Description

Location: Hybrid - remote and office based - you will be required to attend the Generation office in Dublin once per fortnight minimum, and the role will require periodic travel within Ireland for events and meeting partners. People in the UK & Ireland team are also expected to travel for team and all-hands gatherings once or twice per year (travel/accommodation covered).

Salary: London – €39-47k (subject to experience)

Contract: Full-Time (40 hours a week) or part time considered. Flexible working hours available.

Deadline for applications: 16th May

Interviews: Week commencing 19th and 26th May

ABOUT GENERATION

Generation is a charity in Ireland with the mission to support people facing significant and multiple barriers to employment into life-changing careers they otherwise could not access.

We achieve this with a unique methodology of profession-specific skills bootcamp training, focussed on in-demand careers (specifically in the tech, healthcare and green sectors), with extensive, ongoing pastoral support and matchmaking to employer partners. 

The charity is part of a network of Generation charities launched globally in 2015, and has grown quickly to become the world’s largest demand-led employment initiative. We have placed >100,000 people into roles, working with over 4,000 employer partners to date across 16 countries and 26 professions.

Since launching in Ireland in 2020, we have trained more than 600 people. Our work focuses on supporting those from diverse groups facing barriers to desirable employment. For these learners, we have achieved an industry leading c. 70% job placement rate with learners now placed at >200 employers.

On this journey, we have implemented an education-employment initiative completely new to the Irish skilling ecosystem with sector-leading results. 

We have secured transformative corporate philanthropic funding from Microsoft, Verizon, JPMorganChase Charitable Foundation, Indeed, LinkedIn, Bank of America, Accenture, and more.  We have also built strong public sector partnerships, working with ETBS, Skillnets and SOLAS..

Day to day Generation Ireland works closely with its sister charity in the UK as a team of c.80 people.  By joining, you will become part of an organisation committed to social impact, changing the education and skills landscape, and changing people’s lives.. The work is fast-paced, exciting, and innovative. 

You can find out more about our work and impact in Ireland in our social impact report: https://ireland.generation.org/news/our-first-social-impact-report/

And you can hear more about our impact from our learners and beneficiaries themselves https://www.youtube.com/@GenerationUK-I/videos

And you can also learn more about our culture, directly from our incredible people on our website:

https://uk.generation.org/work-with-us/

Generation acknowledges the duty of care to safeguard, protect, and promote the welfare of staff and learners and is committed to ensuring safeguarding practice reflects statutory responsibilities, and government guidance and complies with best practice.  We conduct employment and right to work checks in this regard for all staff.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As Generation Ireland’s first dedicated Funding and Grants Manager you’ll secure, manage and develop relationships with our funders and partners.  Your remit will include every aspect of the grant, funding and partnership lifecycle from developing new opportunities to reporting on live delivery and evaluating completed work.

Working within a passionate and effective team across Ireland and the UK, you’ll manage a portfolio of our funders to ensure key milestones and requirements are captured for each funder; reporting is timely and accurate; and partners are meaningfully engaged in and delighted by our work through volunteering, class visits and life-changing stories.  This will be particularly important for new public sector funders as Generation Ireland takes on new and larger contracts in this sector.

You’ll play a key role in securing new partnerships and grants proposing plans for and negotiating renewals with existing partners, scoping and converting new private sector corporate and trust/foundation opportunities, and leading proposals to Irish public sector bodies (ETBs, Skillnets, Solas…). 

You’ll work closely with our Head of Grant Management and Funding, as part of the UK and Ireland wide Growth, Data and Operations team. This is an exciting team focussing on innovation and growth, including fundraising, new programmes, new partnerships, data processes and research. 

However, you’ll also work closely with Generation colleagues focussed on delivery in Ireland, including the Ireland Director - who also plays a significant role on funding in Ireland - to ensure proposals and reporting reflect and capture local priorities.

