the team and play a key role in ensuring we achieve our objectives of engaging with and increasing physical activity levels amongst the four key priority groups facing the greatest inequalities: low socio-economic groups, women and girls, disabled people and people with long term health conditions, and culturally diverse communities.
This is an exciting time to be joining the Football Foundation and this is a great opportunity to use your knowledge and experience of place-based working and community engagement to make a real difference through community sports.
About the Football Foundation
Over the last 22 years, the Foundation has awarded more than 23,000 grants to deliver outstanding grassroots facilities across England worth more than £877 million. This year, the Foundation will be investing more money than ever into facilities across England and is committed to improving the experience of playing football for everyone.
The Foundation’s goal is to unlock the power of pitches ensuring everyone has a great place to play regardless of gender, race, disability or place
The role
As Community Engagement Officer you will play a key role in ensuring the Foundation achieves its objectives of engaging with and increasing physical activity levels amongst the four key priority groups facing the greatest inequalities: low socio-economic groups, women and girls, disabled people and people with long term health conditions, and culturally diverse communities. This will predominantly be achieved through the critical support you will provide to our ambitious PlayZones Programme, as we continue to roll the programme out across priority areas of the Country.
We have an ambition to deliver in excess of 200 PlayZone facilities by 2025. To realise this ambition, we’re going to focus on investing in safe, inclusive, and accessible facilities in communities with the greatest need. We will tackle inequalities in physical activity levels and create inclusive opportunities for our priority groups to become active through recreational formats of football and other sports and activities.
With a great deal to do, the role will be pivotal in working with local groups to support them through the application process, and to ensure high quality projects are being developed based on local community need.
The role sits within the Football Foundation’s Delivery Team, the team responsible for strategic identification and capital project delivery, reporting to the Community Engagement Lead and with responsibility for a portfolio of PlayZone programme areas within one of the Delivery Team geographical regions.
You will provide critical support to applicants and work extremely closely with our network of Delivery Managers & Officers to advise and agree community engagement plans for a range of Over £25k projects – helping to ensure their engagement is robust, but that applicants also receive support and guidance as required throughout the development of their application.
Community Engagement Officers will champion the benefits of great engagement, capturing good practice, identifying successful approaches, and share knowledge and learning across the Foundation and other stakeholders.
What are we looking for?
You don’t need to follow football to apply, but it is expected that you appreciate the power of sport to change lives and have a genuine interest in using your skills and experience to help the Foundation achieve our charitable and strategic objectives.
You must be educated to HND/Degree standard, or with the equivalent experience, with knowledge of how sports development can be used for community benefit. You must have strong communication and interpersonal skills with experience of communicating with and supporting a diverse range of colleagues and customers remotely.
Your knowledge of place-based working and how to best reach and engage with local communities will be key for this role, as well as your understanding of the inequalities that exist in supporting active lives across socio economic groups, women & girls, individuals with a disability or a long-term health condition, and culturally diverse communities. You will be aware of and have experience of dealing with the operations and challenges faced by community organisations, charities, and the voluntary sector.
You must be highly organised, with working knowledge of different project management techniques and experience of managing multiple projects at the same time. While not essential, experience of producing robust reports and of using dashboards to monitor the progress of projects would be useful.
How we achieve our goals is equally important to us. We are striving to be an inclusive and diverse organisation which reflects the diverse communities, users and beneficiaries of our work and the outcomes we deliver. Becoming part of the Football Foundation team, will give you the chance to deliver a positive impact in every community in England; to help transform lives and communities through great places to play; and to be part of a supportive and inclusive staff team that works hard and plays fair to achieve its goals.
For full details of the role and requirements, please download our recruitment pack below.
What can we offer you?
The salary for this role is £30,000 - £34,000 per annum (dependent on relevant skills and experience). You will start on 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays (which increases after 2 years), plus additional time off to volunteer. We also offer a generous pension scheme (8% employer contribution), collective bonus scheme, free health care provision, a monthly gym subsidy, interest-free season ticket loan, death in service benefit and access to selected match tickets
We are committed to helping our team members maintain a healthy work-life balance, so offer flexible working around core hours to help achieve that.
Equality and Diversity Commitment
The Football Foundation is committed to, and values the principles of diversity, equality, and inclusion. We strive to provide an inclusive and supportive working environment where all our team feel respected and supported in fulfilling their potential. We encourage and welcome applications from all, regardless of background and are particularly interested to hear from individuals belonging to under-represented groups including diverse ethnic communities, individuals with a disability and those from the LGBTQI+ community.
