Programme Officer - Diversity & Inclusion

Are you passionate, creative and curious about creating change in communities across the UK? We’re looking for two people to join our UK Portfolio Team as Portfolio Officers. These roles are 18-month fixed term contracts. 

The UK Portfolio delivers funding programmes and supports projects that aim to inform, influence or scale work across the UK providing benefit to communities. With a UK-wide reach, we are uniquely positioned to complement the work of the Fund’s other four country portfolios: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. These roles are 18-month fixed term contracts. 

We’re a relatively small team with wide ranging experience and interests, which reflects in the work we deliver. Annually we distribute approximately £80m across different programmes supporting projects from Fife to Omagh, Teesside to Bridgend.

This is an exciting time to join the Fund as we embark on the delivery and implementation of our new strategy – ‘It starts with community’.

Portfolio Officers are at the core of what we do, they work closely with grant seekers to support them through our funding, assess their applications and provide recommendations to our decision makers. They also work closely with grant holders ensuring public money is spent appropriately within communities across the UK and share learning and insights from the work we fund.

You’ll report to one of our Portfolio Managers and work with other Portfolio Officers across different areas of the team. Some of our recent and exciting programmes and activity include:

·       The Climate Action Fund, a £100m programme supporting communities across the UK to take action on climate change.

·       The UK Fund, our first response to  our new strategy, 'It starts with community,' supporting communities to come together and help make a better-connected society.

You will work across the full life cycle of our grant making assessing applications on current, open programmes and managing and closing down grants as they are completed. As we continue to shape our work in response to the new strategy, there may also be opportunities to help the design of new programmes. [LW1] You will also support the effective running of team meetings and be responsible for ensuring our data is accurate and of high quality.

You’ll be joining a dynamic and welcoming team, working with important and fascinating projects that are responding to and addressing a wide range of topics from employment to climate, racial justice to community cohesion.

These roles would suit people who:

·       can work flexibly at pace and to tight deadlines

·       are adept at building and maintaining relationships with those from a range of backgrounds and job roles

·       are comfortable working across a number of funding programmes and workstreams

·       can use their initiative and manage their time working comfortably with competing priorities and deadlines and a can-do attitude

·       are comfortable working with an online and geographically dispersed team

·       are comfortable learning and working with different systems and data

·       can apply critical thinking and learn quickly about complex and nuanced issues, think about and create connections and synthesize this information to present it to others in a clear and concise manner.

Importantly we need people who are curious about the society we live in and passionate about making a difference through our funding and the vital role of charities and voluntary organisations in helping communities to thrive.

You will need to travel from time to time for this role, supporting colleagues and communities across the UK. We do not expect this to be any more than one to two occasions per month.

Contract type: 2 x fixed term contracts (18 months)

Hours: We are looking to fill these roles as a full-time post (37 hours per week). However, we’re open to what that looks like and keen to consider flexible working approaches. Please tell us what your desired work pattern is in your application

Interview Date: Week commencing 29 January 2024, taking place online.

Location: UK wide

Salary: £27,000 - £29,000 (We expect to recruit to the lower end of the pay range, but the salary offered will be based on skills and experience)

We have a hybrid approach to working. Work pattern and location will be agreed with the successful candidate. The role can be based at any of our UK offices, these are Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Newcastle, Newtown and Manchester

We are looking for talented people from a wide range of backgrounds, cultures and experiences who share our values and are passionate about making a difference through our funding. Whether through lived, learnt or gained experience you will really understand the communities we work with. In your application, you need to demonstrate how you address the following criteria:

Essential criteria

·       Managing relationships: Ability to build and nurture effective and collaborative relationships between colleagues, community organisations and other external stakeholders, with a strong commitment to equity and inclusion.

·       Communication skills: Strong listening, written and verbal communication skills. Capable of producing high quality written reports and presentations to set deadlines, with the ability to communicate complex ideas in an engaging and accessible manner.

·       Analytical skills: Ability to assess applications and consider a diverse range of information to make objective, judgement-based decisions with confidence, offering challenge when appropriate and managing risk appropriately throughout the grant making lifecycle.

·       Organisational skills: Ability to use your initiative and manage a caseload of assessments and grant management across multiple programmes, dealing with competing priorities and deadlines and demonstrating strong organisation and prioritisation skills.

Desirable criteria

·       Alignment with our work: A good knowledge and understanding of UK communities and the voluntary sector. Ability to spot trends and identify opportunities for work that aligns with the ambitions and programmes of the UK Portfolio.

·       IT Skills: Strong IT skills and the ability to learn detailed processes.

·       Continuous improvement: Ability to identify opportunities for learning and improvement across the team by taking a proactive approach to problem-solving and continuous improvement.

·       Data and finance: The ability to understand and assess data and financial information, including within our Salesforce Grant Management System, and present this in a way that is accessible to others.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion 

Communities in the UK come in all shapes and sizes. National Lottery funding is for everyone – therefore, we are committed to equity, diversity and inclusion and we work hard to ensure our funding reaches where it is needed. 

We also believe our people should represent the communities, organisations and individuals we work with. That’s why the National Lottery Community Fund is committed to being an inclusive employer and a great place to work. We recognise and celebrate the fact that our people come from diverse backgrounds. We positively welcome applications from people from ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities or longstanding health conditions, people who are LGBTQ+, and people from different socio-economic and educational backgrounds, as well as people of all ages.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we take a proactive approach in making reasonable adjustments, if needed, throughout the recruitment process and during employment. (This can be related to a physical and mental health condition.)