Climate Outreach is seeking an enthusiastic, committed individual, with experience in project management and an interest in climate communication. You’ll be responsible for managing the lifecycle of exciting projects that are driving public engagement on climate change. You'll be liaising across, and beyond, the organisation to ensure these projects reach completion on time, within budget and within scope. You’ll be able to work flexibly in a creative yet fast-moving field. In your role you will be responsible for managing contracts with funders and consultants. You will also be responsible for monitoring and evaluation along with producing some of the donor reporting with support from the wider team.

Key to success in this role will be excellent project management to support our staff team to deliver great work with a variety of audiences and for a range of clients. As a growing organisation, part of your role will be improving project management systems within Climate Outreach. This will be a highly stimulating and enjoyable job with many opportunities for building experience and developing new skills. You will be working within an enthusiastic team and will be working closely with researchers and trainers across the organisation.

Through a feminist and anti-colonial approach to management and coordination, the role will provide strategic thinking space and platforms for managers to develop their work areas confidently and in line with the organisational strategy and values.

Climate change affects everyone and to create a social mandate for climate action we need representatives from across society to be part of the conversation. Therefore at Climate Outreach we maintain a non-partisan approach on policy and politics. 

Type of employment: Permanent contract

Hours: 35 hours per week

Right to work: This role requires the right to reside and work in the UK

The Project Manager should have these skills:

• At least 12 months proven experience in managing projects or team budgets exceeding the value of £250K annually

• Project management skills including ability to create logical and lean log frames, budget management, milestone setting, risk mitigation and workflows for projects. 

• Motivation to complete projects within timeline, budget and scope. 

• Comfortable with tailoring project management methodology (eg: Agile, PRINCE2, Kanban) or applying hybrids based on the project factors and organisational need. 

• Confidence and experience in project management decision making within a risk management and values framework.

• Great interpersonal skills and experience in stakeholder expectations management, including managing external consultant contracts.

• Understanding of research coordination and production of research-based deliverables such as reports and webinars, or willingness to learn. 

• Technological skills in using project management softwares such as Asana  or similar

• Knowledge of GDPR and intellectual property management in the context of project management, or willingness to learn.

• Interest and willingness in improving/developing lean systems and tools

• Monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning skills, including reporting impact to funders/clients

• Flexible and adaptable to organisational changes and growth.  

• A self-starter with the ability to anticipate problems and find appropriate solutions.

• Strong organisational skills and efficient time management, ability to manage multiple tasks and priorities.

• Self-reflective and committed to personal professional development

Desirable

• Experience in managing projects funded either by governments or the European Commission or World Bank or United Nations or similar organisations.

• Proficient in German or French language.

• A relevant qualification in project management (eg: Agile or business administration). 

You responsibilities will be

Project management

• Design and implement work packages with project teams within project scope, timeline and resources to produce quality deliverables.

• Coordinate and chair regular project management meetings to ensure project plans, budgets and timelines are created and followed using internally agreed project management procedures.

• Continuously monitor and evaluate project progress and report to Project Management Lead and project team members, to ensure the project meets the requirements of funders and demonstrates impact to wider audiences.

• Regular project expenditure forecasting that feeds into organisational wide expenditure forecasting.  

• Compliantly produce funder reporting by liaising with internal and external stakeholders with the support from the Finance team.

• Be responsible for project-related contract management, including funder/partnership agreements and other service provider contracts. 

• Ensure GDPR, contractual and financial compliance in projects by following organisational established standards and policies. 

• Liaise, where appropriate, between external project partners and internal project teams during the design and delivery of specific projects. 

• Conduct project risk assessments and lead on taking appropriate actions to mitigate risks in collaboration with the rest of the team. 

• Ensure effective evaluation and closure of projects, including liaising with the Communications team for dissemination of project outputs and with the Finance team for processing invoicing and payments.

Developing systems

• Support the Project Management Lead in developing organisation wide project management tools and systems.

• As part of the Operations Department, contribute to the wider development of organisational operations functions. 

• Work with the Project Management Lead and other teams to improve monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning framework for projects. 

• Undertake any other reasonable duties related to the position as necessary.

Project proposal development

• Provide expertise to write and submit project proposals and budgets, ensuring appropriate project management and delivery capacity is available to successfully deliver approved proposals.

• Ensure that projects approved and submitted for funding are adequately resourced to meet funder requirements and to deliver impactful high quality outputs. 

Climate Outreach works with partners and contractors on different time-zones. Therefore the post-holder may be asked to travel or work outside of core hours to support project management. 

Next steps

To get started, pop your email on the top right of this page.

You’ll answer some questions that are related to your day-to-day job. The deadline to submit your application is 12pm, Thursday 6th April.

After the job closes, 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 includes an interview in Oxford on Thursday 13th April 2023.

Also, we love giving feedback, so at the end of the application process we'll share how well you performed.

If you have any additional questions about the job or recruiting process, please contact us by emailing recruitment@climateoutreach.org.

We are an equal opportunities employer

Climate Outreach is committed to providing equal employment opportunity in all of its employment programs and decisions. We recognise that a diverse and inclusive movement is critical to solving climate change and that we must ensure that those directly impacted – particularly those who have been excluded in the past – are at the centre of the movement for change. 

We do our best to make staff positions accessible to all potential team members, regardless of race, colour, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, assigned gender, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation or identity, religion or creed, veteran status, and marital or parental status. We strive to recruit team members from communities most impacted by climate change or impacted by other kinds of environmental, social, and economic injustice. We therefore strongly encourage applications from people of colour, LGBTQ people and members of marginalised communities. Climate Outreach Oxford Office is wheelchair accessible.

If you are invited to interview for the position, do let us know if you would like any carer's costs that you incurred due to attending this interview to be reimbursed.