Principal Consultant

Role: Principal Consultant

Organisation: The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP)

Reports to: Head of Funding

Salary: £40,000 - £45,000

Location: Remote working - including homeworking, TGL office in Southwark, Main office in London, and travel to client sites

Working hours: 1 FTE (40 hours/week) – There will be some weekend and evening events as part of the programme

Holidays: 25 days annual leave plus 8 bank holidays

About TSIP

The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP) is a social impact consultancy focused on social good.

1. We help organisations to better understand issues, places and their own social impact
2. We design and pilot new programmes to improve people’s quality of life and make society fairer

We work in collaboration with people from local communities to solve local problems through three core service streams: Evaluation, Research and Learning; Service Design; and Funding.

Funding mission – By sharing power and decision-making with people with lived experience of social issues, we drive new attitudes and approaches to philanthropy and social change.

We are looking for a Principal Consultant to join our funding service stream. You will act as Programme Coordinator to project manage our community-led fund pilot, The Giving Lab (3-4 days/week) and help to develop and lead other projects for TSIP that champion better ways of funding socially focused work (1-2 day/week)

About the community-led fund pilot

Over the last two years, we have been co-designing and testing community-led funding approaches that uphold the principles of community-first, values-led and human-centred design. The Giving Lab works with and for working age adults who are at risk of developing multiple long-term conditions (MLTCs) in Walworth, South London. Our work takes as a starting point that long-term conditions, and the progression from one to many, is strongly linked to a community’s social context. Health is dependent on a variety of social determinants.

We have been funded by Impact on Urban Health (part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity) and Wellcome over four years to pilot a community-led fund, initially in Walworth and expanding to other South London neighbourhoods where residents are at higher risk of developing MLTCs. As part of the pilot, we will be funding systems change ideas around housing, employment and finance to improve the health of the local community and slow the progression from one to many long-term conditions.

Through the running of the Fund(s), we want to:

• Enable community members to meaningfully and authentically engage with health research, better understand local health systems, define priorities, develop, fund and realise responses
• Build the case for more community ownership for funding; demonstrate how community-led and participatory funding can work
• Build the case for more community leadership in research; demonstrate how community-led public health research and knowledge translation can work
• Invest locally and create high quality roles for local people to lead and deliver the fund
• Generate income and fundraise to enable sustained delivery in local communities beyond the 4-year pilot
• Ensure that community members are able to maintain momentum beyond our input – enable local leadership, long-term sustainability and self-reliance
• Replicate the approach beyond the pilot areas

Through the specific programmes and ventures that are funded, we want to:

• Generate meaningful and sustainable change to housing, employment and/or finance with potential to improve local people’s health in the long-term
• Create new, equitable systems at a local level
• Generate new evidence for what works when using social determinants to impact community health

As the Programme Coordinator for this project you will work alongside communities in an equal partnership, using participatory and community-led approaches to ensure the fund is accessible and inclusive. You will take ultimate responsibility for project managing the programme with a high degree of operational autonomy, to ensure robust oversight and delivery across all aspect of the programme. You will manage the project to budget, KPIs and funders expectations, working in partnership with The Giving Lab team.

About The Giving Lab team

You will collaborate with and be supported by colleagues with responsibility for community engagement and comms, learning, research and evaluation and funding and sustainability. You will also work closely with an existing network of highly talented Walworth residents.

Championing better ways of funding

We believe that how socially-focused work is funded is awarded is incredibly important. There is potential to enable much greater impact if we can find ways of funding that are more accessible, inclusive and equitable. Piloting and demonstrating the potential for community-led funds is one way in which we want to champion better ways of funding – but there is a lot more we could do.

In addition to your work on the community-led fund programme, you will share learning from The Giving Lab through a range of communications channels to support match funding, as well as the development of creative and innovative ideas to deliver funding more equitably. As a member of the funding service stream, you will work with the team to secure opportunities to champion better funding, pilot new approaches and advise funders on their approach. You will be responsible for developing and maintaining client and funder relationships on behalf of TSIP.

You will represent TSIP externally and help to raise our profile through blogs and events.

Our ideal candidate

The ideal candidate will bring a passionate interest in social issues and an understanding of how funding can be done better using participatory approaches. You will be passionate about enabling community leadership and lived experience leadership and will demonstrate a track record of supporting others’ personal development and progression. You will have excellent project management skills. Experience of working for a funder / administering a fund is desirable but not essential, as is familiarity with the South London neighbourhoods we plan to work in.