Should you need any adjustments to the recruitment process, at either application or interview stage, please contact us at jobs @ footballfoundation. org .uk
How do I apply?
To apply, please follow the steps outlined below:
1. Please send the following to jobs @ footballfoundation. org. uk
o CV
o Cover letter - please highlight briefly and clearly how your skills, abilities and experience equip you for the role, together with your reasons for applying.
The closing date for applications is: Wednesday 22 May 2024 at midday
Interviews are currently scheduled for 30 May 2024.
Due to the volume of applications received for most roles, the Foundation only contacts candidates if they are shortlisted for interview. If you do not hear from us within two weeks of the closing date, you should assume your application has not been successful.
Please note that you must be eligible to work in the UK to apply.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
King’s College London offers an intellectually stimulating environment, where staff are dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and learning in the service of society. We are a multi-faculty institution, providing high-quality research, education and innovation across the social sciences, humanities, health, law, dentistry, and sciences. As a member of the Russell Group, we are committed to maintaining the highest standards in research and education.
The Finance, Procurement, Strategic Planning and Analytics directorate, led by the Chief Financial Officer / VP (Finance), comprises c.150 roles located across our campuses in central London. The Finance department of c.100 roles provides various accounting, assurance, advisory, decision support and financial processing functions for the whole university.
The Director of Finance Business Partnering (Operations) is a critical role within the Financial Strategy, Planning & Performance division that will lead, develop and deliver high quality finance business partnering and decision support to all the central services of the university, including providing financial planning, reporting and insight across revenue and capital funded activity.
You will support the senior Director of the Financial Strategy, Planning & Performance function in development and improvement projects. Examples include the development of a professional competencies framework to support career progression and performance at all levels, supported by learning and development opportunities, improving key processes, resource allocation and financial planning methodologies, and reporting on financial performance.
As part of the function’s senior management team, this role will lead a team of finance business partners who will provide outstanding partnering services to our central services including large functions such as Estates and Facilities, IT, Students & Education, Research Management and on other crucial ‘head office’ activities. Working closely with the corporate reporting team on the provision of management accounts, you will lead on financial performance support in-year and across our three-year financial planning framework. You will also undertake and provide professional support to your team on business partnering skills, financial modelling, business case development and financial appraisals. You will play a wider role as a senior member of the finance leadership team on cross-college initiatives and be asked to deputise for the senior Director of the division or their peers.
It is an exciting time to join the university as we are making a step change in our support and advice, particularly to directorate heads and our Senior Vice Principal (Operations), and onwards through the leadership roles across the central service directorates where financial and operational decisions are made.
This is a full time post (36 Hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract. We work in a hybrid way and there is an expectation of being able to work at least three days a week in our offices to help facilitate a collaborative working culture.
To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:
Essential criteria
1. Professional Accountancy Qualification
2. Highly resilient with the ability to run multiple objectives, large senior teams and complex political processes concurrently
3. Exceptional understanding of running and leading financial planning, monitoring, forecasting and business partnering in a complex and large organisation
4. Exceptional leadership skills and a service approach in your professional work
5. Ability to operate and deliver change and improvements in a complex organisational environment
6. Exceptional business case financial appraisal and modelling skills
7. Ability to communicate clearly and effectively in the written word and in person in a variety of formats including committee presentations and policy documentation
8. Numerate and IT literate with the ability to use the standard suite of office software together with excellent knowledge of one or more corporate finance/ERP and reporting systems
9. Significant recent experience of leading business partnering, financial support and advice functions and services
10. Experience of designing, delivering and improving capital planning and reporting processes
11. Leading teams to achieve complex and competing objectives over a variety of time horizons in partnership with other technical leads and partnered areas.
12. Ability to build and manage internal and external relationships
13. Self-management and ability to work independently to meet deadlines
14. Attention to detail and working to a high-level of accuracy
Desirable criteria
1. Degree level qualification
2. Leadership of technical / professional staff who manage their own work and activities
3. Experience of having worked in or with the university sector
We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.
We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's. We have a strong equality, diversity and inclusion agenda and would expect the post holder to demonstrate these values.
We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. The deadline for applications is Sunday 19th May 2024. If you would like to discuss the role, please get in touch with Bryony Thomas via the Allen Lane agency website.
Shortlisting will complete late May and may include an initial conversation with Allen Lane, our recruitment partner for this role. First stage interviews with King’s College London are planned for early June.
We are not able to offer sponsorship for candidates for this role who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK.