Job Title: Impact Manager

Department: Investment Team (Impact Team)

Reports to: Head of Impact

Salary: £63,250

Contract: Full-time

Location: Hybrid / London, EC4A and homeworking

The opportunity:

This is an exciting opportunity for an exceptional individual to work at the heart of Big Society Capital’s (BSC) mission to improve the lives of people in the UK through investment with a sustainable return. You will help shape BSC’s broader approach to system change and social impact and lead the design and implementation of ways in which we manage, measure, learn from, and communicate social impact across our investment process and portfolio.

With a particular focus on our social lending portfolio, you will play a key role in advancing our understanding of social enterprise resilience and growth, and the intersection of business models and social impact in our portfolio to drive learning and improved decision making.

In doing so, you will work closely with the rest of our investment team, particularly our social lending team, and our data & portfolio team, and engage closely with our external partners and key stakeholders in the broader impact management field.

What you will do:

1.   Implementation and further development of our impact and systems change approach

• Lead on the execution of BSC’s impact management approach and our annual processes of reviewing and assessing impact performance and learnings across our investment portfolio with our fund managers and our internal Performance Committee, under the guidance of the Head of Impact and in close cooperation with the broader impact and investment team.

• Work closely with the Head of Impact on advancing our impact and system change approach, including the creation and further development of impact frameworks, guidance, and tools. This involves work to explore the added value of impact ratings to our impact assessment approach and a more integrated (impact, system change, and financial) performance management approach, more broadly.

• Provide guidance and support to the investment team on how to execute BSC’s impact and system change in the context of making new investments and managing our existing portfolio. This will include provision of training, as well as direct ad-hoc support on specific deals.  

• Support deal leads in their engagement with fund managers, as it relates to assessing and improving their impact practice, as needed.

2.   Impact & system change data, insights & learning, and reporting

• Support the Impact and System Change Data Lead in developing impact and system change data management infrastructure, from collecting and receiving data to using such data for insights, learning, and decision making. This includes the creation of data dashboards and other tools.

• Review and refine our current approach to impact reporting and deal level data collection from our fund managers through the “Impact Canvas”, following an initial 2-year pilot period.

• Lead and support others in utilising impact and system change data to create insights and learnings from our investments and market building work and share these insights with senior stakeholders within BSC to drive future strategic decision making.

• Share BSC’s impact and system management practices, tools, and learnings externally to improve sector wide impact practices and continue to foster BSC’s position as a market leader (blogs, articles, talks, etc.).

• Support the Head of Impact in further developing and delivering our approach to formal impact reporting across several stakeholders (incl. BSC Board, external audiences) and products (BSC’s Annual Report, BSC’s Impact Report, etc.)

3.   Social Lending Impact Lead

• Be responsible for the execution of BSC’s broader impact approach and calendar across the Social Lending investment portfolio and broader market building work. This includes providing direct technical support and advice on new deals and to existing deal owners on all matters related to impact and engaging with fund managers on improving impact performance and practice, where needed.

• Support the evolution and lead on the execution of strategic impact work in two focus areas. Firstly, driving improved impact practice (incl. reporting) and insights around the impact of social investment on borrowers’ (social enterprises & charities) resilience and growth, and secondly, driving data collection, analysis and insights regarding the underlying business models in our lending portfolio and their interaction with impact.

• Support Market System Lead in developing future impact and system change strategies, frameworks, and resources, as needed.

• Ensure that BSC collects and receives meaningful, useful, and proportionate impact data from our fund managers, and utilises such data to create and share insights internally and externally.

The role requires working closely with various teams across BSC, including the Investment Team, in particular the social lending team, Data & Portfolio team, and Communications team, as well as external partners, including intermediaries, social investors, social sector organisations, and other key impact management stakeholders.

What you will bring: 

Experience

 Essential

• A passion for improving lives in the UK

• Proven experience in the design and implementation of impact management & measurement frameworks, processes, and tools, ideally in an impact investing context.

• Proven data analysis and project management skills

• Experience in effectively and creatively communicating social impact to a range of different stakeholders

• Experience in managing and influencing multiple stakeholders in the delivery of projects

 Desirable

• Experience in the social impact investing sector (and/or social lending sector) in the UK, with a focus on charities and social enterprises

 Skills, Abilities and Attributes

• Structured thinker - able to deal with complexity and keep focus in the face of challenge or uncertainty.

• Innovative, creative, and strategic approach to problem solving.

• Collegial team player - Flexible and willing to work with and contribute to a team.

• Strong analytical skills and an ability to harness, analyse, and interpret data

• Relationship management – excellent interpersonal skills and able to build relationships at all levels.

• A confident and effective communicator with an ability to integrate within and across teams

• Hunger for continued learning and development, including developing others.

• Self-starter - able to work under own initiative and source new opportunities.

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people from racialised communities are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

 Other terms

• Location: We are a UK-based business with an office in the Chancery Lane area of London, accessible to a number of public transport links. Our current approach allows colleagues to spend 40% - 60% of their working hours in the office, and the remainder from home. We hope that this working pattern encourages Big Society Capital employees to achieve a healthy balance between work and personal goals, as we continue to adapt to the changing needs of our diverse workforce.

• Right to work: for candidates who do not have the right to work in the UK, Big Society Capital may consider visa sponsorship

• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: Big Society Capital is committed to being a diverse organisation that is truly representative of the communities we serve. We therefore welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds, particularly those under-represented in the social impact investment sector (e.g. people from LGBTQIA+; racialised; disabled; under-served communities)

We are an equal opportunities employer with an inclusive environment where all employees can contribute to their fullest potential. We want every colleague to be able to deliver their work with dignity, equality, comfort and independence. Our office is fully accessible with step-free access and an open-plan set up. We are open to accommodation requests regarding assistive technologies, accessibility tools, flexible working or any other reasonable adjustments that will make working or visiting here more accessible for you. If you have a disability or other access needs and require any support to assist you through the recruitment process, please get in touch with Ruth Davidson (People and Talent Manager) at rdavidson@bigsocietycapital.com

As a Disability Confident employer, we guarantee an interview for all candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum criteria for the job. We are defining a disability in accordance with the Equality Act 2010, as a person who has a physical or mental impairment, and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. You will be asked in your Applied application whether this applies to you.

 Interviews

Round 1 virtual interviews will be held on 3 February 2023

Round 2 in person interviews will be held on 9 February 2023

You can find out more about our recruitment approach here