Head Of Fundraising

Job Description

Job Title: Head of School Programmes

Reports to: Director of Programmes

Location: Quantum House, 22 – 24 Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, London, EC4A 3AB The role is open to hybrid working but the candidate would be expected to be in the office one day per week

Purpose: This is a fantastic opportunity to lead a team supporting and engaging thousands of state schools nationally to effectively use the Inspiring the Future and Primary Futures programmes to improve outcomes for children and young people. These programmes leverage technology to raise the aspirations and broaden the horizons of children and young people by connecting them to a huge range of volunteers from the world of work via career related learning activities. Alongside staff management and delivering a strategy for general programme engagement, the role manages the delivery of several funded projects.

Remuneration: £36 - £40k per annum FTE depending on experience

Additional Terms: 30 days paid holiday, exclusive of Statutory Holiday plus competitive pension scheme and a volunteering allowance of up to 5 days – pro rata in accordance with the length of contract. Additional family friendly benefits including enhancements to Statutory Payments.

Appointment Terms: Permanent and full time. We are open to part time working of a minimum of 4 days per week (0.8 FTE).

Job purpose

Working closely with the senior management team and deputising for the Director of Programmes where necessary, the successful candidate will have responsibility for developing and delivering a strategy to support the increase in successful school engagement with the charity’s main programmes Inspiring the Future and Primary Futures. This will include managing and leading a team to deliver effective school support, building strong relationships with key stakeholders including local authorities, unions and school networks and ensuring appropriate marketing, resources and guidance to support effective school usage. The role will be responsible for managing several key funded projects and contracts for the charity.

The schools team are responsible for both delivery of key funded projects and contracts as well as driving up awareness and effective engagement with Inspiring the Future and Primary Futures from schools. We now have over 11,000 teachers from state schools and colleges registered on Inspiring the Future and want to see a significant increase in those successfully using the platform and its related services over the next five years. In particular, we are looking to engage significantly more primary schools as well as continue our strong links with secondary and college staff.

The successful applicant will be expected to quickly pick up delivery of key projects and review, and where appropriate improve, existing strategic plans to engage and support state schools through our programmes and therefore a good understand of career related learning activities is essential. They will be supported by the Director of Programmes and senior management team and an excellent schools team of passionate staff.

The ideal candidate will be able to lead and manage a small and dynamic team and will be able to absorb key information quickly, working across a number of varied projects and programmes.

Key Accountabilities

Schools Engagement

• Working with the Director of Programmes to review, improve and implement strategic plans to increase the charity’s engagement with primary schools and secondary/colleges for Inspiring the Future and Primary Futures programmes
• Reviewing and updating KPIs around the number of schools registered, engaged and school satisfaction levels and monitoring these, adapting approaches as appropriate and utilising our salesforce CRM as a basis for reporting
• Utilising feedback mechanisms to monitor impact of programmes and projects, for children, young people, teachers and parents / carers as appropriate, working closely with colleagues across the team
• Developing and maintaining key relationships with careers providers, the Careers and Enterprise Company, local partners, teaching networks and unions and across various types of schools
• Presenting at virtual and face to face conferences and network events to school/college audiences about our programmes with a view to improving engagement and awareness,
• Leading the review and enhancement of resources and marketing materials for school engagement and ensuring these (including on our websites) are up to date
• Ensuring we have a strong teacher ambassador network that help drive the quality of our programmes and who act as advocates for the charity
• Working with the Communications Officer to support engaging content and newsletters for schools audience
• Input into the development of the team’s budget and forecasting.
• Keeping up to date with current education sector issues, research and trends particularly related to careers support and employer engagement.

Project Management and Delivery

•  Funded projects – leading the overall management and delivery of several projects which seek to engage schools to use Inspiring the Future and Primary Futures including funder relationship, project design, reporting, managing operational delivery and evaluation
• Supporting the charity to develop funding bids and identifying opportunities for future funding

Team Leadership / Line Management

• Line management of the Schools Engagement Team – currently 5 staff members
• Fostering a strong team environment including regular team meetings
• Supporting the recruitment of new staff including the development of any job descriptions
• Ensuring appropriate training is delivered for staff necessary for their roles

Other

• Attending and delivering virtual or face to face activities with schools and colleges
• Other ad hoc administrative tasks to support the team as needed

