Volunteering Matters

At Volunteering Matters we use volunteering’s unique power to bring people together and build stronger, more resilient communities across the UK.

We bring people together to resolve some of society’s most complex issues. From social isolation and loneliness; improving health and wellbeing; building skills, confidence, and opportunity; to ensuring young people can become change makers in their community, the impact that we make is great. And we won’t stop until everyone in the UK has the opportunity to thrive.

People-led and impact driven, we are a national charity that is deeply embedded in local areas across the UK. We operate in five regions: London and the South East; Wales and the West of England; East of England; the Midlands and North West England; and Scotland and North East England. We also have an Employee Volunteering Team with over 25 years’ experience, acting as a broker to provide tailor-made solutions to employers. We turn local knowledge and energy into action and progress, building stronger communities and a better future for all.

This is an exciting time to be joining the team. We’re changing the way we work to meet new ambitions and make sure our impact continues to grow alongside out business.

Role Purpose

We are looking for a talented, dynamic, and professional Youth Engagement Manager to join our team in the Glasgow City. The right candidate would be someone who can work flexibly and demonstrate an understanding and total commitment to our organisational values.

You will directly support young people aged 16 to 24 across Glasgow, who may have complex and challenging barriers that prevent them from achieving a positive pathway towards the next stage of their lives. Your work is aligned with the Young Person's Guarantee, which is Scotland’s commitment to bring together employers, partners and young people. It aims to connect every 16 to 24 year old in Scotland to an opportunity. This could be a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education, training or volunteering.

Your support in Glasgow will include barrier identification and removal, elements of one to one employability support, and given our passion for volunteering, focus will be on supporting young people to embrace a local volunteering placement as an excellent route to work/next steps in life. Each young person we work with are offered a mentor and so you will also work alongside colleagues in our Mentoring team, ensuring young people have the opportunity to benefit from a ProjectScotland Volunteer Mentor.

You will manage and develop our networks and relationships in the area, including within education, social work and employability teams, to secure referral pathways into our service. You will identify and build partnerships with charitable and not-for-profit organisations across Glasgow who will host volunteer placements.

A full Job Description is available for download below.

At Volunteering Matters we use volunteering’s unique power to bring people together and build stronger, more resilient communities across the UK.

We bring people together to resolve some of society’s most complex issues. From social isolation and loneliness; improving health and wellbeing; building skills, confidence, and opportunity; to ensuring young people can become change makers in their community, the impact that we make is great. And we won’t stop until everyone in the UK has the opportunity to thrive.

People-led and impact driven, we are a national charity that is deeply embedded in local areas across the UK. We operate in five regions: London and the South East; Wales and the West of England; East of England; the Midlands and North West England; and Scotland and North East England. We also have an Employee Volunteering Team with over 25 years’ experience, acting as a broker to provide tailor-made solutions to employers. We turn local knowledge and energy into action and progress, building stronger communities and a better future for all.

This is an exciting time to be joining the team. We’re changing the way we work to meet new ambitions and make sure our impact continues to grow alongside out business.

Role Purpose

Volunteering Matters are looking for a talented, dynamic, and professional Project Manager to join our team. The right candidate would be someone who can work flexibly while demonstrating a strong understanding and commitment to our organisational values.

As our Project Manager, you will lead a team of staff and volunteers, playing a key role overseeing, managing, delivering and developing our work in local communities across Edinburgh and the Lothians. As a senior member of the team, you will role model our organisational values and demonstrate excellent leadership skills. You will develop and maintain effective relationships with colleagues, volunteers, people accessing our programmes, funders, partners, and other stakeholders.

You will be responsible for the quality delivery and development of our established Family Supporters programme in Edinburgh, as well as our new Grandmentors programmes in Edinburgh, and East Lothian. These programmes offer practical, social, and emotional support to families and young people (including those who are care experienced or who have Adverse Childhood Experiences), empowering them to face a range of life challenges.

We attract, recruit, train, match and support dedicated volunteers to help families and young people every step of the way, spending 1:1 time together on a personalised set of goals and outcomes. As an ambitious organisation, we hope to further grow and develop our work across Edinburgh and the Lothians over the coming weeks, months, and years. You will contribute towards our business development objectives, based around place. As new work develops, you may lead the effective delivery of those programmes and initiatives across the region.

TEENS+A transitional education programme for young people with complex and severe communication needs.

TEENS+ provides post school education and lifelong learning services for young people with complex communication needs including autism and learning disabilities. The service is person centred and individualised to ensure each student, regardless of their needs, can reach their fullest potential.

We currently have 2 centres in Edinburgh (Liberton Brae and Ravenscroft) and now have an exciting opportunity for a Centre Manager to manage the set up of a new centre in East Lothian, due to open in September 2022.

Role

Under the guidance of the Head of Service, the Centre Manager will be responsible for setting up and managing the new centre in East Lothian. The post holder will work closely with the New Support and Community Access Manager and the 2 other Centre Managers, to ensure successful delivery of education programmes to our students in line with the organisational values.

Who are we looking for?

The successful applicant will have proven experience of working with adults with additional support needs using a person-centred approach.

You will also be a motivating and inspirational leader, and be skilled at encouraging and supporting teams of staff to deliver effective person-centred support for our students.

You will be enthusiastic and self-motivated, and must be able to work on your own initiative.

The successful applicants will require membership of the PVG (Protection of Vulnerable Groups) Scheme.

Our Enterprise Directorate is the entrepreneurial arm of Volunteering Matters with a main purpose of providing commercially viable products and services to a range of UK leading businesses. We currently have two established and distinct products and services; our Employee Volunteering Service and our separate Social Enterprise, Get The Gen. Our ambition is to grow both brands in terms of reach, clients and income and to add to our current portfolio of products and services as we grow.

