Impact & Learning Lead

Are you passionate about making a difference in local communities, and helping a wide range of communities understand the difference they make? Are you rooted in impact measurement methodologies, and enthusiastic about bringing them to life with charities? Are you looking for a role that will stretch your skills?

Talbot Village Trust, one of Dorset’s largest grant giving charities, has an exciting opportunity for a new post of Impact & Learning Lead in our charity to support the design and delivery of impact measurement, both within our own organisation and with our grantees.

Job title:
Impact & Learning Lead

Job purpose:
To deepen the impact of the charity’s grant programmes for public benefit.

Reports to:
Director of Giving

Contract:
Full time

Location:
Bournemouth, Dorset

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• 29 days’ holiday entitlement.
• Hybrid, flexible working arrangements.

Talbot Village Trust is one of Dorset’s largest place-based funders. Guided by the social purpose of our founders, we support people and communities across south-east Dorset to live well. Over the past decade, we have awarded more than £10 million through over 650 grants to charities and local impact organisations operating across Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch, Purbeck, and East Dorset.

Alongside grant-making, we manage a diverse estate that includes the historic Talbot Village, residential and commercial lettings, woodland, and an urban heath.

We are now developing a long-term, evidence-informed approach to transform the Trust’s grant giving. As part of our strategic aims, we are extending a recent pilot Strategic Partnership programme, to enable the Trust to move from reactive grant giving to more sustainable, impactful grant giving that transforms the lives and opportunities for local communities in the longer term.

Our overarching ambition is to strengthen learning, insight, and impact, and this new role is central to achieving that goal.

The Impact & Learning Lead will help us understand, deepen, and communicate the difference our funding makes. You will lead on impact measurement, evaluation, and organisational learning, ensuring decisions are evidence-informed and funding delivers the greatest possible benefit. You will have experience of social value measurement and of facilitating knowledge exchange to bridge grassroots action and strategic philanthropy.

This is a new and pivotal role within the Trust, offering the opportunity to shape our approach to learning from grant-making, support grantees, and enable more effective, preventative, place-based change.

• Coordinate the design, delivery and refinement of the Trust’s impact and learning strategy.
• Translate insights from the grant giving programmes and sector research to inform strategic recommendations to the Trust’s Board.
• Work with grantees to develop practical, sustainable impact frameworks, monitoring processes and data quality.
• Lead TVT’s own impact measurement initiatives, including the use of theory of change design and other relevant tools.

• Promote our various grant programmes particularly to organisations addressing diverse community needs.
• Support the development of new initiatives and funding partnerships.
• Use data-driven approaches to identify and support high-need areas or groups.
• Contribute to events, stakeholder engagement and strategic reviews.
• Connect grantees with useful opportunities for networking, training and development.
• Support the Trust’s Philanthropy Committee and Board with evidence-based reporting.

• Facilitate and contribute to internal and external learning processes, including reflection sessions, learning events, communities of practice, and peer learning.
• Promote a culture where insights – including failures – are openly shared and used to shape future decisions.
• Commission and manage external evaluations where appropriate.
• Translate complex evidence into accessible insights for trustees, staff, and partners.

• Produce high-quality insights, reports and…