Are you looking for a life mission and a rewarding role where you can help find better ways of tackling social problems in the UK and globally. Do you want to change the world and people’s lives? 

Bridges Outcomes Partnerships is looking for enthusiastic and motivated individuals who are intellectually curious and understand the value of how collaborative design, flexible delivery and clear accountability can contribute to achieving a positive social impact. We are seeking someone for a fixed term contract (9 months) to cover a period of parental leave in our team.

Bridges Outcomes Partnerships (BOP) is a mission driven not for profit social enterprise. We help radically change human services and environmental initiatives to improve outcomes for people, the planet, and value for society. We enable personalised and strength-based delivery through collaborative design, flexible delivery, and clear accountability for improving people’s lives (as outlined in our learning document, People-Powered Partnerships). To date, we have supported over 48,000 people in the UK, whilst catalysing £129m of outcomes and, according to BSC’s Outcomes For All report, delivering over £1bn of value to society. We work both in the UK and high-income countries as well as in low- and middle-income countries. The role of Bridges Outcomes Partnerships spans project development (working with outcome funders and others to design and launch the service), project and performance management (coordinating the delivery phase and liaising with the various stakeholders) and project finance (funding the project until it starts to earn outcomes payments). Our own funding comes from a group of pioneering social investors, including The Office for Civil Society, Big Society Capital, Pilotlight, Trust for London, British International Investment (BII), US International Development Corporation (DFC), UBS Optimus Foundation, who, like us, are motivated by improving lives and changing the system for the better.  BOP is a wholly-owned not for profit subsidiary of Bridges Fund Management, a specialist sustainable and impact investor.

We are looking for someone exceptional to join our team for a fixed period as we build new projects and partnerships.

We would love to hear from you if you are:

• Curious, analytical and great at problem-solving

• Exceptional at building strong working relationships with team members and across a range of stakeholders

• A flexible and adaptable team player with a can-do attitude

• Able to undertake a variety of activities with a substantial degree of personal responsibility and autonomy

About the opportunity

As a Project Lead you will with the team to develop new projects and manage the existing portfolio.

 Here’s a taste of what you’ll do:

• Working on the development of outcomes partnerships opportunities: Identifying and engaging with social and environmental challenges faced by central and local government. You will develop and manage new projects and partnerships along with ongoing management of the existing portfolio

• Solving problems from first principles: Taking a leading role in conducting impact and financial analysis, and leading the project development and management process

• Creating and maintaining excellent stakeholder relationships: Engaging with and managing key stakeholders, including government bodies, donor agencies, delivery partners, advisors designing the projects and other colleagues at BOP.

Working with delivery teams on a day-to-day basis: This includes working with delivery partners to help create best possible impact in sustainable ways, by identifying issues and opportunities, initiating projects, and developing delivery changes and innovations.

Key attributes we are looking for:

• A genuine passion to drive social change: We want to consistently and dramatically change the status quo. This requires someone with attention to detail and intellectual rigour who will demonstrate the ability to lead on impact and value creation.

• Ability to deliver more: We believe it is possible to create better outcomes than the current system is achieving, and we aim to demonstrate this in practice. This requires tenacity, resourcefulness, and relentless optimism.

• Ability to think differently: We will not succeed by copying existing models or structures. Our projects and investments require the team to think through each problem from first principles and find the most effective and efficient new solution in each case. This requires logic, analytical rigour, and a willingness to question assumptions. It also requires the desire to work in a dynamic environment, along with the ability to be solutions-focused and work in a small team.

• Ability to build and maintain trust: We aim for the edge of what we believe is possible, from ourselves and our partners. This can only be achieved through mutual trust. Everything we do must be open to scrutiny and full transparency. This requires excellent interpersonal skills and absolute integrity.

Suitable candidates will have:

Essential

• 5+ years of experience working in management consulting, social investment, public sector delivery or similar.

• Strong delivery and investment, advisory and/or operational track record

• Experience working on projects tackling social issues preferably in areas like social care, children’s services, homelessness prevention, health and employment desirable

• Excellent academic qualifications – higher degree level education or equivalent experience

• Exceptional interpersonal skills, adept at working with multiple stakeholders

• Excellent financial and modelling skills, with proven experience in supporting the development of comprehensive business/operational plans

• Strong strategic, commercial and entrepreneurial judgement

Desirable

• High level of financial literacy through a financial qualification (CFA or similar) or relevant experience at another social investor, bank or consultancy.

• Good command of a second language, both written and spoken

• Experience of working with government partners to develop social change projects

• Experience working on projects tackling social and environmental challenges preferably in areas like education, health, children’s services, homelessness, and employment

• Experience of the social sector, impact investment and a desire to drive profit with purpose

Benefits

What we will offer you

• You will be joining an incredibly dedicated, vibrant, dynamic and talented team of people who are deeply passionate about services which improve people’s lives and public sector reform. 

• The health and wellbeing of our employees is important to us. We offer an Employee Assistance Programme alongside other well-being initiatives to promote a healthier working environment.

• We are a flexible employer and we will support you to ensure that you achieve a balance that works for you

• You will get 25 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays, pro-rated to reflect the contract term

• 5% contribution to pension

Hiring process

Next steps

To get started, click on the yellow button on the top right.

You’ll answer some questions that are related to the day-to-day job. After the job closes on the 20th December 2023, your answers will go through our sift process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers.

If you are shortlisted, we’ll invite you to the next step, which will be first and second round interviews from early January 2024 with some of our colleagues. Once we have concluded the process, we would like the successful candidate to start as soon as possible following their appointment.

Expected duration of this application process: 4-8 weeks.

We are an equal opportunities employer

We are committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.