Are you passionate about capturing and sharing learning from projects and programmes and able to analyse and summarise key points from a wealth of information? ISEAL´s Innovations Fund is a central component of our work to catalyse innovations that improve the effectiveness and deepen the impacts of market-based approaches to sustainability. This is an exciting role to support the development of a learning agenda and value proposition for the Fund as well as producing relevant communications and reports.

First launched in 2016, the Fund supports innovative projects by ISEAL Community Members to help sustainability systems deliver more value to their stakeholders and effectively drive sustainability improvement on the ground, over time, and at scale. The Fund provides grants that enable recipients to develop and test new technologies and approaches, while drawing out cross-project learning to share with the wider sustainability community.

The Associate Manager will work closely with grantees to improve the ways learning is extracted from the projects. We will look to the position to take ownership of the engagement processes necessary to collate and share lessons learnt in a strongly collaborative setting with Community Member organisations or other stakeholders.

The key responsibilities we entrust you with

Implementation of Innovations Fund learning agenda

• Develop and maintain an overall learning agenda for the Fund, and support Fund and programme team on its delivery  
• Organise and conduct stakeholder interviews and other forms of research to extract project learnings, alone and in collaboration with other project staff
• Facilitate peer to peer interactions between organisations participating in projects to share and discuss learning, including supporting the organisation and delivery of project workshops and ISEAL events such as Members Weeks
• Capture key learnings from grantees based on the learning agenda by leading the design of grantee knowledge sharing sessions (theme-focused learnings), as well as cross-thematic learning workshops
• Lead explorations on the need for external research and scoping activities to inform the focus of Fund’s thematic funding rounds
• Project manage work with external consultants on research and scoping activities
• Propose and implement methodologies for capturing the learning and studies of fund effectiveness during and after project implementation

Communications

• Working with the rest of the Innovations Fund team, identify key spaces for increasing Fund’s visibility (e.g., key players or events in the innovations space) and map internal and external stakeholders for engagement and to widen the Fund´s impact
• Support implementation of the Fund’s communications strategy, identifying target audiences for Fund project outputs and the best approach and learning products for each
• Identify external events to which the Fund can actively contribute
• Produce briefing papers, blogs, case studies and slide decks, and manage content on ISEAL’s online platforms, to communicate project findings, outcomes, and achievements
• Produce impact case studies for use in multiple comms channels
• Working with thematic leads for various Innovations Fund grant rounds, extract and analyse data to identify key lessons as well as trends and produce reports to share practical lessons and insights
• Project manage work with external designers to produce fund related material

Process Improvements

• Review and input on call announcements, application and full proposal templates to ensure incorporation of the learning and/or communications components
• Recommend improvements to grantee narrative and learning report and other templates to ensure incorporation of learning and/or communications components

Other

• Support organisation in Monitoring & Evaluation tasks and contribute to donor reporting
• Help to ensure that the Innovations Fund and related activities deliver on annual workplans, meet commitments to donors
• Identify and develop new sources of data and information

Essential experience, knowledge and attributes

• Solid experience in a role related to project or programme learning activities, analysis of project data and reporting of lessons learnt
• General knowledge of international development and/or sustainability context where sustainability systems operate
• Ability to quickly grasp new concepts and topical areas
• Excellent project management skills, with ability to establish and manage priorities
• Excellent writing skills and ability to synthesise and distil technical information for a range of audiences
• Proven ability to analyse large sources of information and to identify and summarise the most important points in accessible language
• Strong relationship building and engagement skills with a range of stakeholders, both internal and external
• Experience in facilitating sessions and workshops, even on topics outside of own expertise
• Ability to communicate and work effectively with cross-functional teams in a fully remote, international environment, including occasional international time-zone calls
• Proficient IT skills, familiarity with virtual meeting tools (e.g. Teams, Zoom, etc.)
• Demonstrated interest in sustainability issues

Desirable:

• Understanding of how sustainability systems operate
• Previous experience in monitoring and reporting

About ISEAL

ISEAL supports ambitious sustainability systems and their partners to tackle the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges – from the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis to human rights and persistent poverty. ISEAL Community Members include many of the most respected sustainability schemes worldwide and are active across a diverse range of sectors. Read more about us on our website www.iseal.org. 

ISEAL´s culture and how we will help you thrive

Our values are Connection, Empowerment, Inspiration, Wellbeing, Effective Working and Creativity.

These are traits we value in each other and in the organisation overall and we instil these in all our processes and interactions.

The issues we work on are of a global nature and our team reflects this, with individuals from many different backgrounds and nationalities. We know this diversity adds to the high quality of work we deliver as an organisation and through our commitment to diversity and inclusion we want to add strengths and perspectives in our team with each recruitment. Diversity for us includes race and gender identity, age, disability status, sexual orientation, religion and many other areas forming part of someone´s identity. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer.

As an organisation, we also support our people in their personal and professional development, with specific budgets and processes enabling individuals to take advantage of growth and development opportunities.

We offer 25 days of annual leave, to which we will add a day a year after 2 years (to a maximum of 30 days), as well as an extra five days as a one off once you have been with us for a full five years.

We recognise individuals’ preferences when it comes to where and when to work through a hybrid working model with a minimum of 4 days per month in the London office as well as the opportunity to apply for flexible working arrangements to suit individual´s needs.

Other relevant information

Term: This is a permanent contract

Working hours: Full time, 37.5 hours per week

Salary: £44,000 – 48,000 per annum, depending on experience

Location: London. Applicants will need to provide evidence that they are entitled to work in the UK. An ability and willingness to work in a hybrid work environment is required. 

International travel: The post holder may be required to undertake occasional international travel

Ideal start date: August/September 2024

Click to apply here

Specific enquiries about this role can be sent to recruitment@isealalliance.org.

Deadline for applications is 6 August

Please note that we will only contact shortlisted applicants.

Interview process

Please see below the planned interview process (please note that we will endeavour to keep to this schedule, but some dates may be subject to change)

First interviews (Teams): 13/14 August

Pre-interview timed exercises (between 60 – 90 minutes from home): 16-19 August

Panel interviews (Teams or in person): w/c 19 August

Decision: w/c 26 August

Accessibility

If candidates required additional time or other considerations for the interview process, we are committed to accommodating any reasonable requests.

Please note that ISEAL will cover travel expenses for in person interviews for candidates travelling from outside of Greater London. ISEAL also covers caring expenses for candidates who are carers and need to arrange of cover for the duration of the interview/exercises.