Programme Manager job in London

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About us

The Social Change Agency helps build people powered movements that change the world. We are experts in creating social impact using communication, community organising, peer networks, social innovation, and systemic and organisational change approaches. We combine tried and tested approaches with cutting edge tools and perspectives. And we offer strategic consulting, programme design and delivery, training, workshops and more.

Our clients include DFID, Blagrave Trust, The Mayor of London and Parents for the Future UK among many many others. We also support the delivery of one of the Government’s grant giving programmes, providing match funding to UK charities for international development. In addition to our client work, we also support and incubate social movements. Our training and events attract some of the brightest and best social changemakers. Over the past few years we have launched the Young Trustee Movement and the Losing Control Network, and have supported movements as diverse at Women’s March Global, to Psychologists for Social Change. We recently launched our transparent money management service called Accountable for community-led groups and are now providing financial management for over 100 groups that are supporting their communities in response to Covid-19.

Job overview

The programme manager will manage a suite of support services to community-led networks and movements through the Accountable programme. These services provide essential back-office functions such as financial management, governance and capacity-building support to enable communities to deliver their impact. We accelerated the growth of this support in the wake of the community-led responses to Covid-19 and are now in the place to scale and build out this support. We are looking for a talented programme manager to ensure that these services are meeting the needs of community-led groups, delivered efficiently and ready to scale.

The role would suit someone with a passion for community leadership, systems and team management alongside an eye for innovation to work to support us in continuing our journey. The initial contract is for six months, but we hope to secure the place for the long term. You will be reporting to and working closely with the Principal Director and must be ready for the messy, passionate interconnected world that is social change.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

The programme manager will be responsible for coordinating and developing the programme of support for community-led groups including:

• Oversee and develop the network of community-led groups and movements in our Accountable service
• Manage and develop a small team of community organisers who will be providing support for community-led groups across the UK
• Develop a suite of resources and support for community-led groups in the Accountable service
• Work with the communications team to develop an outreach programme to expand the number of community-led groups that are part of the Accountable programme
• Supporting the finance team to resolve queries or issues from community-led groups that come through Accountable
• Effective project management of the Accountable service, ensuring outputs are achieved in time.
• Supporting the reporting on deliverables to funders
• Bringing any other skills to the job that will help us increase our reach and impact.

About You

You will be able to balance community needs with business sense and be able to keep the big picture in mind when developing projects. You will be keen to make an impact in a small team and be hungry for new ways of working to increase our impact. We are looking for someone who is happy working on their own initiative with energy and enthusiasm. You must be comfortable with working with groups of people from varied backgrounds along with your work colleagues and be committed to putting power and decision making back into the hands of communities.

Person specification:

• Demonstrable experience of managing several projects, tracking and reporting on project deliverables
• Experience of working with and organising community groups
• Experience of managing and developing teams
• Demonstrable experience of building programmes and utilising the strengths of your teams to optimise the impact of those programmes
• An understanding or experience of community organising or network management principles or practice
• Comfortable with prioritisation, particularly urgent last minute tasks

Terms: Full Time, 6-month contract with the view to extend – we expect there will be occasional evening and weekend work to accommodate the schedules of voluntary groups ways of working, we have a clear time off in lieu policy in place in these instances.

Salary: £35,000 p/a

Location: Until the office opens, you will be home based – and when we reopen, you will be based in our office in Kings Cross, London.

Holiday: 13 days plus bank holidays for the 6-month contract.

Equal Opportunity Employer: Please visit our main vacancies page for our equal opportunities statement.

Candidates must have the right to work in the UK independently, as we unfortunately are unable to provide visa sponsorship.

If you would like to discuss the role please email esther@thesocialchangeagency.org to arrange a time.