Head of Funding Development

This opportunity is to be the 'Head of England Portfolio Development Team – babies, children, young people and families'.

England Portfolio Development Team

Our new strategy has reaffirmed our purpose: it starts with community. We'll continue to support amazing community-led projects and make a bigger difference in the years ahead.

Our new strategy will mean changes to what we fund and how we work with communities and organisations in England. In November 2024 we published our new England funding Portfolio, ensuring the £3 billion we will distribute to England's communities by 2030 supports the successful delivery of It Start's With Community. 

As we start to deliver on our new funding portfolio we established a new Portfolio Development Team to sit at the heart of the Fund's England directorate. This team sets the direction for our funding, ensuring our whole funding portfolio is delivering on our four community-led missions; our commitment to take an equity based approach to tackling inequality; and our ambition to be more than a funder. 

England Portfolio Development Team

The permanent England Portfolio Development Team is taking forward the new England portfolio, ensuring we are delivering impact through our current funding portfolio whilst also looking to the future and developing new funding initiatives and ways of working to meet our 2030 vision. 

This small team of eight works across the whole England directorate, the wider Fund, and externally with people, communities and civil society organisations who share our vision. 

The team is responsible for:

• Setting the direction for our funding, including setting out the change we want to support in England's communities through our funding and gathering insights to assess whether we are succeeding or not
• Thinking, exploring and leading on portfolio development and implementation of the new funding portfolio – ensuring we are delivering impact across our current funding portfolio (national, regional, small grants) and developing new funding initiatives and ways of working where necessary
• Leadership and direction for England's stakeholder engagement, partnerships, knowledge learning and impact and external communications
• Leading, influencing, learning, external relationships, horizon scanning, providing intelligence and subject matter expertise

We are looking for ambitious, creative and passionate people to join this team to help us make It Start's With Community real in communities in England. The team will work to Sarah Baker and Hannah Rignell, Deputy Director Policy and Partnerships.

Key activities will include:

• Delivering on the portfolio level theory of change which clearly sets out the change we want to support through our funding in England's communities
• Gathering and analysing insights to understand and effectively articulate the impact we are making through our new portfolio, including commissioning research and analysis, convening partners, stakeholders and communities where necessary; and ensuring that insight informs funding practice  
• Engaging extensively internally, harnessing the expertise and insights of the wider England directorate and working across the Fund to ensure we link appropriately to 'One Fund' approaches
• Delivering our new approach to external engagement, partnerships, policy development, positioning and influencing in England in line with our community-led missions, more than a funder priorities and new ways of working
• Launching and delivering new funding initiatives in line with our new community-led missions and our equity based approach to tackling inequality.

Further detail on the specific roles available can be found below.

Contract: Permanent. The role is available on a full time, part time or job share basis.

Location: We have a hybrid approach to working, work pattern and location will be in one of our offices in England (Birmingham, Exeter, Leeds, London, and Newcastle). 

Interviews: 22nd, 23rd (pm) and 29th April

How to apply

Apply via our portal with your CV and a supporting statement (800 words) by midnight 10th April

In your supporting statement please include evidence of your experience against the essential and desirable criteria detailed below

Overall aim of the role

• To lead the babies, children, young people and families mission within our England portfolio development team, delivering our new portfolio in communities in England in line with 'it starts with community'
• To provide leadership of mission, equity and 'more than a funder' subject matter expertise and partnerships at national level – in particular babies, children, young people and families. 
• To articulate our story and impact as we deliver the new portfolio, ensuring this informs the delivery of our funding internally and amplifies our impact externally 

The successful candidate will be confident at providing clarity and direction in ambiguity and be a fluent communicator in both verbal and written communications. You'll be an exceptional problem solver and have excellent decision-making skills and personal resilience. A key part of the role will be to develop England's funding portfolio across our babies, children, young people and families mission, equity and more than a funder priorities and to work closely with colleagues who have specific expertise from within and outside of the Fund.

Essential Criteria:

• Proven problem solving and decision-making skills, as well as a 'can do' attitude
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills, able to tailor messages to audiences and can demonstrate a good understanding of external  positioning
• Experience of strategy development and implementation, including options appraisal and working through the decision making and approvals process
• Strong interpersonal skills, and resilience, with an ability to build relationships and work with a range of people inside and outside of the Fund
• Strong analytical skills, able to review a range of complex evidence and information and shape robust conclusions
• Experience of building high performing teams and leading change, as a leader and/or as a team player - creating the culture and structures in which people can thrive at work
• Good organisational skills, able to manage complex workload with competing priorities
• Expertise in helping children, young people and families to thrive 

Desirable criteria:

• A passion for, experience in and an understanding of the VSCE sector and the communities we serve.
• Policy expertise in one or more of our 'more than a funder' priorities: partnerships; participation, convening, influencing, supporting grant holders, learning.

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.)