We work to make sure that charities and social enterprises can access the finance they need to sustain or grow their impact. Through our programmes and our advocacy, we are building the capacity of the social investment ecosystem to provide blended finance and developing resilience through enterprise activity, so that charities and social enterprises can meet the evolving needs of communities across the country.

Role purpose: To lead Access’s learning function, in order to:

• Provide a robust framework for effectively measuring the impact of our programmes and their contribution to our mission and strategy
• Produce valuable data and insight to inform our advocacy and influencing work
• Highlight the impact of our approach to blended finance and enterprise development
• Ensure that this learning informs further programme design and iteration

Role description:

Access has a small staff team but a leading role in the social investment ecosystem. So although this role is not responsible for a large team of researchers, the impact of your leadership will be significant both within Access and across social investment in the UK, and beyond.

The Head of Learning will:

• Provide leadership for Access’s learning function, working closely with the Board of Trustees, Chief Executive, Director of Programmes and Director of Partnerships and Advocacy to influence the organisation’s overall strategy and deliver on the role purpose
• Develop and manage robust processes for measuring and reporting on the key success indicators in Access’s overall strategy, and ensure that the gathering of data from individual programmes supports those overall success indicators
• Ensure that Access is effectively able to measure the reach of all its programmes to more deprived communities and to protected groups
• Scope, commission and manage independent evaluations of major Access programmes, sometimes in partnership with our co-investors, as well as cross cutting pieces of research deepening our insight into Access’s work. Manage a substantial budget for commissioned work and collaborative projects
• Develop case studies and other qualitative content which helps deepen insight and provide context for those we seek to influence
• With colleagues across the programme team, gather, quality assure and analyse programme data in order to generate insights which further Access’s role in influencing key stakeholders in the ecosystem, which can be easily shared in appealing visual formats and easily digestible written material
• Work closely with colleagues to share insights from analysis of business models of the organsations which Access is supporting and support the sharing of this insight more broadly across the sector
• Actively collaborate with key partners to help build the broader evidence base of the impact of the social economy, using Access’s data and insights, and contribute to other joint initiatives
• Support a learning culture within the Access team and our close partners
• Actively seek insight and input from the charities and social enterprises we seek to serve and use this to help interpret our learning and inform future programme design.

 Person Specification:

Knowledge and Experience

• A senior role in a research or learning function, preferably within the social sector.
• Clear evidence of using learning to bring about tangible change internally and externally.
• Experience of working and delivering in partnerships across organisations
• Experience of successfully managing substantial consultancy contracts.
• Thorough knowledge of impact measurement and management approaches and their applicability to the social sector.
• Experience of successfully embedding approaches for the measurement and management of social impact data into a complex organisation or programme.
• Experience of substantial data manipulation and analysis
• Knowledge of relevant research approaches

Skills and abilities

• Ability to work in a small team, happy with flexibility and mixing strategic oversight with operational delivery  
• Evidence of an exciting and engaging written style, through which you can explain complex ideas in a straightforward way
• Ability to make learning practical and relevant to a wide range of audiences including practitioners.
• Ability to handle, manipulate and present significant amounts of data, and identify patterns and meaning within it.

Personal style and behaviour  

• Practical and rigorous
• Demonstrates clarity of thought and communication
• Collaborative
• Demonstrates characteristics of network leadership
• A passion for supporting charities and social enterprises