Partnerships Manager

Organisation summary

You Make It is an award-winning race and inclusion organisation that's dedicated to empowering young women by providing them with the skills, experiences, and support necessary to thrive in their careers. Working with established partners like Nike Jordan, this role offers the opportunity to make a tangible difference in the lives of young women, fostering their growth and long-term employment prospects. Be part of an exciting and meaningful journey towards social change and equality.

Role overview

Working closely in a small and dedicated team, this is a critical position that will use proven and exceptional partnership building skills to ensure young women on our empowerment programmes are each able to access 1-1 mentoring, and short expenses/ paid work placements to help them get that much closer to securing longer term employment.

You are encouraged to use your enterprising/ creative mindset to establish new ways of working with/ engaging employers in our mission to support young women.

You are NOT going to be starting from scratch – YMI has been going for a while and has already established amazing partnerships with a great crop of employers including Nike Jordan!

Reporting to: Head of Operations and People

Location: 5 days a week: 3 days a week in our shared office space at SHED and 2 working days remote. 

Hours: Normal working hours are 9.30am-5.30pm but we can be flexible.

Holiday: 25 days per annum (rising to 28 days after 3 years) plus public holidays

Contract: 2-year contract subject to passing a 6-month probation (depending on funding, this could be made a permanent post)

Role Summary

• Build and maintain partnerships to recruit mentors for empowerment programmes.
• Coordinate the mentorship process, matching mentors with mentees.
• Research and secure work placement opportunities for programme participants.
• Develop new income streams and brand partnerships to sustain the organisation's work.
• Keep detailed records of partnership agreements and monitor progress.

Key tasks and responsibilities

• The maintenance and establishment of new partnerships through meetings with businesses from which to recruit mentors for each of our women. 
• Recruit 25 mentors per programme, schedule their participation onto our fantastic mentor training programme and make mentee-mentor matches.
• Conduct research and recruit employers to secure work experience placements for women on our programmes. 
• Collaborate closely with our Programmes and Pastoral Care Manager to consult with women on sectors of interest (commonly these have been creative/ cultural but not exclusively so).
• Implement new ideas that generate new income streams that improve the sustainability of our work for young women and raise awareness of our profile.
• Maintain records of partnership agreements and ensure that progress against deliverables is provided to employers/ investors into our work.
• Represent YMI at events and functions when needed.

Person specification

You will be a self-starter, committed to and passionate about race and gender inclusion work. A natural people person with a creative and enterprising flair, you will be able to translate our social mission work to partners from these sectors so that they want to and do engage with us. 

Essential:

• Proven experience of being the lead person to establish successful new long-term charity-business partnerships
• Seasoned project manager experience eg taking ideas from concept to delivery, evaluating and demonstrating impact
• Fundraising experience across a variety of income streams
• Demonstrable experience of creating and delivering pitches to multiple partners
• Exceptional people and relationship-management skills with those from a range of sectors 
• Excellent written and verbal communication 
• Highly organised, able to work confidently within a small dedicated team and with own initiative
• Awareness and understanding of corporate social responsibility 
• Strong skills in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other packages to create compelling presentations/ decks if required

Desirable:

• Management of corporate activities and events.
• Experience of working in a small medium enterprise, small charity or start-up environment with an agile mindset
• Experience of working in or knowledge and understanding of matters relating to equity, diversity and inclusion 

Please note we will conduct an enhanced DBS check on the successful candidate.

*We are especially keen to hear from applicants that reflect the diversity of the working class, Black and Asian women that You Make It supports.