(Part time)

Reporting to: Business Development & Operations Manager

About us

Collaborate CIC is at the forefront of pioneering collaborative approaches to social change and public services. As an innovative social consultancy and think tank, we are building the thinking, culture and practice of collaboration to help us meet the challenges of today, together. We work towards a vision of a collaborative society — one that is equitable, caring and sustainable.

To achieve this vision, we act as change partners to public and voluntary sector organisations. We help people to collaborate across sectors, reform public services, put citizens and service users at the centre of their work, develop collaborative and system leadership skills, engage with civil society, and learn together to support change.

We work with a wide range of organisations and sectors. Current and recent clients include Wigan Council, London Councils, Essex County Council, SOLACE, City Bridge Foundation, NHS England, MOPAC, Sport England, Save the Children and the Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Partnership. We deliver work alone and in partnership with others. As a social purpose organisation, we also share the learning from our work, create tools and resources to support collaboration, connect change makers and host events.

Ultimately, we believe that people and organisations can create a better future together than they can alone, and we bring this conviction, blended with cutting-edge thinking and practice, to all our work.

Please see our website for more information about what we do.

About the role

We’re looking for a highly numerate and well-organised person, someone who enjoys working with data, with impeccable attention to detail and who is eager to support our finance and operations functions.

This role is an excellent opportunity for someone who wants their work to contribute to the effective operational running of the organisation. You will provide a vital link across Collaborate and so you’ll need to be a good communicator and collaborator. You will liaise with our project and internal teams to ensure the accuracy and consistency of our information, to support good management and decision-making. Your work will help us to ensure that we are managing our project budgets appropriately, particularly in relation to expenses and sub-contractor (Associate) costs. 

As with all of our roles, you should seek to embody the values of the organisation in all that you do.

Job responsibilities 

You will be supported by and work closely with the Business Development & Operations Manager and will liaise with our bookkeeper.

Your day-to-day role includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Finances 

• Ensuring our financial records are complete and accurate.

• Processing and approving the team’s monthly expenses.

• Liaising with project teams to ensure project expenses budgets are managed effectively.

• Processing and ensuring our Associates’ invoices are approved and paid each month. 

• Help to develop a new process for approval and payment of our other supplier invoices and will then take on responsibility for that approvals process.

• Managing our invoice schedule, ensuring that we are invoicing for our projects in a timely way

• Liaising with our bookkeeper to maintain the finance inbox, responding to some queries and escalating others where necessary. 

• Informing clients when payments have been received and sending reminders for payment as payment terms are approaching. 

• Liaising with clients (particularly new clients) to ensure that we are set up as a supplier, purchase order numbers are raised to enable us to invoice and that the necessary processes are followed to enable us to be paid for our projects.

• Working with the Director of Finance & Operations to identify, develop and implement improvements to our financial processes and systems. 

• Developing and sharing updates on finances as required, e.g. monthly cashflow updates for the Executive Directors

Operations 

• Ensuring clarity and accuracy on CMAP (our project platform - NB no prior knowledge of this is expected!) for our projects to ensure:

  • Accurate expense handling, to ensure they’re charged correctly to our clients

  • Associate budget allocations are correct and up-to-date

  • Contract budgets match the project budgets and our invoice schedule

  • Checks are carried out before projects are closed

  • You may also be asked to help with other support, checks or analysis to support our smooth project management and oversight

• Acting as key points of liaison between the project teams and the bookkeeper wherever possible and escalating to the BD & Ops Manager and/or the Director of Finance & Ops where needed.

• Working closely with the BD & Ops Manager to develop and improve our operational processes and systems

Challenges of this role 

All roles have their challenges and we think it’s helpful to be open about these and set them out for you to consider if these are challenges you would embrace:

• ‘Managing up and across’ – to enable the effectiveness and development of our finances and operations, you need to work with and make requests of your busy colleagues

• As our organisation develops, our needs will evolve and you will need to adapt and help to drive improvements, developing new processes when needed. This requires an adaptive and learning mindset.

Skills and experience we are looking for:

We don't expect that you will already have experience of doing all of the tasks above. We believe in appointing based on potential rather than simply on past performance. You should have some demonstrable experience in the skills below, which could come from a combination of work, voluntary and/or personal experiences. 

You will be supported by and work closely with the Business Development & Operations Manager, will work alongside our bookkeeper and will also work with the Director of Finance & Operations, all of which will support your ongoing learning and development.

Experience

• Some practical paid working in finance, data or operations, which may also be complemented through relevant personal or voluntary experiences

Skills

• Meticulous attention to detail will be required

• Good communication skills, with a clear and friendly tone when dealing with clients; ability to be confident and proactive in your communications across the rest of the team

• Ability to work independently

• Ability to know when to ask questions and to escalate

• Learning mindset

Important to know:

• Salary: £25,000 pro rata for this permanent role

• Location: we’re a London-based office, but open to explore remote or hybrid working arrangements. Due to the needs of this role, you would need to be in the office at least once a month.

• Working hours: 15-22.5 hours per week, open to exploring flexible working requests that match organisational needs with personal needs/preferences. Possibility to explore increasing hours in the future.

• Additional holiday over Christmas, on top of 25 days' holiday (pro rata) and bank holidays

• Pension contribution

• Options for multi-purpose loans, bike-to-work scheme, eye tests, enhanced parental leave pay and we're open to exploring more...

• Being part of an inclusive, team-led, learning environment!

Next steps

Firstly, we would like to invite you to view our role information recording, where you will be able to hear a bit about the role and what sort of person we think would suit it. If you have questions, please email those to htomlinson@collaboratecic.com.

• Apply here by midday on Monday 10th February 2025. 

• Interview 17th - 18th February you will meet Hannah Tomlinson and Tara

• If a final interview is required, this will be between 24th - 26th Feb so that a decision can be made ASAP.

• We are hoping to make an offer by the end of February with an immediate start or after any required notice period.

Our commitment to our team

We seek to be a genuinely collaborative organisation, sharing ideas across the team through weekly team meetings and regular learning sessions. We collectively consider our broader strategy, examine and share learning across our projects, and explore how we might develop our work and our thinking.

As a Living Wage employer, we believe in paying our team fairly, support flexible working and are committed to promoting equity of opportunity for all. 

Being equitable, inclusive and fair is not easy or simple and we are challenging ourselves, talking, working and learning about how we can continue to do this better. We aim to create an inclusive working environment in which all individuals are able to make the best use of their skills and are enabled to thrive.