- Job Title: Local and Regional Officer
- Location: London, Sheffield or Bristol offices or from home with travel
- Reporting To: Natalie White, Local & Regional Partnerships Manager
- Salary: £34,084 - £37,584 per annum
- Contract: Contract
- Date Closes: Tue 28 Feb 2023
Role Purpose
Power to Change is the independent trust that strengthens communities through community business. We use our experience to bring partners together to fund, grow and back community business to make places thrive. We are curious and rigorous; we do, test and learn. And we are here to support community business, whatever the challenge.
We know community business works to create thriving places when local people take ownership of spaces that matter and deliver services that communities need. Our 2021-26 strategy sets out how, using strategic funding, trusted partnerships, rigorous research, policy insight, and a strong network of remarkable community businesses we will back the sector, creating the ideas, evidence, and exemplars that make the case for others to back them too. Ultimately, we will amplify the efforts of community businesses and put them at the heart of a fairer economy.
Power to Change’s local and regional engagement work aims to grow and increase the resilience of the community business sector, as part of the wider social economy, at the subnational level in the places where we work. This is a critical part of creating a fairer, greener economy in those places. We do this by building collaborative partnerships with local & regional authorities, funders, and other key stakeholders, and through strategic grant-making to the sector. Through our local and regional work we also aim to increase our influence with regional and national policy-makers, and to test and learn from interventions that may be replicated in other places. Power to Change’s current local & regional work is focused in the North of Tyne and West Midlands Combined Authority areas. Our previous place-based work has supported the co-development and launch of Kindred Liverpool City Region CIC and Bristol City Funds and delivered Power to Change’s Empowering Places programme which operated at ward level in places experiencing high levels of deprivation.
As the Local & Regional Officer you will be a part of the Policy & Comms home team and responsible for providing high level support across Power to Change’s ‘Local & Regional’ partnerships and grant-making in places. You will support the Local & Regional Partnerships Manager to implement place-based interventions to create the conditions for community businesses to thrive and influence local and regional government to build that support into their strategic plans. You will be working closely with other like-minded passionate professionals in our organisation
Our vision and mission
Our overall vision is ‘powerful communities, better places’ which we will deliver by pursuing our mission to ‘strengthen the community business sector’.
Our strategic priorities
Community business at the heart of a fairer economy Community businesses are well placed to help tackle inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic, and create a more inclusive economy in which more people can participate and money is reinvested locally.
More resilient community businesses Like all businesses, community businesses have felt the financial impacts of Covid-19. But unlike many businesses, they’ve also been working with some of the most vulnerable in their communities throughout the crisis and the need for their services has increased. Encouragingly, very few expect to close their doors but many will need to continue to adapt to the emerging new normal. We will work with them so they can continue to play a crucial role in their neighbourhoods.
A more diverse and equitable sector By their nature, community businesses have broad community impact and lots of ways for local people to get involved. As customers, volunteers, shareholders, staff or trustees, they can have a say in how the business is run to address local needs. Our ambition is that all communities see the community business model as a tool that they can use to improve their neighbourhoods and the lives of local people. To do that, we will work to dismantle the barriers that minoritised communities of all kinds face in creating local social change and find ways to inspire new people to join the sector.
Our Values
Bold: We experiment, take risks and test new ideas. We move quickly to take advantage of opportunities.
Informed: We learn from research and from our delivery. We are responsive and adapt to what we have learned.
Open: We are transparent about our decision-making. We share knowledge and learning including what has not worked.
Collaborative: We work across sectors and respect others’ knowledge and experience. We encourage others who share our vision to bring about change.
Authentic: We integrate the priorities that we have for the community business sector into our own practice. We embody our values in all facets of our work.
Key Responsibilities
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Provide proactive project support on specific day to day tasks relating to our Local & Regional partnerships and grant making in places.
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Grant and procurement administration – tracking grants/contracts, liaising with grantees/contractors, and implementing grant/procurement processes.
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Working closely with the communications team to support communications on our past and present place-based partnerships and funding programmes, such as writing web content, drafting case studies & blog posts, and contacting partners to exchange information.
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Carry out basic analysis & research such as learning from other organisations’ practices or drawing learning from the delivery & evaluation of our place-based work and feedback from those we partner with & fund in places.
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Working to improve internal linkages within PTC, such as consolidating and sharing learning from our local & regional work with the programmes team to inform activity or policy team to inform policy positions.
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Ensure relevant data is maintained on Salesforce (working with the Data team), such as recording engagement with key local & regional stakeholders and updating grant and contract records.
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Help organise and support events and key meetings for key partners and stakeholders, including networking events.
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Keep up to date with relevant policy, sector, and local & regional developments to inform places work.
This job description is issued as a guideline to assist you in your duties, it is not exhaustive. Because of the evolving nature and changing demands of our work this job description may be subject to change. You may, on occasions, be required to undertake additional or other duties within the context of this job description.
Skills and Experience
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Ability to write to a high standard and to communicate with a wide variety of stakeholders.
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Excellent time management and ability to work on multiple projects effectively.
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Good levels of accuracy and attention to detail.
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Proficient at building and maintaining good working relationships internally and externally.
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Willing to work flexibly and fluidly.
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Analytical in approach, able to quickly gain an understanding of complex work with confidence to ask for help.
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Good understanding of and experience of working in the social enterprise and/or community business sectors.
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Confident and competent in using IT systems, particularly databases, and Microsoft Office, especially Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint and Word.
