Quality and Sustainability Manager

Title: Quality & Sustainability Manager 

Contract: Permanent, full time with flexible working options 

Location: Hybrid working, with two days/week in our London or Telford offices 

Reporting to: Partnerships & Impact Director 

Salary: £35-45k, dependent on location and experience 

Deadline: 9am on Thursday 11th May 

About In Kind Direct 

Who we are 

We are a UK charity who work with charitable organisations and companies to ensure everyone has access to the products they need to keep clean, safe and well. 

What we believe 

Everyone deserves access to life’s essentials and no usable product should go to waste. 

Our purpose  

We create powerful partnerships, enabling more communities to thrive. 

What we do  

We distribute products including personal hygiene, household, clothes, toys and technology, donated by manufacturers and retailers, to charities, community groups, food banks and schools across the UK. We are currently supporting 345,000 people each week. In 2022 we unlocked over £18m in savings into the voluntary sector. This helped charitable organisations meet the increasing need in their communities, at a time when their own resources are stretched.   

Our role 

We are a practical response to the widening gap in society. We help meet today’s need and use our insights to reduce tomorrow’s. 2023 is the third year of our ambitious five-year strategy to triple our impact by 2025. We will do this by: 

• Continuing our 25 year history of distributing products to people that need them today 
• Connecting charities, companies and other organisations to find new solutions 
• Building a strong evidence base of real-time local insight 
• Amplifying the voice of local organisations and advocating for 
• change on behalf of communities 
• Delivering targeted projects that meet the needs of those we exist to serve 

Our impact

Since being founded in 1996 by His Majesty the King, we have distributed over £317m of essential products, diverted 34,820 tonnes from waste, and supported over 12,350 charitable organisations. 

Our values 

We work with kindness, togetherness and integrity, driving innovation. 

Role summary 

Join us in a new role to develop and embed great practices across all areas of the charity’s work. We seek an experienced manager to join the Partnerships & Impact team. You will guide us on measuring and connecting our environmental and social impact, champion good governance, and be a strong project manager. You will be comfortable asking the challenging questions; focused on how we work, as well as what we do.  

This multidisciplinary role would suit someone with experience managing projects, sustainability (ESG), and compliance. Focused on building trust, you are adaptable and comfortable making recommendations. A strong administrator, you enjoy using systems to optimise workflows. You thrive on translating information into usable guidance, processes, and frameworks. A key part of this role will be building an IKD approach to projects. You will support others to work well by considering evaluation, environment and compliance in all activities. You will also manage your own portfolio of projects. 

We need someone who is always looking to the future and comfortable embedding change across teams. We want to hear from a diverse range of applicants. Even if you do not already have experience in all the areas outlined, please consider making an application. 

Main responsibilities (and approximate breakdown of role) 

Project Management                       40% 

This role will develop and support a consistent approach to project management that enables comparison on value, impact, and risk. You will also manage a portfolio of discrete projects, provisionally being: 

• Volunteering: piloting a technical solution to meet corporate and network partner needs. 
• Partnership projects: providing a logistics and impact tracking solution to reach specific end user groups with essential products. 
• Tech for social impact: piloting solutions to distribute new and refurbished tech, meeting immediate need and reducing waste. 

Environment and impact reporting           30% 

• Lead our environmental impact monitoring and reporting, including setting meaningful carbon reduction targets, supported by the Partnerships & Impact Coordinator. 
• Deliver a framework to embed evaluation and environmental considerations to our activities, budget planning and service delivery. 
• Lead on connecting our social and environmental impact assessment, to enable us to articulate our impact and value to partners and supporters. 

Quality, governance, and compliance           30% 

• Coordinate the regular review of policies and structures e.g. SharePoint, developing our cross-organisational procedures, and with an eye on changing legislation. 
• Champion and support teams to develop high quality practices, particularly in engaging and working with the people who receive the products we distribute. 
• Support Trustees and committees to delivery timely and accurate information. 
• Work with the Partnerships & Impact Director to keep building a culture of transparency and learning, through the provision of training and guidance. 

To succeed in this role, you will be able to demonstrate:  

• Knowledge of environmental impact assessment including current trends and good practice, especially in understanding our carbon and digital footprint.  
• Understanding of impact evaluation and monitoring techniques and methodologies.  
• Effective communication, comfortable facilitating discussion and presenting to different audiences.  
• Analytical skill, able to distil datasets and concepts in engaging and concise terms. 
• Project management experience, able to prioritise and make decisions. 
• A natural curiosity, able to connect information and identify trends.  
• The ability to move between high level strategic thinking and operational detail. 
• Comfortable working with Microsoft Office 365, specific training will be provided 
• Knowledge of key compliance areas – data security, contract management or safeguarding are desirable. 
• Knowledge of working to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is desirable. 
• Experience and understanding of charity governance is desirable. 

Working at In Kind Direct  

Our team receive excellent training and development, and staff benefits including an interest free travel loan, volunteering days, 28 days holiday each year (including 3 days between Christmas and New Year, excluding public holidays) and 7% pension scheme entitlement.  

We seek to challenge discrimination and are committed to our values of kindness, togetherness, integrity, and innovation. We are on an organisational journey to achieving our EDI vision and welcome any questions about our progress and aspirations. We especially welcome applications from anyone with lived experience of being on low income or working with smaller charitable organisations. We will meet all reasonable expenses and will support anyone invited to interview to be able to participate.  

How to apply  

The deadline for applying for this role is 9am on Thursday 11th May. Please read the job description and use the email subject “Quality & Sustainability Manager.” For details of how your data as an applicant will be used and stored, please read our Privacy Policy. We ask all applicants to complete an Equal Opportunities Monitoring form, available on our website  

To apply, please send your CV, a supporting statement, and a completed Equality Monitoring Form to people@inkinddirect.org. Applications submitted without a supporting statement may not be considered. If you would like an informal conversation about the role, please contact people@inkinddirect.org. 

Provisional interview dates: first interviews 17th/18th May, second interviews 24/25th May.