The Youth Endowment Fund
Feb 26, 2026
Full time
Contract: 12 -month fixed term (Full-Time) , dependent on co-funding being secured . Make sure we choose the best organisations to work with by assessing funding applications, critically appraising delivery plans and budgets and getting to know potential grantees. These assessments will help you form recommendations to our senior leadership team about which opportunities to pursue. Work closely with grantees, external evaluators and our own evaluation team to ensure that the activity we are funding will be evaluable to the highest standards. This requires you to support and advise grantees on how to work in the context of an evaluation - usually, a randomised controlled trial (you don't have to have experience working on a randomised controlled trial in the past, but it helps!). Build strong relationships with our grantees and provide them with ongoing management and support through the life of their funding. You will also be responsible for monitoring the performance of grantees and ensuring targets are met and any project risks are effectively mitigated. Think carefully about how we find the best projects to fund and evaluate, ensuring we can best find what works to keep children safe. To do this you might need to work with colleagues to spot where there has previously been a lack of evidence about what works (we will help you with this!). You would project manage these projects so they are excellently delivered - on time, within budget, and to a high standard. You will help to determine what our commissioning and management processes aim to achieve and design grant application and management processes to achieve it. You'll manage our engagement with potential grantees to make sure we are attracting a diverse and promising portfolio of organisations to apply. Report to our team and external stakeholders regularly on how well the projects we are funding are going, spotting where grantees need support and coming up with how we can best provide that support. Represent the Youth Endowment Fund at external events, including reporting and presenting to our Grants and Evaluation Committee, who approve all our funding decisions. You have a strong understanding of challenges that organisations face in delivering projects. You must also be a really good project manager, great at managing and developing people and external stakeholders, energised by tackling complex problems and really care about the YEF's mission to build evidence of what works. You have incredible judgement. You are able to reach sound and considered judgements about the viability and suitability of applicants based upon our given criteria, often using detailed written and financial information, and are able to deliver constructive feedback to organisations. You can also identify when things aren't going to plan and be proactive with sharing observations and recommendations. You are an optimiser. You look for solutions and think creatively to overcome challenges. You are curious, hungry to learn and always looking for ways to improve processes and increase efficiency and impact. You love well-designed systems. You are committed to designing and maintaining the best systems to make sure we manage our commissioning processes well. You know this is critical to effectively managing multiple, large-scale funding programmes and competing priorities. You are an excellent communicator. You have the ability to convey information clearly and effectively-both in writing and verbally. You understand the importance of strong communication in fast-paced decision-making and thrive in a busy, collaborative team environment. You win people over. People tend to warm to you and respect you. You have built good relationships with people at every level inside and outside the organisation and have managed large networks of stakeholders with different interests and priorities. You are excellent at customer service and can professionally handle issues that come up within your grant portfolio. You work very well in a team. You are not motivated by being the individual winner. You want the team as a whole to succeed. You don't care who gets the credit as long as things get done. You are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. You believe and act in a way that celebrates and encourages a range of experiences, backgrounds and values. Tell us about your experience and understanding of the challenges organisations face in delivering projects and any experience you've had of this in the context of evaluations ? (max 400 words) The Programme Manager role involves overseeing several projects at once and juggling many different tasks simultaneously. Tell us about when you've had several competing priorities and how you managed those ? (max 400 words) Tell us about your experience of managing multiple partners and resolving conflicting positions ? (max 400 words)