Head of Volunteering

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Job description

About Media Trust

At Media Trust, we believe it's by giving everyone a voice that we'll get to a more equal society. That's why we're proud to be working with hundreds of charities to strengthen their storytelling, advocacy and campaigning, press engagement and social media. We do this through media, communications and digital skills training delivered in partnership with our media and creative industry partners and by matching media industry volunteers with charities looking for comms support. At the same time, our youth programmes are giving thousands of young people the creative digital media skills, access, and mentoring support to break into the media. In this way, we believe we are doing our bit contribute to Britain's levelling up agenda while also helping the media sector to be more responsible, representative, and connected.

We can only do the work we do because of the fantastic media and creative industry support we enjoy. Our volunteers mostly come from Media Trust's extensive network of media and creative sector industry partners including major broadcasters like the BBC, Channel 4, TV and Sky, creative agencies like Havas and Ogilvy, PR firms like Edelman, film companies like Netflix and Warner Media, and social media platforms including Facebook/Meta, Google, Snap and TikTok. We also have many freelance media and creative industry professionals who volunteer with us.

About the Role

We are looking to recruit a Head of Volunteering to be responsible for developing our volunteering strategy and managing all our volunteering activity. This will include our large-scale volunteering events matching many volunteers with many charities, the volunteering activity within our thematic-focused charity training programmes, our volunteer films projects where we match volunteer directors with charities looking for help to make a film about their work and our online matching platform where charities looking for pro bono help can find industry volunteers.

This senior role will involve collaboration across teams, working closely with Programme Managers in our Charity Services and Youth Teams, as well as Industry Engagement, MarComms and Digital Transformation.

This role is a fantastic opportunity for someone who combines experience in and a passion for matching good skills to good causes with a love of data, systems and processes, and who enjoys working both independently and across teams. It would particularly suit someone with experience of helping charities access volunteer support in media, marketing, content creation and/or digital skills.

The role includes line management of a small team. We are looking for an empathetic and experienced manager who is good at motivating others and supporting them to be their best selves.

Key responsibilities

Manage all Volunteer and Charity engagement across Media Trust's platforms and programmes including sign-up, training, monitoring, compliance and retention
Lead on the development and implementation of Media Trust's volunteer strategy, including liaising with funders and other key stakeholders, identifying growth opportunities and supporting new industry partner pitches and funding applications
Leverage best practice and innovative ideas to drive a consistently optimal volunteering/mentoring experience for our volunteers, charities and young people across our platforms and programmes
Gather learning and insights as the basis for developing new strategies to optimise our matching outcomes, including identifying which specific skills are in the greatest demand by charities and young people at any time and working with the Industry Engagement team and Marcomms to secure more volunteers with these skills
Manage and improve the performance of our Online Matching platform, working with our Digital Transformation team on platform upgrades to improve the user experience for Volunteers and Charities and Media Trust's ability to make data-driven decisions about our marketing and other strategies for the platform
Manage our large-scale Volunteering Events bringing together multiple volunteers and multiple charities, working closely with our Industry Engagement and Charity Services teams
Manage and grow our Volunteer Films activity including managing and supporting the team to match charities with volunteer filmmakers and liaising with funders on projects that are funder-supported
Support Media Trust's Programme Managers on volunteering activity within their programmes
Oversee ongoing data collection through interviews, feedback surveys, other formats, and Salesforce (CRM) for all our volunteering activity, particularly with a view to using qualitative feedback from volunteers and charities and insights from Salesforce to continuously improve our volunteering activity
Work closely with our Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning team to monitor and measure the impact of all our volunteering activity and to produce high quality reports for funders and other stakeholders
Promote and protect the work and reputation of Media Trust in the area of volunteering including representing Media Trust in pro bono and volunteering networks across the sector
Work closely with the MarComms team to ensure we are effectively communicating the impact of our volunteers to our key audiences and to encourage more volunteer and charity sign ups
Report, and where appropriate investigate, any actual or potential risks, accidents, incidents, safeguarding and data protection concerns, breaches of policy, complaints or other performance matters
Ensure confidentiality of data is in line with Media Trust's data privacy and GDPR policies
Line management of our Volunteering Team comprising one Manager and a part-time Coordinator, and our Volunteer Films Team also comprising one Manager and a part-time Coordinator

What we are looking for in you

A minimum of 10 years of relevant experience in the charity or business sectors, in roles focused on volunteer management and developing good practice, systems and processes to manage, evaluate and improve the user experience and outcome for volunteers and charities
A good understanding of the challenges faced by under-resourced charities and an interest in building charities' media and communications capabilities
Exceptional stakeholder management experience
Line management experience of a team
An understanding of media, journalism, communications, campaigning, filmmaking and/or digital skills would be a plus
Experience of using survey design software and CRM systems (experience of Survey Monkey and Salesforce would be an advantage)
Experience of collecting experiences through interviews or questionnaires, analysing information, and producing clear evidence-based reports
Meticulous attention to detail
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills - enjoys working with people, shows empathy and able to build and establish relationships with people from all walks of life
Highly organised with the ability to plan, prioritise and manage deadlines
Takes initiative, is pro-active and can work autonomously when necessary
Commitment to equal opportunities and the values of Media Trust

The above job description is a guide to the work you may be required to undertake but does not form part of your contract of employment and may change from time to time to reflect changing circumstances.

How to apply

Please send an email with subject header Head of Volunteering, attaching your CV, a completed Equal Opportunities form, and a covering letter (max 2 pages) describing how your skills and experience match our requirements.

At Media Trust, we are committed to representing the communities we support. We warmly encourage applications from people of colour, individuals who identify as LGBTQIA, working class, disabled and those living with mental health conditions. We are happy to make reasonable adjustments for disabled applicants at any stage of the recruitment process - please get in touch to discuss.

Closing date: 9am on Monday 13 December 2021

Please note, due to the high volume of applications we expect to receive, only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

Working at Media Trust

Media Trust is an ambitious charity, full of passionate people. We are a small and dynamic team that works collaboratively and supports each other in a fast-paced environment. We are looking for motivated, agile and value-driven people to join our team.

We are based in WeWork Victoria, a vibrant co-working space with our own Media Trust office. There are regular activities and pop-ups throughout the week, ping pong tournaments and free barista coffee all day and prosecco/craft beer evenings. Other benefits include:

Generous annual leave
Flexible hours, to be agreed with line manager
Part-time options considered for the right candidate
Secure bike shed
Pension contributions
Volunteer days

Media Trust values and respects all differences in people (seen and unseen). One of the ways we do this is by actively encouraging staff to work in ways that best suit their needs and our flexible working policy outlines many of the options available, such as part-time and term-time working, job sharing, home working and working compressed hours. Please talk to us at the interview about the flexibility and equipment or other support you need. We can't promise to give you exactly what you want, but we do promise not to judge you for asking.