Head of Grants 

Term: Permanant  

Salary:  £45k-£55k

Location: Youth Futures office in either Leeds, Birmingham or London, with regular meetings across England. Please specify your preferred office location when applying.  

Reporting to: Director of Grants and Social Investment 

Deadline:  29th May 2020

Transforming youth employment 

The Youth Futures Foundation is a new, independent, not for profit organisation set up to tackle youth unemployment with a £90million endowment from the Reclaim Fund. We are looking for bold and impactful ways to help young people find and keep good jobs. There are over 750,000 young people not in education or employment in the UK. Young people are twice as likely to be unemployed than older adults in the labour market and BAME and disadvantaged young people disproportionately bear the brunt of it. 

We are building an ‘empowerment foundation’ to identify practical solutions that work in a complex world yet are simple and cost effective enough to roll out across multiple locations, to reach as many young people as possible. Youth Futures will apply rigorous evaluation methods to determine what works, then channel resources and funding into sharing learnings and working in partnership to grow good practice.  We recognise that whilst developing and supporting young people will go some way towards tackling youth unemployment and under employment, these are systemic issues. We are seeking a significant change in national behaviour that dramatically improves the number of young people accessing - and progressing in - work.  

The Youth Futures Foundation is committed to: 

• Equipping young people from diverse backgrounds to access and progress in work 

• Removing structural and systemic barriers to employment and progression  

Youth Futures will take an evidence led structural and systems-based approach that recognises the importance of national learnings and local context, as well as promoting strong coordination and partnership working across government, funders, delivery organisations and employers. 

We will work in partnership to close the employment gap by: 

• Building the evidence base 

• Understanding and highlighting structural and systemic barriers 

• Improving the quality of employment programmes for young people 

• Empowering government to carry out evidence-based policy making 

• Equipping employers to improve productivity through hiring the best talent  

Head of Grants 

We are looking for a Head of Grants to support our Director of Grants and Social Investment in the delivery of an innovative, transparent and fair grant-making approach that will ensure successful applicants are supported to deliver high quality, impactful projects.  

Key responsibilities 

Manage Youth Futures approach to grant-making and capacity building, including: 

• Passionate about the potential of transformative grant-making 

• Help develop new, innovative grants programmes to support the youth employment ecosystem in the most effective way 

• Shape and deliver funding in a wide range of ways, including for; systems change, direct delivery, infrastructure, consortiums, and place-based initiatives  

• Coordinate the whole lifecycle of grant making (pre-application, assessment, decision making, grant management, and learning), placing young people and the organisations working with them at the heart of what we do 

• Responsible for the management and work of a highly effective grants team, supporting the development of a team culture centred on continuous improvement and innovation 

• Be responsible for risk management, budget, decision-making and quality assurance activities associated with delivering a variety of funding initiatives 

• To advise on Youth Futures grant-making policies, and to oversee the execution of those policies, in line with good governance principles and best practice 

• Ensure that capacity building work is shaped by best available evidence and delivered by suitably qualified people with relevant experience (internally or externally sourced)  

• Ensure our grants and social investments are informed by, and influence, Youth Futures wider work, including:  

• Working with the Evidence and Impact team to ensure we fund interventions that apply techniques demonstrated to work, and ensuring appropriate evaluation is built into all the work we fund 

• Working with the Systems Change team to ensure our influencing and convening work is informed by our learnings on the ground, and that our grantees are kept informed about policy changes and business practice  

• Provide support to the Finance & Operations team in monitoring and tracking expenditures by grant   

 Skills and Experience 

Part One - Knowledge and Experience 

• Understand and empathise with young people who face barriers to progression as a result of personal lived experience, work or volunteering roles   

• Experience of or willingness to learn about; young peoples’ lives, employment, the not-for-profit sector and related government policy (e.g. able to demonstrate a good understanding of the complexity of young peoples lives)  

• Experience in managing complex grants or delivery programmes   

• The ability to provide capacity building support (training, facilitation, advice and guidance) to grant applicants, staff team and wider sector 

• Experience of setting up and working with complex processes, budgets, cash flow, and performance indicators, including monitoring and taking remedial action where necessary  

• Commitment to learning what works and what doesn’t, and sharing these learnings 

• Understanding and experience of monitoring processes to track value for money and performance against agreed frameworks  

• Working in partnership with others, using virtual working tools, supporting, coaching and developing staff in multiple locations 

• Able to provide effective team and line management that facilitates a high standard of delivery; motivating and developing staff to maximise their individual potential and support in build a strong team culture 

Part Two - Skills  

• As a leader in a newly-forming organisation, fully contribute to: 

• developing the overall strategy of Youth Futures Foundation 

• creating a positive, supportive and effective culture within the organisation 

• organisational development; developing new roles and ways of working; recruiting and developing new team members 

• supporting the team of Directors to become fully established and operational 

• establishing Youth Futures reputation in the Youth Employment ecosystem  

• Engage stakeholders; encourage connectivity and networks within and outside the Youth Futures Foundation, and be equally confident working alongside both local and national organisations 

• High quality project management, prioritisation and resource allocation  

• Firm understanding and ability to track income and expenditure using spreadsheets and data  

• Able to efficiently administer the end to end grants application process including; assessment of grant applications, presenting recommendations to the Grants Committee; undertaking visits and meetings with potential grantees, and all associated reporting  

• Successfully manage relationships with grantees; providing capacity building support yourself, alongside coordinating internal and external experts to offer additional assistance 

• Enable opportunities for applicants to work collaboratively to share learnings, build networks and connections  

• Maintain quality data records on grant activity and relationships; collecting, analysing and presenting data on grantees to identify both individual opportunities and challenges, and cross portfolio trends  

• Strong IT skills, including use of MS Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc), shared online folders, calendars and contacts 

Mindset 

• Genuine personal commitment to Youth Futures mission, vision and values 

• This is an exciting opportunity in a newly-forming organisation. As such, many of the systems and processes that are normal in an established organisation either do not exist or are newly forming. To be successful in this role, the candidate will need:  

• to thrive when operating in uncertainty  

• be a highly motivated self starter 

• a proactive and flexible approach, able to identify and take forward opportunities and work effectively in partnership with others.  

• a positive and can-do attitude, willing to roll their sleeves up to get into details where necessary  

• a willingness to collaborate internally and externally to achieve our mission  

• strong leadership communication skills  

Things to know 

• As part of Youth Futures Foundation’s safeguarding policy, all employees are subject to a basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check 

Timetable

Application deadline: 29th May 2020

First stage interview: from 17th June 2020

Panel Interview: w/c 6th July 2020

Final interview: w/c 13th July 2020