Requirements

Responsibilities

Project management (70%):

• Manage and oversee resources and activities to meet contractual requirements and project brief, monitoring and tracking progress against KPIs.
• Inducting new joiners into TGL, including authentically sharing the mission, vision and values of the fund.
• Organising and motivating the TSIP internal project team (Head of Funding, Engagement and Development Lead and Programme Officer)
• Managing and coordinating delivery partners – this includes our Facilitation Lead, Learning Partner, Community Facilitators and Community Learners.
• Setting team deadlines and coordinating activities to time, offering hands on support across the team where needed.
• Managing suppliers including grant administrator and fiscal host
• Managing contracts, invoices and payments
• Tracking daily spend against the budget, cost estimating and developing the budget, with oversight from the Head of Funding.
• Working to and keeping updated the TGL handbook
• Managing and refining fund delivery processes, ensuring they uphold the values of TGL and are streamlined and efficient
• Preparing interactive and accessible updates and reports for the funder
• Maintaining effective communication with all project stakeholders
• Identifying and managing project risks
• Provide verbal and written updates on your work for team members and clients and facilitating weekly team meetings
• Work with the TSIP team to develop the sustainable legacy of The Giving Lab.
• Develop communications assets including creating content (e.g. blogs and videos) to showcase TGL and TSIPs work and support understanding externally.
• Keep records and timesheets about your work and project progress

Business development (20%):

• Help to draft sales proposals
• Develop and build client relationships
• Work with others to identify and assess sales opportunities and decide which ones to pursue

Internals (10%):

• Contribute to team meetings and business development
• Support other team members as needed
• Help to plan and organise team events

Key skills and competencies:

Essential

• Highly organised with excellent project management skills
• Prior experience of managing and delivering community focused/community-led projects
• Understanding of and deep interest in social issues
• Great team player with a natural ability to build relationships with diverse individuals
• Passion for sharing skills and helping others to learn and develop
• Ability to multi-task, balancing competing priorities in a fast-paced environment
• Expertise in one or more of the following service areas – alternative funding models, impact evaluation, programme management, facilitating workshops
• Great attention to detail
• Understanding of business development with experience in writing proposals and building client relationships
• Budget management and development
• Excellent report writing and presentation skills – able to create engaging presentations
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Able to work independently with minimal supervision
• Interested in learning new skills
• Willing to get stuck in and help where needed
• Technically competent

Desirable

• Understanding of the philanthropic and/or social investment sector
• Prior consulting experience
• Lived experience or first-hand/front-line knowledge of social issues
• Health research/health sector experience

About TSIP

TSIP supports organisations who are trying to do good to do better. We are a diverse team of technical and community specialists who are joining forces to drive inclusive social change.

We lead with empathy and curiosity in order to really get to know our partners and build trusting relationships. Our approach is collaborative, participatory and enabling. We work across sectors and on the ground with groups that share our values.

Over the last ten years, we have worked with some of the most ambitious charities, social investors and CSR programmes in the UK and launched programmes that have been scaled and replicated internationally. We have an amazing team and we are proud of the work we are doing and what we have achieved.

Some examples of our current projects include:

• Co-designing a hub with and for people in Hackney, where community members will be able to come together to respond to local issues and get sponsorship to put their ideas into practice
• Evaluating the impact of a large-scale regeneration programme on those living in the area and ensuring their views and priorities are used to shape how the area evolves
• Identifying ways in which a large UK charity can make their services more accessible and serve a more diverse range of young people

We are looking to build our funding service stream drawing on the learning from our community-led pilot The Giving Lab, whilst expanding our service design and co-production work, and maintaining our strong track record in research, evaluation and learning. We will also be looking inwards and finding ways to drive more positive impact in all aspects of our work as we move towards 100% employee ownership.

Cultural fit:

We are a small, flat and open organisation, in which everyone contributes ideas and opinions, feedback happens in all directions and everyone pitches in to help each other out. We do serious work without taking ourselves too seriously. Our team are passionate about social issues and live our values:

• Diversity: we value and respect difference, look at issues from a range of angles and create opportunities for people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to contribute to our work
• Empathy: we show care and concern for others, treat each other well and prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable
• Curiosity: we ask difficult questions, face challenges with optimism and seek out new and better ways of working
• Collaboration: we build meaningful relationships with other organisations and communities, share what we know and support each other
• Impact: we choose projects that improve people’s quality of life and make society fairer, using social impact as a key success measure for all our work

The ideal candidate will be someone who shares these values.

Benefits

• We have been recognised as Escape the City’s ‘Top 100 organisations to escape to in 2022’ - our 2nd year running! Here are just a few of the things we think make TSIP such a great place to work?
• We know flexible working is important – our staff have flexibility around working hours that suit their lives better.
• We believe in people first – all staff have access to a Wellbeing Fund, Vitality Health Programme, paid sick leave for physical and mental health, and caring leave
• We love to learn and hang out together – we offer CPD days, team days and socials.
• We’re serious about making a difference – we are a certified B Corporation, 100% of our revenue is from social impact work, 100% of our clients are purpose driven, and more than a third of shares are held for employees.

Find out more and hear what our staff say about us here.

Deadline: 12th July 2022 at 12pm.