The posting
Use your in-depth knowledge and understanding of music and the UK’s music education sector to help high-impact organisations strengthen their practice and deliver better outcomes for children and young people.
This is a fantastic opportunity for someone who is passionate about ensuring that young people have the opportunities and support they need to develop their musical interests and potential, particularly so that they can progress into a classical music career.
This is a hands-on role suited to someone who has professional experience in music, music education, and/or arts participation and learning. You should also have a proven ability to form developmental and supportive relationships across a portfolio of funded partnerships, working with them to identify and respond to areas for development and to demonstrate their impact against agreed objectives. You will work across the full funding lifecycle – contributing to portfolio strategy setting and due diligence, monitoring grant awards, tracking performance, using your sector expertise to enable learning and collaboration, and supporting capacity building.
Success in this role will require a strong ability to build trusted relationships, analytical thinking, curiosity, and an eye for detail. Your approach to grant management will use your good judgement to identify risk and focus on what’s important – when to offer support, when to escalate, and when to step back. As a clear communicator, you’ll be a confident advocate for music and music education and will be equally comfortable talking to leaders of organisations, industry experts, artists and educators, and with young people themselves.
Please download the full job description on the Purposeful Ventures website
Job Description
Responsibilities and duties
Work with the Venture Partner Music and the Arts to effectively manage and develop our music portfolio:
Grant monitoring, reporting, performance and risk management related to music partners
- Monitor performance and compliance of music partners against milestones, impact metrics, and financial targets, highlighting areas for development and helping them to realise their potential.
- Lead quarterly and annual reporting for the music portfolio, producing regular analysis and reporting materials which are informed by a thorough understanding of the strategy, performance and impact of our music partners.
- Identify risks, challenges, and opportunities by organisation, and across the portfolio.
- Onboard new music partners, including by contributing to due diligence, negotiating KPIs, contributing to the creation of funding documentation, and supporting internal and external communications.
- Contribute to improving our grant management processes, tools, and frameworks.
Music partner learning and support
- Build in-depth relationships with music partners, maintaining up to date knowledge of their work and impact through meaningful interactions at regular meetings, attendance at events, sessions and other activities.
- Develop ‘high challenge, high support’ partnerships with music organisations, working closely with them to identify challenges and opportunities, and deploying a range of interventions that will support their progress, including by connecting them with appropriate expert input.
- Identify opportunities for Purposeful to provide greater or more in-depth support through dedicated projects, introductions, or advice-giving, either for individual music partners or for the whole cohort.
- Developing cohort-wide development and support activities which will enable peer-learning, improved networks, and collaboration.
Music education expertise and advocacy
- Use your networks and expertise to build the reputation and relationships of Purposeful Ventures in music and music education, so that these can be leveraged across the portfolio.
- Develop high-quality outputs (presentations, reports and models) which communicate the work and impact of the music portfolio.
- Work with evaluation colleagues to collate and interpret insight and learning related to individual music partners, and the cohort as a whole.
- Work with communications and philanthropy colleagues to ensure that key messaging, evidence, and impacts related to the music portfolio are articulated and shared.
Informing portfolio strategy and pipeline development
- Supporting the Venture Partner - Music and the Arts to further develop the music portfolio, contributing expertise and ideas, collating evidence and research related to music education, and contributing to government and philanthropic funding proposals and presentations.
- Contribute to leadership-level discussions related to the music portfolio, ensuring that recommendations and advice are clear, evidence-informed and actionable.
The job description is subject to change and the postholder may be required to undertake tasks not specifically referred to above. Such duties, however, will fall within the scope of the job description
Who we are looking for
We are looking for people who are passionate about the role that excellent music education can play in supporting children and young people to thrive, and who believe that these chances should be available to all, regardless of socio-economic status. You will be motivated by Purposeful’s vision and excited to apply your music education expertise and relationship building skills in a collaborative, purpose-driven environment.
We recognise that strong candidates may bring a range of experiences and perspectives, and we encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds and career paths. In particular, we’re keen to receive applications from people with lived experience of the issues we seek to address through our Music and Arts portfolio mission. If your experience is not an exact match, but you believe you would thrive in the role, we would still encourage you to apply.
Key requirements
Essential
Behaviours and Ways of Working
- Passionate about creating a fairer society where all young people thrive.
- Demonstrable track record of taking ownership of commitments and working hard to succeed
- Motivated by Purposeful’s vision, with a clear and demonstrable commitment to contributing to meaningful, long-term change in support of children and young people.
- Curious and evidence-informed, actively seeking out data, insights, and diverse perspectives to inform thinking.
- Takes ownership of your work, following through on commitments and delivering to a consistently high standard.
- Comfortable working in ambiguity, structuring your own work and adapting as priorities evolve.
- Collaborative and relationship-oriented, working effectively with colleagues and external partners.
- Builds open, respectful and trust-based relationships by acting with integrity, reliability, and transparency.
- Balances attention to detail with an understanding of the broader context and strategic goals.
- Open to feedback and committed to continuous learning and development.
Knowledge and Experience
- Established working knowledge and networks within current music and music education ecology, including key trends, policy, providers and funders.
- Experience of managing a portfolio of funded relationships, assessing performance, leading relevant processes, and offering both support and effective challenge.
- Experience managing multiple priorities and timelines in a structured, analytical environment.
- Experience of informing strategy development, due diligence, or complex problem-solving projects, including through analysis and research.
- Experience of analysing and synthesising complex data and research, identifying key findings and developing evidence-informed conclusions.
- Experience undertaking organisational and financial analysis, reviewing information (for example, business plans, annual and quarterly accounts), identifying risks and drawing evidence-informed conclusions.
- Experience of stakeholder engagement with ability to understand and align multiple agendas and needs.
- Experience of programming shared activities and events which will enable learning and development across the portfolio.
Skills
- Clear, effective and nuanced communicator - in writing and verbally - with the ability to produce materials suitable for senior audiences, and to facilitate conversations and workshops which will support effective learning and development.
- Synthesises information from multiple sources into clear, well-structured outputs and recommendations.
- Strong quantitative and qualitative analysis skills, including working with imperfect data, identifying key drivers, and drawing sound, defensible insights.
- Effective influencing skills, including the ability to share expertise, offer constructive challenge and adapt communication style and medium to the audience and context.
- Effectively engages and manages relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
- Plans and manages their work effectively, taking ownership of workstreams and delivering high-quality outputs within timelines.
- Uses sound judgement to identify risks, assess trade-offs, and determine when to seek input or escalate.
General
- Right to work in the UK.
Desirable
Knowledge and Experience
- Understanding of the charity and/or education sectors gained, for example, through a previous work experience, pro-bono work, volunteer or trustee role.
- Experience of creating financial models to support budgeting and scenario planning; building income generation strategies.
- Understanding of or experience with programme design, monitoring and evaluation.
- Experience of contributing to government and philanthropic funding proposals.
