About the Youth Investment Fund

The Youth Investment Fund (YIF) is a £368 million fund created by the UK government to create, expand and improve youth facilities and services in England to drive positive outcomes for young people.

YIF is being delivered by a partnership between Social Investment Business, The Key Fund, National Youth Agency and Resonance.

Together, we aim to deliver grants for up to 300 facilities in selected eligible areas across England by 2025 that represent positive value for money, are environmentally sustainable and enable positive activities for young people aged 11–18 (up to 25 for young people with SEND).

This funding will drive value-for-money facilities that youth organisations can afford to sustain. Using innovative construction techniques, as well as supporting redevelopment projects that expand youth service provision, the YIF will achieve savings on facility running costs, so that resources can focus on activities that enrich young people’s lives.

It will support projects to level up youth provision, assessing and distributing grants so that local youth facilities and services can be the best they can be.

www.youthinvestmentfund.org.uk

About this role:

This role will be employed by Social Investment Business (SIB) on a fixed term contract until March 2025.

For over two decades, Social Investment Business has provided finance and support to charities and social enterprises. We empower these organisations to do what they do best - serve the communities they operate within. 

Find out more about what we do:  https://www.sibgroup.org.uk/

Our values are: People First, Curious, Bold, Collaborative, Accountable.

For further information on our values and our generous benefits please visit https://www.sibgroup.org.uk/about-us/work-with-us/

Reporting to the Director of Investments this role plays an important part in the provision of capital grants to our charity and social enterprise customers working in the youth sector as part of the Youth Investment Fund (YIF).

We are looking for someone who has previous experience of funding of property / real estate / asset acquisition or redevelopment, (which could be in the form of capital grants or lending) and managing a team of funding managers. This is a great opportunity for someone to be involved in making a difference to young people.  We are looking for someone who is passionate, proactive, can work well autonomously and as part of a team.

Key responsibilities

1.      Responsible for managing a team of 7+ relationship managers who are assessing and managing capital grant investments as part of the Youth Investment Fund (YIF) and oversight of the grants under management of the team expected to be c. £160m+.

 2.      Support relationship managers and make decisions on grant execution that fall outside of the procedures/standardised grant and security documentation, drawing on legal counsel support as required.

 3.      Ensure approval decisions and funding conditions are clearly communicated to the relationship managers.

 4.      Ensure that the funding assessments by relationship managers are completed to a high quality across the ‘three pillars’ of the YIF: organisational resilience, construction/redevelopment project viability and supported activities for young people. This may include coordinating support from experts and the wider YIF partnership.

 5.      Provide input and proposals to the Director of Investments and the Head of the Youth Investment Fund that help contribute to the ongoing improvement and development the funding programme.

 6.      Contribute to development of SIBs approach to property funding across its portfolios of customers.

 7.      Authorise funding drawdowns, reviewing that the Relationship Managers have undertaken all the required checks and that approval conditions have been met.

 8.      Sign off facility letters and security (where applicable).

 9.      Ensure that the relationship managers are undertaking robust monitoring of grant and grants are being drawn to schedule.

 10.  Discuss potential variations to the terms of funding with the relationship managers (including challenging situations where the organisation is not able to bring the capital project in on time and on budget or is otherwise in financial distress) and approve variations in line with delegated authorities or recommend for approval to the grants committee as required.

 11.  Relationship managers will be undertaking grant assessments and due diligence in conjunction with NYA and Construction consultants, and the assessment panels and grant committees will make all grant award decisions. This role oversees the production of assessment reports by RMs and co-ordinates with the senior member of the RM teams across SIB, Key Fund and Resonance, who are managing RMs at their organisations.

 12.  Support and/or lead on relevant YIF projects as and when required.

 13.  To work within the organisation's values, principles and processes to achieve operational excellence.

 14.  To adopt our continuous improvement and learning ethos.

 15.  To support and embed equality, diversity and inclusion into day-to-day behaviours and activities within your role as well as contributing more widely across SIB’s commitment to E, D & I.

 16.  To support and contribute to the implementation and delivery of SIB’s strategy.

 17.  In agreement with manager to undertake other tasks and work on cross team projects that support the objectives of SIB as required.

 Core competencies

• Commitment to quality, equality, diversity, inclusion and customers.

• Team player with the ability to work independently.

• Experience of construction, real estate or property funding (capital grants or lending). 

• Experience of managing a team of funding relationship managers or assessors, and excellent leadership skills.

• Commercial lending or social investment – Significant experience of subjective funding - social investment or commercial funding to include significant experience of transaction management and execution.

• Have previously held delegated authorities in relation to funding.

• Credit cycle: Experience of working in commercial lending or social investment through at least one previous credit cycle.

• Working at pace: Ability to work to deploy funding at a fast pace, whilst retaining control and oversight.

• Commercial awareness and numeracy skills – experience of talking to and understanding businesses and organisations.

• Strong attention to detail – experience of reviewing detailed information and picking up key details.

• Problem solving – experience of finding problems and assessing why problems occur.  Adaptability and flexibility to changing needs and ability to deliver results under pressure.

• Communication – strong interpersonal and influencing skills and the confidence to effectively communicate at all levels.

• Organisation/time management – experience of managing a large amount of data and delivering results within specified timescales to a high standard.

• Strong IT skills.

 Desirable competencies

• Knowledge of the voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector, particularly the youth sector.