Person specification

Skills/ Knowledge/ Expertise

Essential

• A strong understanding of career-related learning at primary and secondary level
• Proven track record in delivery of programmes in primary and secondary schools
• Experience in successful project and programme management, including managing funder relationships and reporting.
• Experience in managing and leading a team, including line management, recruitment and performance reviews
• Knowledge and first-hand experience of effective use of client relationship management databases; preferably Salesforce
• Ability to engage confidently, articulately and sensitively with stakeholders and partners at a range of levels of seniority up to and including board level
• Polished presentation skills, adapting to different audiences and opportunities and including the ability to speak to research finding and create effective presentations.
• A passion for supporting young people in realising their potential
• Excellent, planning, prioritisation, time management, and organisational skills in order to effectively manage multi-faceted projects to agreed timescales, deadlines and budgets
• Understanding of safeguarding, risk management and data protection
• Excellent knowledge and practical application of Microsoft office tools
• Excellent written communication skills. Fluency in written and spoken English

Desirable

• Experience of delivering funded projects in the education sector
• Experience of working with both primary and secondary schools
• Specialist knowledge of the education and employment sectors and the policy environment and delivery models which underpin relationships
• Experience of working in a small team
• Understanding of risk management and data protection
• Experience of running education campaigns

Personal Attributes

• Uphold our charity’s values - Inspiring, Inclusive, Innovative, Impactful, Integrity
• Flexible – responsive to changing operational context and new opportunities
• Team Player: working collaboratively and flexibly to achieve outcomes and is keen to add value to the organisation’s culture and ethos
• Able to undertake some occasional work in the evenings and at weekends
• Able to travel in the UK if required

Application process

The Education and Employers charity values having a diverse workforce.  We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. We offer a range of inclusive employment and family friendly policies as well as flexible working arrangements in order to support staff from different backgrounds.

The closing date for applications is 5pm Monday 22nd April.

Interviews will take place online  in the week commencing 29th April

Please note we will only consider applications with both a CV and covering letter and applications will only be accepted from those with the right to work in the UK with a valid passport/visa. 

The Charity is fully committed to safeguarding those in our care. We plan our recruitment processes to ensure effective timelines for any required vetting processes such as enhanced DBS, qualification, reference and identity checks. The Charity also ensures that each staff member is appropriately trained for their duties with a comprehensive induction process on commencement. 

About the Education and Employers charity

Education and Employers is an independent UK based charity launched in 2009 with the vision of “providing children and young people with the inspiration, motivation, knowledge, skills and opportunities they need to help them achieve their potential”. It aims to achieve this by working with schools, employers, the national bodies that represent them and a wide range of other partners including the government and third sector organisations. The charity also works with partners internationally.

The charity runs Inspiring the Future, a free service which uses innovative match-making technology to connect volunteers with state schools and colleges, quickly, simply and at scale. Schools can very easily search a massive database of willing volunteers, filter against a wide range of criteria – e.g. subject, sector, career route and send them a message. It enables young people, wherever they live, whichever school they attend, the opportunity to meet people from a wide range of backgrounds doing jobs from across the whole world of work.

Nearly 85,000 people have already volunteered in the UK - people from all levels: apprentices to CEOs and all sectors: apps designers to zoologists and over 85% of English secondary schools have registered. People can volunteer from an hour a year in a local primary or secondary school to chat informally about their job and career route, take part in career speed networking session, give careers insights, provide mock interviews or feedback on CVs through to serving as a governor or trustee.  There is also the opportunity to link up with schools for workplace visits, job shadowing and mentoring.

Inspiring the Future operates on a technology platform kindly developed in partnership with Deloitte, Salesforce and Ordnance Survey. It allows the charity to run national campaigns others focused on specific geographic areas or economic sectors such as engineering, science, health and arts and culture. The campaigns have secured high profile support across government, business and teacher associations and ongoing corporate partnerships including our lead corporate partner Bank of America.

In partnership with the National Association of Head Teachers the charity has developed a version for primary schools called Primary Futures and over 6,500 primaries have already signed up. Te.  All campaigns run through Inspiring the Future share a common objective: to broaden young people’s horizons, raise their aspirations and show them the range of opportunities and careers routes e.g. apprenticeships and university open to them. Over 3.5 million interactions between young people and volunteers from the world of work have already taken place.

The charity runs Inspiring Governance the free governor recruitment and support service. This Department for Education funded service aims to get highly skilled volunteers to serve as governors in some of the most disadvantaged schools in England and in so doing help raise educational achievement.

Since the Charity’s launch it has sought to understand what difference employer engagement in education makes to young people and the economy. It works with academics and researchers from around the world and its own research is regularly cited by government and international organisations like the OECD. The research, which has informed and influenced a range of government policies, shows that employer engagement helps improve social mobility, reduces the likelihood of young people becoming NEET (not in education, employment of training), increases the amount they earn in adult life, helps them make better informed career choices and leads to improvements in educational attainment.