The role has the following key responsibilities:

Manage and develop our existing grants and funding partnerships across the public and private sectors (c.60% of time)

• Play point on relationships with a portfolio of c.10-15 funders across public and private sector 
• Convert contracts/grants into operational and reporting plans and guide delivery teams 
• Provide detailed, data-based, reporting to partners in the formats they prefer
• Lead claiming, evidencing, compliance and audit processes for public sector projects
• Develop strong relationships through excellent comms in meetings and in reports/emails 
• Deliver delight/engagement initiatives to maximise chance of funding renewal (e.g. support and organise c.3-4 yearly volunteering events for partner staff, comms opportunities)

Identify and manage a pipeline of new opportunities and develop proposals to secure new and repeat funding to drive Generation’s growth from a c.1m euro charity (c.30%)

• Create compelling proposals to extend and repeat partnerships of existing funding contracts
• Research and network to identify new funding and partnership opportunities for Generation
• Create and manage a pipeline of opportunities with the potential to drive growth to hit our targets
• Submit expressions of interests, secure introductions or reach out cold to begin building relationships
• Write proposals end-to-end drawing on expertise and support from colleagues where you need it

Contribute to the wider success and growth of Generation in Ireland & globally (10%)

• Work closely with Generation Ireland operational colleagues to understand opportunities and blockers and contribute to problem solving and ideation sessions
• Work closely with Generation UK and Generation global colleagues to support global multi-country proposals and grant management, sharing information/learnings 
• Get close to our impact and work as a charity, devoting time to delivering mock interviews for learners on cohorts, and helping out with interviewing prospective applicants 
• Contribute to a culture of idea generation, feedback and learnings on a 1-1, team and organisational level

Requirements

ABOUT YOU

Here are the core attributes we think you’ll need to be successful in the role:

• You’re a highly organised and self motivated professional, able to manage multiple projects independently and ruthlessly prioritise, whilst always staying focussed on your overarching goals.
• You’re a people person, excelling at quickly building new, lasting relationships with partners
• You’re an effective communicator, able to talk to a range of people and comfortable with delivering difficult or complex messages to partners in writing or discussion
• You’re passionate about the cause, with a demonstrated interest and motivation to support those from a disadvantaged background and see the importance of what we are trying to achieve in the long term
• You’re a strong writer, you have an engaging, concise and compelling writing style for proposals and reports
• You’re detail-oriented , willing and able to compile and report detailed grant management submissions, ensuring both the quantitative and qualitative aspects are accurate 
• You’re comfortable with numbers analysing data in spreadsheets and dashboards to identify key trends, managing targets and creating budgets 

ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE

To be best set up for success, we think you’ll need experience of the following areas.   However, if you meet only some of these criteria, or even none but believe you have transferable skills and experience we would still strongly welcome your application.

• Managing and/or reporting on reasonably sized public sector projects (preferably in Ireland, ideally with examples>50k euros/year)
• Managing and/or reporting on multiple private sector funded projects (preferably charity projects funded by corporates and/or trusts and foundation, ideally with examples >50k euros in value)
• Writing grant applications/proposals to secure 5 and 6 figure grants/contracts
• Identifying new funding and partnership opportunities though research and networking

We'd also be delighted to receive applications from candidates with the core attributes above, who are excited about the role and Generation's mission, yet have experience that differs from the person specification. For example, you may be earlier in your career in this space, or have transferable skills from another industry.

Benefits

At Generation, we're changing people’s lives. Purpose and social impact at the heart of work in itself gets us out of bed each morning! However, beyond this, working with the team, you’ll get:

• Autonomy to own and take forward your own workstreams as part of an ambitious, fast-growing charity with awesome colleagues
• Flexible/hybrid working accommodating your preferred working pattern and needs and a WFH allowance
• Professional development opportunities including an annual personal development budget, up to 5 days training/study leave and calendarised, protected time for your own learning and development
• Volunteering opportunities with the chance to support our learners with mock interviews
• Holiday buy-back scheme with up to a month extra leave each year