Head of Programmes - The Tudor Trust

Salary: £70,000 per annum

Location: Hybrid – London office 3 days per week

Hours: 35 hours per week

Reporting to: CEO

Applications close: 3pm, Tuesday 14^th January 2025

About us

The Tudor Trust is a philanthropic foundation with a long-standing commitment to funding smaller organisations across the UK. Holding an endowment of around £250m, our annual commitment to grants historically has averaged £20m.

Following a transition from a family foundation to one that is independently led by a new board of trustees, we are bridging to a strategy with greater emphasis on racial justice. Our definition of racial justice is a vision for a world that moves beyond racism and racial inequities to one where inclusive communities thrive in all our systems and structures. We believe this is the foundation for tackling all forms of injustice, including economic, environmental and social.

We want to develop a total asset approach across all our work, which means aligning all our resources on our mission. For us this includes the strength of our people & culture practices and relationships with our partners, alongside our grant making, as well as how we choose to make our investments and redistribute our capital.

Please see the Job Pack for our behaviours and ways of working.

As we continue our transformative journey and the process of making new grants, we are excited to appoint our first Head of Programmes to join the Tudor Trust. This appointment will complete the rebuild of a new Senior Leadership Team (SLT)

You will be making an active contribution to Tudor’s strategic direction, building a culture of collaboration and strong leadership within the SLT and across the wider team. You will be pro-active in your delivery and approach to our JEDIB principles. You will be able to lead a growing, high-performing and committed team of (currently four) grant and programme officers and know how to maximise on their collective knowledge and experience. You will use your willingness to learn, alongside your experience of the field to identity and build programmatic strategies and streams of work in partnership with others internally and externally.

About the role

The Head of Programmes is a new and pivotal role in leading our grant-making strategy, taking an iterative approach that is informed by our learning and commitment to systems thinking.

This role requires a facilitative leader who understands the importance of bringing out the best in your team, which is currently made up of four people and is likely to grow further. You will guide the programme team as they go deeper into developing strategic and equitable funding practices that empower communities and drive systemic change. The Head of Programmes will also act as a bridge between internal teams and external partners, understanding ways in which we can maximise on our collective knowledge to build more power-sensitive relationships between funders and grantee partners. Your leadership will help create a culture of curiosity, learning, and inclusivity, ensuring the Trust remains agile and reflective in response to the evolving needs of communities we serve.

As a member of the SLT, you will contribute to the strategic direction of the Trust, ensuring alignment between our funding practices, the change we seek, and organisational goals. You will work closely with and in collaboration with the Head of Finance & Resources and Head of People & Culture with a shared responsibility for delivering projects and embedding a coaching approach to how we empower all our staff. You will also work closely with the CEO and the Board to ensure that the grant-making aligns with the wider work, particularly as it relates to our investments.

Key Responsibilities

Grant-making rebuild

Lead the redevelopment of Tudor Trust’s grant-making strategy through a learning and iterative approach, building in more accountability to the communities we serve.
Build genuine, respectful relationships with a broad range of stakeholders, including community organisations and sector leaders, actively identifying potential partnerships and funding opportunities in ways that are collegiate and have integrity to the change we are seek.
Enable the team to flex based on their learning, identify and explore opportunities for alternative funding models, resource-sharing initiatives, and power-building approaches within the field.
Ensure that the appropriate systems and structures are in place to ensure that we are transparent in our decision making, and bold in our choices.
Work closely with others in the team to build an approach to learning that ensure that insights inform the ongoing development of our programme strategy whilst also considering how we understand and evaluate our contribution to the change we seek.
Embed Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDIB) principles at the core of funding decisions, prioritising under-resourced groups and ensuring accountability for equitable outcomes.

Facilitative leadership and line management

Cultivate a culture of accountability and collaboration, enabling team members to support and challenge one another while ensuring decisions are made collectively and processes are consistently followed.
Encourage collective decision-making, providing the team with agency and ownership while maintaining a clear focus on meeting deadlines and objectives.
Act as a conduit for learning, capturing insights from the team’s work and sharing them with the Senior Leadership Team to inform strategic discussions.
Bring an awareness of unconscious bias to leadership practices, ensuring an equitable and inclusive environment that reflects the Trust’s values.
Manage and providing leadership to the programmes team in their administration and delivery of the Trust’s funding portfolios.
Support the performance and continuing professional development of the Programme Officers, using Tudor’s emerging, people-centred approach.