Employee Volunteering (EV): We use our vast network of charity partners across the UK to connect our clients volunteers to suitable community partner organisations and facilitate the process throughout, concluding with volunteer feedback and impact measurement. We take care of the research, identification of bespoke opportunities, all health & safety, risk management and logistics, giving our clients the time to focus on maximising engagement, promoting the programme and inspiring their potential volunteers to get involved. We have achieved this with many longstanding clients across the UK such as Aviva, National Grid, Barclays, Deloitte, KPMG, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and QBE.

Get The Gen (GTG): GTG is a Social Enterprise created to help businesses with issues around recruitment, retention and development of a multi-generational workforce starting from young people up. GTG use evidence-based insights to deliver immersive, interactive, and fast paced workshops online and in person that create lasting individual and group change. We are trusted by over 60 leading UK and Global businesses including; The Natwest Group, The Law Society of Scotland, KPMG, Brodies, Burness Paull, Skills Development Scotland and Aegon amongst others.

Role Purpose:

The Marketing Manager will be part of the wider Enterprise Directorate team and report to the Director of Enterprise. They will play a critical role in supporting our planned growth for both EV & GTG and future products and services as we add to our portfolio. This is an exciting opportunity to join a growing and ambitious team.

Although part of a charity, we are very much looking for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit that thinks commercially about how we can grow our brands. We are looking for an all-rounder; someone who can drive our overall marketing strategy, organise and promote relevant events (online and in person) and who will increase digital engagement across our website and social media channels.

Key Duties:

• Create and implement a marketing plan to support the growth of the Enterprise Directorate

• Plan and deliver events (both online and in person) to help promote our brands and to act as lead generation

• Review and update our suite of marketing and promotional materials including, brochures, proposal documents and impact reports.

• Work closely with our business development team to help influence existing and new clients to grow income generation.

• Create a content plan for our social media channels and targeted business to business strategy to help raise awareness of our brands and ultimately generate leads.

• Manage digital channels to support our overall aims including; GTG website, EV microsite, blogs/content, eNews, LinkedIn and social media channels.

• Support in the creation of new products, services and brands as we grow the Enterprise Directorate

• Support the team to build and maintain a network of business/corporate relationships

• Develop effective networks in relevant markets and business communities

• Report back on performance against agreed KPI’s

• Liaise with the management team in the Enterprise Directorate to ensure our offer both works for our clients’ needs and for us as a business

• To be a proactive member of the Enterprise Directorate team and help drive our continuous improvement strategy

• Comfortable with the use of InDesign/Canva or other appropriate design software

• Creative eye and able to contribute to design ideas aligned to brand image

• Can take elements of the marketing plan and transform into content (copy, design & image) which helps convey our message and brand with maximum impact

Experience/Skills and attributes:

• Producing and implementing a marketing plan that aligns with a business growth strategy
• Coordinating and delivering events that both act as awareness raising and lead generation
• Managing digital and social media content and growing engagement from key stakeholders across all platforms. (i.e Website, LinkedIn, Twitter etc)
• Ability to establish and maintain positive working relationships both internally and externally
• Ability to achieve objectives through the use of effective influencing techniques
• Ability to be proactive in your approach and manage sometimes conflicting priorities in a fast pace, results driven environment
• Managing digital platforms and using tools such as WordPress, MailChimp, Google AdWords and others.
• Experience of reporting on projects against agreed KPI’s

This job description is intended to include the broad range of responsibilities and requirements of the post. It is neither exhaustive nor exclusive but while some variations will be expected, these will be at an appropriate level for the role.

Location:

The post is home based, and the post-holder can be based anywhere within the UK. The role requires reliable internet access. I.T. equipment and infrastructure will be supplied.

Occasional Travel to our London & Edinburgh offices will be required.

Qualifications

Relevant experience and values alignment is more important for this role than specific qualifications.

Our Values & Way of Working:

In all that we do, we embrace a philosophy of ‘Freedom within a Framework’ and are guided by our values: Empowering, Inclusive, Compassionate, Positive & Straightforward.

This job description is intended to include the broad range of responsibilities and requirements of the post. It is neither exhaustive nor exclusive but while some variations will be expected, these will be at an appropriate level for the role.

Diversity & Inclusion

Volunteering Matters welcomes all applicants and are keen to ensure our team reflects the diversity of the UK and the communities we serve. We encourage applications from disabled, LGBT and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, along with candidates with any protected characteristics and from disadvantaged groups.

Disability Confident & Reasonable Adjustments:

We guarantee to interview anyone with a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the role. Please provide evidence in your application, which demonstrates that you meet the level of competence required in the “Experience/Skills” section of this advert. To be considered for a guaranteed interview or to discuss any reasonable adjustments during the process, please state this in your application or contact join@volunteeringmatters.org.uk for more information.

We have also committed to the following pledges which positively encompass our recruitment and selection processes and methodology: The Promise, Show The Salary, Salary History.

Benefits

Our employee benefits reflect our culture which is built on an approach of full flexibility with accountability, and designed to let you make your most positive contribution; we offer Flexible Working by Default (re hours & place of work), Unlimited Annual Leave, Employee Pension scheme, Life Assurance, Cycle to Work Scheme, Season Ticket Loan, Employee Assistance Programme, enhanced sick and family leave. We are also open to discuss job share applications.

GDPR Statement

If you apply for a role with us, we will retain your contact details including your name, address, email address and phone number to help us manage your application for up to 6 months. We will not use your personal data for any other purpose or share it with any third party. You can contact us at any point to update your personal information or ask us to delete it from our records.