Programme and Impact Lead

The Youth Endowment Fund  

Programme and Impact Lead 

Reports to: Assistant Director of Impact, Programmes and Partnerships 

Salary: £54,000 

Contract: 1 - year fixed term 

Location: Central London, Hybrid* 

Application Deadline: 12pm on Tuesday 15th April 2025  

Interviews: commencing the week of 28th April 2025 

About the Youth Endowment Fund 

We’re here to prevent children from becoming involved in violence. We do this by finding out what works and building a movement to change things.  

In recent years, violent crime involving children has increased. This is a tragedy. Every child is an important member of our community and society has a duty to protect them.  

The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) is a charity with a £200m endowment that exists to prevent children from becoming involved in violence. We will achieve this by finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice. To make this happen we fund, evaluate and then spread the very best work on reducing violence affected young people across England and Wales. 

Central to all of this to is two key tasks: firstly, deciding which initiatives we should fund and evaluate and secondly, ensuring we do this excellently. Our Programmes Team is central to getting this done. This team is responsible for planning specific rounds of funding that will fill evidence gaps and identifying, assessing, funding and supporting initiatives designed to prevent violence affecting young people. This way we build evidence on what works so that we can change national practice and policies.  

Key responsibilities 

You are a key member of the Programmes team. As a Programme and Impact Lead, you will line manage Programme Managers and be responsible for managing some of our larger grant awards, that include more complex evaluation designs. You’ll be responsible for making sure our delivery organisations can effectively engage with robust, independent evaluations, so we have the best chance of generating valuable learning from a round. And you may also be responsible for directly managing our independent evaluators as well. 

You must have a strong understanding of evaluation methodologies and challenges organisations face in delivery. You must also be a brilliant 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.  

Your main responsibilities boil down to these. You’ll:  

• Manage large-scale complex projects
• You’ll be responsible for managing programmes of a significant size and complexity. You’ll draw on your experience of managing large scale projects and knowledge of evaluations to overcome unexpected challenges. You’ll balance logic and intuition to guide partners and colleagues through the inevitable undulations of complex projects and feel comfortable making decisions when there’s too much or too little information. You’ll ensure projects maintain a strong alignment to the original aims and objectives of the funding round.  

• Provide leadership to the Programmes Team and strategic advice to the Assistant Director of Impact, Programmes and Partnerships. Along with other Programme and Impact leads, you’ll deputise for the Assistant Director of Impact, Programmes and Partnerships. This means you’ll:   

• Take responsibility for making key decisions in funding rounds and with specific programmes; 
• Oversee a broad portfolio of projects and serve as a senior point of escalation when issues arise;  
• Manage budgets, including approving payments and making judgements about the appropriateness of timeline and budget variation requests;  
• Be responsible for knowing when to pull others into the decision. 

• Lead strategic areas of work. You’ll develop and embed a clear strategy for distinctive areas of work that will enable us to achieve our mission. This includes:   
• Finding new ways to improve our internal knowledge sharing and learning, contributing new ideas around how the Programmes team can play into emerging areas of work in the wider organisation. 
• Supporting organisations to become evaluation ready, ensuring young people are the heart of our funding decisions and driving efficiencies so we can be the best we can be.  
• Developing and leading the implementation of these strategies and ensure we are on track to achieve our aspirations. 
• Developing and rolling out new processes designed to help us monitor progress in commissioning and high-quality grant management.  

• Win people over externally
• You’ll meet people externally and share what we’re doing, why we care about it, being open and transparent about what we know and what we don’t know.
• You’ll share progress updates with key stakeholders, and you’ll represent YEF at external meetings, steering groups and committees.
• You’ll manage strategic relationships with co-funders, which may include partnerships with government departments.
• You’re likely to have frequent contact with civil servants, charity leaders and staff, academics and practitioners.  

• Line management 
• Your role may involve the line management of Programme Managers. This will include supporting and enhancing their overall professional growth, providing mentoring and coaching opportunities as appropriate and serving as a source of consultation and a point of escalation for your team members as they manage projects in their portfolio. 

• Support delivery organisations to take part in robust evaluation  
• You’ll make sure the team are excellent at supporting delivery organisations to engage with robust evaluation. You’ll help organisations identify the challenges and mitigations associated with embedding an evaluation approach in their project and delivery. This includes helping them understand the importance of having excellent monitoring and quality assurance systems and process and ensuring they are comfortable engaging in open and honest conversations with evaluators to ensure the project and evaluation are the very best they can be. 

