Development and partnerships officer

Reports to: Development and partnerships manage

Salary

c. £25,000 dependent on experience

Hours Full time

Location London, EC4Y (currently hybrid office / remote)

Start date Asap

Contract Six months initial contract (with possibility of extension)

 About us

Unlocked Graduates is an award-winning charity organisation that exists to break cycles of reoffending.

At the core of Unlocked Graduates is a leadership development programme that brings top graduates into prisons to work as frontline prison officers for two years. The organisation grew out of a recommendation in the Coates’ Review of prison education.

 This work forms part of a rich leadership development programme that includes mentoring, work placements in partner organisations and a fully-funded master’s degree. All of which they take part in while taking on the full duties of a frontline prison officer.

 After an early incubation with charity and social business Catch22, Unlocked is now an independent registered charity and has ambitious fundraising targets for the next 12 months.

 Our mission

The aim of Unlocked Graduates is to break cycles of re-offending by developing outstanding individuals to lead rehabilitation in prisons and throughout society.

The role

This new role at Unlocked will play a vital part in the development of both our fundraising and external partnerships activities.

Our fundraising activities are currently built around a group of committed, engaged funders.  We want to expand our fundraising activities in line with our strategy to develop key strands of our work such as our ‘ambassador programme’ for those successfully completing the Unlocked programme.

This role will provide essential research and administrative support to maintain positive funder and partner relationships, ensuring high quality monitoring and reporting, as well as organising prison visits and events.

Alongside this, the role will support the development of our fundraising pipeline through researching and identifying new opportunities and in collaboration with colleagues help to develop and deliver funder attractive propositions.

Critical to our mission and impact is forging meaningful links between prisoner officers at the frontline and external partners that will enable them to amplify their impact. This includes corporates who can offer engaging work placements, allowing prison officers to gain new insights, through to criminal justice charities who may not realise how much frontline officers could support their work.

Our partners already include a range of corporate organisations such as PWC, Clifford Chance & KPMG as well as other charities working in the criminal justice sector. They support our work by providing a variety of pro bono support and volunteering, access to work placements for our participants as well as funding.

We are seeking to build on these successful relationships to drive greater value from them as well as establishing new partnerships that will help us to achieve our mission.

This role will provide vital support in ensuring our partnerships are as effective as possible through careful stewardship and the coordination of engaging activities and events.

Unlocked also provides small grants and support to our participants to develop ‘innovation’ projects in their prisons.  This will role help to administer applications for these grants, maintain monitoring records and respond to enquiries from participants or staff.

Key accountabilities

Supporting development

·       Support the stewardship of funders through regular communication and engagement.

·       Undertake regular prospect research using a variety of methods to identify potential funding streams.

·       Support the Development and Partnerships Manager in the preparation of high-quality bids.

·       Maintain and manage effective records and filing systems in support of all fundraising duties.

·       Manage the post-decision administration process for all Trust funding applications.

·       Support the development and maintenance of our impact and monitoring systems working with colleagues including the Head of Impact.

·       Take responsibility for drafting reports for grants, working closely with Development and Partnerships Manager to ensure that these are produced in a timely manner and to a high standard.

·       Work closely with other Unlocked teams to obtain and write up case studies as well as record and monitor results against agreed outcomes.

External relationship building and development

·       Support retention of current corporate partners through effective stewardship including maintaining good relationships with partner staff, responding promptly to external inquiries, and supporting with communications, activities and events including the involvement of our participants.

·       Research and identify new prospective partnership opportunities with corporate and other organisations.

·       Engage with existing and potential partners to provide opportunities for pro bono and other support including work placements for prison officers. This may include corporate organisations, criminal justice organisations, charities and start-ups.

 Innovation & programme support

·       Provide administrative support to Unlocked internal innovation small grants programmes, responding to enquiries from potential applicants and staff.

·       Provide general support to the external relations and other Unlocked teams as required.

Person specification

Knowledge and experience

·       Exceptionally organised with experience of managing multiple projects.

·       Experience of working within a fundraising and / or partnerships role.

·       Strong written skills including report and proposal writing and an ability to communicate with a wide range of people.

·       Good numeracy skills in order to work with the finance team in devising project budgets and funding claims.

·       Computer literate, especially in the use of Microsoft, and an ability to use databases (such as SalesForce) to record donor information and to analyse income. (Desirable)

·       An understanding of or interest in the criminal justice system and/or similar graduate recruitment programmes. (Desirable)

Characteristics and skills

·       Strong belief and enthusiasm for Unlocked Graduates’aims and mission.

·       Exceptional interpersonal skills, with the ability to build strong relationships internally and externally.

·       Methodical, organised and able to work across multiple workstreams simultaneously with attention to detail. 

·       Ability to work on own initiative and prioritise workload in a busy team environment.

·       A team player, who is willing to deliver practically on the ground and be hands-on.

·       Regularly evaluates own performance to build on strengths and identify areas to improve.

Other requirements

·       Right to work in the UK.

·       Willingness to travel within the UK – including overnight stays, evening events and weekend work. (At the moment of course, most activities are taking place remotely)

To make an application

Applications will be blind-assessed and scored to identify shortlist candidates with CVs only used as background for the interview stage.

The communities that we exist to serve are diverse, and to thrive in our work towards our mission, we must be too. We believe that diversity not only makes for a stronger team, but should also be celebrated. We therefore aim to create a workplace that is welcoming for all, inclusive of ethnicity, disability, age, religious belief, marital status, pregnancy, sexuality or gender.

We are also keen to see more applications from people who have been in prison. To remove bias information on any convictions may be requested after conditional offers  have been made.

If you would like to have an informal and confidential discussion about the role or about the process, please contact david.miller@unlockedgrads.org.uk.

Timetable (subject to change)

Closing date:                         9am, Monday 7th June.

First round interviews:        weeks commencing 7 / 14 June.

Second round interviews:   tbc

Please let us know if you will have any limits on your availability during this time. At the moment we plan to run the majority of this process remotely but, depending on Government guidance, may try to meet in person for the final stage.

For more information about Unlocked Graduates please visit our website.