Programme management and operations

Provide strategic oversight of our funding priorities and special initiatives, working closely with Programme Officers to ensure consistent, effective delivery.
Collaborate with the Systems and Database Manager to align grant-making processes with best practices, promoting efficiency and continuous improvement.
Lead the design and implementation of new initiatives and partnerships that advance Tudor’s mission and strategic objectives.

Strategy and funding policy

Support the Chief Executive to regularly review and deliver the organisation’s strategic framework, and to ensure learning is shared with trustees.
Develop a deep insight into the multiple ways in which relationships develop between funders and grant-partners to develop funding strategy and policies, in collaboration with the Chief Executive and working closely with the Programme Officers.
Proactively use the learning from our work to identify ambitious programmes of work and how these could be implemented.

Communications

Work closely with the Communications lead to ensure content and messaging for external communications (e.g. publications, website and social media) remains in line with the strategic framework and reflects its complexity and multiple facets.

Person Specification

Experience, Skills and Knowledge

Previous experience in grant-making is not essential, however you will have worked in a context and in a way that means you will have developed a deep insight into philanthropy and the power dynamics between funders and grantees.

Experience in programme management and leadership within civil society, ideally in relation to racial justice alongside social, economic or environmental justice.
A deep understanding of the challenges and experiences of people pushing for change at the grassroots, particularly those who have lived experience of racism and other forms of injustice, ideally through working directly with communities.
Ability to adapt to changing priorities and navigate complex environments, demonstrating flexibility in approach and willingness to learn and evolve.
Demonstrable experience in compliance oversight, whilst also pushing boundaries to develop highly effective justice-based work.
Relationship-building skills, with the ability to cultivate and maintain trust-based partnerships with grantees, sector leaders, and stakeholders.
Demonstrable leadership abilities, including strategic thinking, decision-making, and team management.
Project management skills, with the ability to prioritise, plan, and deliver on multiple initiatives effectively.
Communication skills, including the ability to present complex ideas clearly and influence a range of audiences.
Knowledge of policy developments and trends within the charity and grant-making sectors, and their implications for funding strategies.
Knowledge/Experience in embedding Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDIB) principles into decision-making and operational practices.

Key Attributes and Values

Willingness to understand the multiple ways in which power operates, and how we can work within a framework in which power is harnessed for social good.
Commitment to understanding better the role of philanthropy in social and racial justice.
Commitment to the importance of resourcing communities, particularly those who are racialised, that are underserved and experience marginalisation.
Commitment to systems change thinking and understanding how individual efforts contribute to broader societal transformations.

View the full Job Pack here or download below.

At Tudor Trust, we value and celebrate the differences that make us who we are. We respect the unique differences that each individual brings to the table, whether it’s age, cultural heritage, disability and mental health, ethnicity, race, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, or social background.

Tudor Trust is fully committed to equity, diversity and inclusion in our sector. We want this to be reflected in the diversity of the people who work for us and we are particularly interested in applications from people from all backgrounds.

How to apply

If you would like to apply for this role, please submit a CV and response to the following questions to resources@tudortrust.org.uk

When have you applied a racial justice lens to your work at a strategic level and what were the challenges and opportunities?
How have you previously fostered a collaborative and accountable team culture? What are the unique skills and experiences that you bring to this?
Describe a time when you challenged traditional forms of grant-making or funding in any context (This could be in any context such as a grant applicant, as someone delivering on a grant funded project, as a grant maker or an advisor). What did you learn from this?

The questions can be responded to in one of four different ways: –

Written A4 (max 1000 words)
PowerPoint (No more than 3 slides)
Audio recording (No more than 5 mins)
Video Recording (No more than 5 mins)

Applications open: 3pm on Wednesday 18^th December 2024

Applications close: 3pm on Tuesday 14^th January 2025

Interview schedule

29^th & 30^th January: 1st stage interview (virtual)
5th & 6^th February: 2nd stage interview and task (in person at our office in Holland Park, London)

For a chat about the role, you can reach out directly to Priya Cinar in the Tudor Trust team.
Email: priyacinar@tudortrust.org.uk