About you 

You are this sort of person: 

• You get things done.You have a track record of getting things done. You’re very reliable and consistent. You take pride in making things happen. 
• You manage projects really well. In previous jobs, you have held responsibility for ensuring challenging projects are delivered on time and to a high standard. You’re very well organised, know how to assess and mitigate risks and use project management systems that work for you. You’re good at spotting when things aren’t going to plan and can tell when you need to raise or escalate your concerns. 
• You make wise judgements.
•  You can take in a lot of written and numerical information and make informed assessments about what good opportunities look like. You have experience in commissioning research or evaluations. You draw on your expertise to appraise the quality of proposals. You can summarise and share your views concisely. 
• You have an understanding of evaluation methodologies and common challenges delivery organisations face in implementation​.
• You have knowledge and experience working with independent evaluations and the various evaluation designs that may be utilised to understand if something works and how.
• You may even have experience in using quantitative approaches, interpreting statistical findings and assessing the suitability of different impact evaluation designs for different types of programmes.   
• You win people over. People tend to warm to you and respect you. You’ve built good relationships with very senior people and with very junior people. You’re particularly good at working with people in other organisations. You work very well in a team. You’re not motivated by being the individual winner. You want the team as a whole to succeed. You don’t care who gets the credit, so long as things get done.  
• You learn fast but remain humble. You’re quick at getting your head around things. It wouldn't faze you to have responsibility for organising things that are new to you, so long as you have an expert to ask advice from. You like learning and developing. You know how much you don't know as well as what you do.   
• You don't want your days to pass without making a difference.You want to play a significant part in a charity that is making a difference. You like the idea of doing a job that makes young people safer.  

While it’s not a criterion, we are especially interested to hear from applicants who have lived experience of violence affecting young people. 

It’s also important to us that the people we hire do not discriminate. We believe in being inclusive and giving everyone an equal chance to succeed. Applications are welcome from all regardless of age, sex, gender identity, disability, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, race, sexual orientation, transgender status or social economic background.  

 All appointments will be made on merit, following a fair and transparent process. In line with the Equality Act 2010, however, the organisation may employ positive action where candidates from underrepresented groups can demonstrate their ability to perform the role equally well. 

Hybrid Working 

The office is based in Central London. Those living in and around London are expected to be in the office a minimum of 2 days per week. If you live outside of London and work remotely, you’ll be expected to work from the London office 2 days per month. As part of our commitment to flexible working we will consider a range of options for the successful applicant. All options can be discussed at the interview stage.   

To apply 

Please click on the "Apply for this" button and submit your CV, your completed monitoring form and cover letter, which must answer the following two questions below. Please submit your application by 12pm on Tuesday 15th April. 

Application Questions  

1. Can you share an example of when you've worked with a delivery organisation to support them in taking part in a rigorous evaluation - for example, explaining the importance of randomisation, or facilitating data collection of validated outcome measures? What was the context, the issue you helped them to overcome, and the outcome? 

2. Can you give an example of when you have had to manage multiple partners in a project and resolve conflicting positions? Can you explain how you went about this and what the outcome was? 

Interview process 

There will be a task to complete in advance of the interview. This will be a one-stage interview process. Interviews will take place the week commencing the 28th April 2025. This will be a panel interview. 

PLEASE NOTE: We do not sponsor work permits and you will be required to provide proof of your eligibility to work in the UK. 

Benefits include 

• £1,000 professional development budget annually 
• 28 days holiday plus Bank Holidays Employee Assistance Programme – 24hr phone line for free confidential support 
• Volunteering days - 4 half days per year 
• Death in service - 4 times annual salary 
• Flexible hours. Core office hours 10am – 4pm 
• Financial support including travel and hardship loans 
• Employer contributed pension of 5%. 

​Your data 

Your personal data will be shared for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes our HR team, interviewers (who may include other partners in the project and independent advisors), relevant team managers and our IT service provider if access to the data is necessary for performance of their roles. We do not share your data with other third parties, unless your application for employment is successful, and we make you an offer of employment. We will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you. We do not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area. 
The people we are looking for do not discriminate and we believe in being inclusive and giving everyone an equal chance to succeed. Applications are welcome from all regardless of age, sex, gender identity, disability, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, race, sexual orientation, transgender status or social economic background.