Portfolio Manager

The Portfolio Manager plays a key role in the success of Comic Relief’s team responsible for grants that address the effects of poverty. This role is focused on food insecurity in the UK. The Portfolio Manager will hold direct responsibility for new Comic Relief grant making and ongoing grant management in the UK, ensuring excellent grant making practice. The Portfolio Manager will collaborate with other teams in the funding department and across the wider organisation to support Comic Relief’s overall objectives, including income generation. This role sits in a team that also focuses on areas such as homelessness, early childhood development, maternal and child health, and forced migration.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage new grant making, including working with colleagues to design funding opportunities, assessing funded partners, designing appropriate ongoing support mechanisms, and working with learning colleagues in the Funding Team on appropriate data collection.
• Manage assigned funding portfolios and relationships with funded partners, ensuring that the portfolio is managed in a timely and responsive way, using Comic Relief’s (CR’s) systems and processes.
• Coordinate with other colleagues across the different teams in the funding department to ensure effective and efficient ways of working, and fruitful collaboration and learning across different funded issues and areas.
• Manage all ongoing requirements, such as narrative, financial and risk reporting, collaborating across the funding team and wider Comic Relief as appropriate.
• Work with the Assurance and Finance teams to ensure ongoing compliance across the portfolio with legal requirements, our grant conditions, reporting requirements and best practice.
• Collaborate with Partnerships colleagues to manage donor reporting and other information needs for external and internal use, such as information about our funded work and our partners.

Cross organisation and sector collaboration

• Support resource mobilisation partnerships through collaborative and supportive working with Comic Relief’s communications, fundraising and partnership teams.
• Work with the Partnerships Team to support strong relationships with existing and potential co-funding partners, including corporates and/or trusts, foundations and institutions, and support proposal development, reporting and other requirements.
• Work collaboratively across CR to support storytelling around CR’s impact.
• Develop a good understanding of areas of social change within assigned funding portfolios and areas of new grant making to be able to represent Comic Relief’s funding and priorities to internal and external stakeholders.
• Contribute to internal communications regarding the work of the team and the wider Funding Team.
• Represent Comic Relief to strategic partners and co-funders, in relevant networks, and at external events.

General

• Manage the work of consultants and other contractors as required.
• Communicate in an open, honest and transparent way with funding applicants, funded partners and funding partners.
• Ensure that, when applicable, people with lived or learned experience are actively engaged with our work, contributing to the design and decision-making process of our funding portfolios.

Note

Some UK and/or international travel may be required for this role.

Person Specification

• Significant understanding/experience of the systems and structures that perpetuate social injustice and keep people trapped in poverty, including the best approaches to address them.
• Experience and knowledge of grant making and programme design, including developing, implementing and evaluating programmes, and managing grants within a donor and/or implementing organisation.
• Experience of managing restricted donor funding and supporting ongoing donor management (e.g. government funding and/or funding from other institutions, trusts foundations or corporate entities).
• Personal and effective relationship builder with high emotional intelligence to nurture trust and respect in all relationships.
• Motivation, flexibility and resilience to navigate unforeseen challenges and collaborate effectively.
• Analytical thinker with the ability to see the bigger picture and make appropriate and effective decisions.
• An understanding or lived experience of social injustice, and proven track record of working in alignment with Comic Relief’s commitment to social justice, anti-racism, diversity, inclusion and equity.
• Experience with or knowledge of decolonising philanthropy and the wider funding sector.
• Understanding of, and commitment to, the use of storytelling to engage the public in programmatic work.
• Experience of budget management.

Please note this is a 12 months fixed term contract and a hybrid role with the successful candidate working at least two days a week in our London office. Remote contracts would not be considered for this role. Comic Relief reserves the right to close the role early if a large number of applications are received.