We are recruiting for an Assistant Programme & Operations Manager to join the Centre for Collective Intelligence Design.

The Centre for Collective Intelligence Design at Nesta is looking for a highly-motivated self-starter, with exceptional organisational and time-management skills to support the roll out of a project focusing on public engagement in local climate policy. 

You’ll lead the action planning and delivery of our ambitious plans to support councils around England to use the Strategy Room over the next 12-18 months. You’ll be the first point of contact for councils, coordinating Strategy Room sessions around the country and helping hundreds of people to discuss which net zero policy options might work best in their area. You’ll put in place systems and processes to ensure these happen smoothly and to the highest standard, as well as driving promotional sales activities to encourage more councils to sign-up. You’ll be responsible for managing the budget and monitoring activity, reporting on impact to councils and funders alike.

You’ll be right for this role if you’re not phased by a long list of tasks and are adept at juggling last-minute requests or enquiries. You can prioritise effectively, communicate persuasively, solve problems autonomously and you relish building new relationships. You’ve got solid project management experience, hold yourself to the highest professional standards and are confident using project management and CRM tools such as Asana and Salesforce.    

About the Centre for Collective Intelligence Design 

Nesta’s Centre for Collective Intelligence Design helps create new ways for communities to use technology to harness their insights, ideas and power to act on the problems that matter to them and create the futures they want. We know well-designed systems can help promote healthy collective action at scale, but too often technology is designed to solve the needs of individuals or large organisations. 

Our mission is to design digital tools and products that allow communities to respond collectively to challenges, and that help public and voluntary sector institutions strengthen trust and collaboration with citizens.  

You’ll be responsible for:

• Developing plans for the delivery of grant-funded programmes which offer councils either full, or partial, funding for the rollout of Nesta’s the Strategy Room tool in their local areas.

• Developing and coordinating sales and marketing efforts to promote the Strategy Room rollout to other individual councils who are not eligible for the match-funding.

• Managing enquiries about the Strategy Room, and securing a pipeline of councils or other organisations who want to use it to support their work. 

• Managing the budgets for any Strategy Room rollout projects, whether grant funded or contracts with individual councils. 

• Ensuring that councils and Strategy Room participants receive a high quality experience and service, be the first point of contact for all councils and help with problem-solving.

• Coordination with councils to schedule dates and venues for Strategy Room sessions, and ensuring these are appropriately staffed.

• Support councils to recruit a diverse range of participants for Strategy Room sessions - monitoring recruitment progress and identifying any shortfalls in advance. 

• Working with other team members to design and deliver workshops for councils which help recruit a diverse range of participants, and ensure data insights inform council decision-making. 

• Liaising with Nesta’s legal team and council to staff to manage the contracting and invoicing for services provided.

• Managing Nesta’s roster of freelance facilitators - ensuring that freelancers are booked for Strategy Room sessions in sufficient time, and have all the information and equipment they need to deliver Strategy Room sessions successfully, and are paid promptly. 

• Manage and maintain Nesta’s digital equipment - ensuring it gets to the right place in time for Strategy Room sessions, and is returned promptly afterwards and is adequately cleaned and maintained.

• Supporting with proposal writing for grant funding opportunities. 

• Leading evaluation activities, including maintaining detailed activity and impact logs for reporting to councils and funders. 

Essential requirements 

• Strong programme and client management experience.

• Solid organisational, prioritisation and time management skills with the ability to coordinate and track multiple projects simultaneously. 

• Ability to manage projects, maintaining and updating systems to help them run effectively. 

• Experience of working to very tight deadlines, delivering high quality outputs on multiple projects and tasks. 

• Ability to manage budgets and finance. 

• Good attention to detail and high standards of accuracy; a good completer finisher.

• Evidence of organising events. 

• Diverse partnership building and business development. 

• Experience of marketing, sales or business development. 

• Ability to proactively identify opportunities for promotional activity, as well as reacting quickly to new external opportunities.

• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to work effectively with a wide range of high-profile partners, clients, team members and stakeholders. 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, and the ability to make use of social media. 

• Experience of using project management tools and CRM software such as Asana and Salesforce.

Desirable requirements: 

• Experience of working in or with local councils, or understanding of how they work.  

• Project management qualification. 

• Experience of delivering public engagement activities or campaigns.

• Enthusiasm for, and experience in climate change policy

What we offer

Salary: circa £37k plus array of benefits, including private medical insurance, dental insurance, the ability to buy and sell annual leave, eyecare vouchers and more.  

Location: This role is based in London, hybrid working arrangement with a minimum of two days in the office.

Term: 12 month Fixed term contract

Hours: This is a full-time role but we offer a range of flexible working arrangements and encourage our people to take advantage of them. Many do. 

Making an application 

To apply for this role, please submit your application before 08:00am on the 4th of December 2023 

Interviews will take place w/c 11th of December 2023.

At Nesta, we believe that a diverse workforce leads to an organisation that is more innovative, more creative and gets better results. 

We want our workforce to represent the diversity of the people and communities we serve. We also want our workplace to be one where different experiences, expertise and perspectives are valued, and where everyone is encouraged to grow and develop. 

This means that when we are recruiting, we actively seek to reach a diverse pool of candidates. It also means that we are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that potential employees may need to in order to be successful. 

We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including working from home, compressed or part-time hours, job shares and other arrangements.   

Please just let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process (and beyond) if these are options you’d like to explore.