Senior Impact Operations Manager

Mission 44; London; Hybrid; GBP 46,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a proactive and creative individual to join their team in a newly created role. This position focuses on enhancing grantmaking processes and ensuring equity at all stages. The ideal candidate will possess strong project management skills, experience with grantmaking organizations, and a passion for empowering young people. You will have the opportunity to drive meaningful impact in the philanthropic sector while collaborating with diverse stakeholders. Join this innovative foundation and contribute to their mission of creating positive change on a global scale.

Benefits

28 days annual leave plus birthday leave

Cycle-to-work scheme

Free gym access

Generous pension package

Professional development budget of £1k

Unlimited volunteering leave

Wellbeing allowance

Competitive parental leave package

Qualifications

• Experience with grantmaking organizations and developing systems.
• Strong project management and communication skills are essential.

Responsibilities

• Lead grant operations and manage the Impact Committee.
• Implement and improve grantmaking processes and systems.

Skills

Grantmaking experience

Project management

CRM systems (e.g., Salesforce)

Stakeholder relationship management

Data analysis

Communication skills

Time management

Education

Degree in relevant field

Tools

Salesforce

Job description

Salary: £46,000

Contract type: Permanent

Location: UK (minimum 2 days a week in our London office for a full time role)

Work pattern: Full-time (flexible options including part time considered)

Reporting to: Chief Impact Officer

Deadline: Midnight Friday 30th May

Please send anonymised CV and cover letter, ensuring any identifiable information—such as your name, phone number, email address, photos, or other personal details—is removed.

Your Covering Letter Should Outline

• Your motivations for applying to Mission 44
• How this role fits into your career plans
• Experience (professional, voluntary or lived) that makes you a great fit for this role in line with our values and the criteria outlined in this job description.
  
  

About The Role

In this newly created role, you will help us achieve maximum impact on a global scale. This role will help us on our journey to become a highly transparent, accountable and progressive foundation. You will focus on:

• Making improvements to our grantmaking by reflecting on our progress so far and ensuring equity is embedded at all stages of the grantmaking cycle
• Developing and delivering our Funder Plus offer, ensuring Mission 44 offers more than just financial benefits to our partners
• Improving how we collect and use our impact data, helping us to build a culture of learning and are able to evidence the change we’re making as a global foundation
  
  

We’re looking for someone who is continuously learning and striving to make things better; a proactive and creative problem-solver; someone who enjoys bringing new ideas to life through detailed planning and an ability to create simple systems and processes for others to follow. We hope you’ll join us and become a part of our dedicated team, where you can utilize your expertise to drive meaningful impact in the philanthropic world.

Roles And Responsibilities

Grant Operations (55%)

• Lead on the implementation of a recent grantmaking review, conducted by the Impact Team, including revision of key grant templates and processes: due diligence, proposal development, assessment rubric, recommendation reports, reporting, partner surveys and grant exit.
• Lead on the summary of progress towards our grantmaking KPIs, providing detailed reports and recommendations for the SLT, Impact Committee and Trustees on a quarterly basis.
• Lead on the management and development of our Impact Committee, a formal governance body overseeing our grantmaking and impact, comprising 4 Youth Advisory Board members and 4 Trustees.
• Ensure that the Youth Advisory Board has sufficient opportunity to feed into (and shape) activities of the impact team, by collaborating with the Senior Youth Participation Manager
• Support the development and implementation of our new CRM system, ensuring data is captured by Partnership Managers and kept up to date.
• Support the Impact team to identify potential grant applicants by researching organisations in fields and geographies of interest to Mission 44, networking and attending relevant events
• Support Partnership Managers as they lead the day-to-day grant assessment and relationship management with our partners. Support the Impact team to maintain relationships and regular communication with our grantees, including site visits and attendance at partners’ events.
  
  

Funder Plus (20%)

• Work with the Impact Team to implement (and continually improve) our Funder Plus programme, ready for delivery in 2026/27 - with input and consultation from a range of internal and external stakeholders
• Meanwhile in 2025/26, support the Partnership Managers in their aim to provide additional support beyond financial grants which help our grantees to build their capacity, leadership potential and resilience - this is likely to involve regular communication with the fundraising team and liaison with our major corporate partners
  
  

Research, Learning and Evaluation (15%)

• Lead on the data collection and impact reporting processes which have been developed to capture learning, evidence and impact data from our programmatic work.
• Support our partnership managers to use the data collection and impact reporting processes, ensuring we’re able to collect and analyse key impact data on a regular basis
• Work with our Head of Strategy and Learning and colleagues in the Impact team to help us clearly and confidently articulate the difference we’re making as a foundation.
• Identify opportunities to improve the systems and processes we use to generate appropriate impact data, research, case studies and evidence of our impact
• Identify opportunities to collate and share learning across the Mission 44 team, to influence and inform our future grant-making and organisational strategy
• Build and maintain strong relationships with a range of peer grantmakers, charities, and other external stakeholders within the philanthropic sector, identifying opportunities for Mission 44 to share our learning externally, where appropriate.
  
  

Fundraising and Communications (10%)

• Support fundraising efforts by providing data and case studies to include in fundraising proposals and grant reports
• Support engagement between our partners and our donors, by facilitating the delivery of skills-based volunteering activities
  
  

About You

Skills and experience

Essential

• Experience of working with a grantmaking organisation, as a researcher and/or grant-maker
• Experience developing new/improved grantmaking systems and processes, and supporting the successful implementation of these processes within your organisation
• Strong project management skills
• Experience of using grant management and/or database systems eg Salesforce or other CRM systems
• Experience of managing complex partnerships or contracts
• Proven experience of building and maintaining relationships with a range of internal and external stakeholders
• Proven experience of analysing information to inform your judgement
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Excellent time management skills with the ability to manage multiple projects with competing deadlines
  
  

Desirable

• Experience working in the non-profit, education, youth employment or youth sector
• Experience working outside of the UK, in the one or more of Mission 44’s geographies: US, Brazil and Italy
• Understanding of participatory grantmaking models and approaches
  
  

Personal Qualities

• Passionate about supporting and empowering young people to thrive and succeed
• Flexible and creative; a strategic mind and a proactive self-starter
• Humility, tact, maturity, and a strong personal commitment to learning and improvement
• Possesses cultural sensitivity to work respectfully and effectively in different settings
• Highly collaborative, adept at building and maintaining relationships with a wide range of stakeholders
• Ability to work independently as part of a global team and being self-motivated
  
  

Benefits

• Enjoy 28 days annual leave, plus a day for your birthday
• Use our cycle-to-work scheme and free gym access
• Save for retirement with our generous pension package
• We finish every Friday at noon in August
• Optional health insurance and access to an EAP
• Professional development budget of £1k
• Unlimited volunteering leave, as agreed with your manager
• Wellbeing allowance to spend in whatever way works for you
• Competitive parental leave package