Portfolio Manager

The National Lottery Community Fund

United Kingdom

Hybrid

Expires: Expiring in 6 days

Community

Full time

£35,382 - £43,000 per year

Job summary

At The National Lottery Community Fund (The Fund), we are driven by our strategy ‘It starts with community’ and its four community-led missions, as well as our commitment to tackling poverty, discrimination and disadvantage through an equity-based approach.

This is an exciting opportunity to join the UK Portfolio at an ambitious moment of shaping the next phase of our strategy. We are looking for two experienced managers to join us for two fixed term Portfolio Manager roles (12-month FTC and FTC until 31 March 2027) who will form part of a team of around 40 in total.

The UK Portfolio supports the ambitions and potential of communities across the UK. We focus on scaling projects with a UK-wide benefit, through significant investments and partnerships, which enable systems-level change for communities. Our funding is intended to complement the work of other country portfolios: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Job description

Our Portfolio Managers support the delivery of the UK Portfolio strategy through managing the design and delivery of funding programmes, helping shape and deliver new partnerships and investments, as well as managing our team of Funding Officers. You will be one of 10 Portfolio Managers and report to one of our senior team, working closely with them to deliver the UK Portfolio strategy now and as we move into the next phase.

Our current work includes:

TheUK Fund: offers long term funding to support organisations to scale proven work and approaches against two main themes: connected communities and youth voice. Funded projects consistently focus on systems change, community power and voice.
Climate Action Fund: supports UK-wide ambitious, partnership-led approaches to climate and environmental challenges, bringing together organisations to deliver long-term change at scale.
Working in partnership with others: Examples include Communities for Children, focused on tackling child poverty, Together for Families, supporting early intervention for children and families. We are also developing new areas of work that explore the opportunities and implications of emerging technologies including artificial intelligence.

Role Expectations

We are looking for experienced managers who are confident in managing and developing others, managing performance and adept at managing a varied workload from across our funding lifecycle to new funding investments and partnerships.

You will first and foremost be a people manager, with the skills and experience of navigating operational delivery from budgets, resourcing and risk, for example, to ensuring quality delivery of our work and supporting a culture that enables people to thrive.

You could be working across any of our programmes and developing areas of work but an interest in our current funding programmes and areas of development is essential. If you have a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing communities across the UK, these roles are for you.

All managers will have blended roles that combine people and some operational responsibilities, as well as involvement in developing areas of work. The variety of responsibilities could include:

Line managing and developing Funding Officers, supporting performance, wellbeing and ensuring their continuous development and professional growth
Ensuring operational excellence through resource and operational management: including across our funding programmes and partnerships, including managing budgets, risk and reporting
Overseeing the end-to-end funding programme process: including monitoring programme performance, assuring the quality of funding recommendations and decisions and ensuring a high-quality and consistent experience for customers and stakeholders.
Contributing to the development of new funding approaches, partnerships and investment opportunities.
Working closely with teams and colleagues across The Fund to ensure our work is connected into and adds value.
Championing The Fund's values and behaviours, promoting inclusion, collaboration and continuous improvement.

You will need to work collectively and very closely with the other managers each day as to how responsibilities and workstream leads are agreed and managed.

We're looking for people with practical experience of the funding and grant-making environment, who can bring their sound judgement relating to this to the team. You will also bring strong analytical, project and stakeholder and relationship management skills, alongside the ability to be adaptable and comfortably work at pace.

You’ll be joining a dynamic and welcoming geographically dispersed team, working with hugely important and fascinating projects that are responding to and addressing a wide range of topics across the Fund’s four community-led missions.

Due to our dispersed nature as a team, it is expected that there will be occasional travel in order to connect with colleagues, stakeholders and projects. This is likely to be one to two occasions per month.

Interview details:

Date: Week commencing 21 September
Format: Online
Location: UK Wide

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, Manchester and Newcastle.

We will be hosting a briefing session on Wednesday 19th August at 10:00 am. This is a great opportunity to learn more about the role, gain insight into the team and key responsibilities, and ask any questions you may have. To register or ask any questions please email: recruitment@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk

For an informal discussion about the role, please contact: Fionnuala.walsh@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk. For any recruitment related questions, please email us: recruitment@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk

Person specification

How to apply:

Upload your CV in word format and write a supporting statement (1000 words) with the following criteria, we will use this to score your application.

Essential Criteria

Experience of either grant-making / funding work or managing programmes that fit with those of the UK Portfolio.
Experience in leading and motivating people and teams (including remote teams), role modelling a culture of inclusion.
Strong project management and organisational skills, including budget and risk management.
Strong communication, interpersonal, influencing and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to build trust and effective relationships across a range of audiences.
Strong ability to apply critical analysis and consider strategic implications in your work, thinking about how things impact the whole Portfolio, The Fund or sector.
A commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion and the ability to apply this throughout your work.
Experience of working through ambiguity and leading through change, with the ability to adapt your approach to shifting priorities and help others thrive in an evolving environment.

Desirable Criteria

Experience of supporting grant-making teams through the funding lifecycle, with oversight of the application assessment, due diligence, decision-making, monitoring, relationship management, risk assessment, performance reporting and grant closure.

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.)

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,382, The National Lottery Community Fund contributes £10,250 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

A full list of our benefits can be found on our website using the link:

Generous Civil Service Pension scheme
Flexible working
Enhanced paid maternity/paternity leave
Paid volunteering leave
Season ticket loan

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

Please click the link to apply and upload your supporting statement (1000) and CV when you are submitting your online application to us via our vacancies page. Any application sent to recruitment with your attached documents will not be considered.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

UK nationals
nationals of the Republic of Ireland
nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

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Contact point for applicants

Salary range

£35,382 - £43,000 per year