ecobirmingham, Closing date: 2 June 2024

Are you organised, enjoy working with community organisations and others to make a difference? ecobirmingham has been working across Birmingham to build greener, healthier, and fairer communities for many years. With the support of the National Lottery Community fund, we are scaling up our work over the next 3 years to work in depth with Allens Cross Community Association, Springfield Project, and several other community development organisations to build their capacity to support.

Job title: Project Coordinator – Sustainable Communities 

Salary or Salary Scale: £29,200 (before pro-rata)

Hours of Work: 4 days (30 hours per week). Core days in the office are Tuesday-Wednesday, and flexibility for the rest of the week.

Reports to: Head of Programmes

Supervises: Associates and Volunteers

Financial Responsibilities: Budget of 10-20K, Delegated limits up to £300.

Main purpose of the job 

To lead on the Sustainable Communities support function of ecobirmingham to help deliver:

Coordinated and multi-year support to community development organisations

Develop a directory of local sustainability organisations or individuals that can support local communities.

Deliver some aspects of sustainability support.

Success will look like developing a more coordinated approach to how we support communities by building the capacity of community organisations to deliver sustainable living support in their areas. The result will be achieving a tipping point of 25% of the households in the communities we work in adopting some form of regular sustainability action, empowering and inspiring communities, and a replicable model of working with community organisations that can be used by others across Birmingham.

Key Responsibilities

Coordinated and multi-year support to community development organisations

Support the Head of Programmes with the overall management of community support programmes. This will include organising advisory boards, regular updates to stakeholders, reporting to funders, making payments to partners and contractors.

Leading on agreeing and managing annual delivery plans with community development organisations. This will include organising other staff and contractors and partners to deliver activities such as energy audits, sustainability plans for organisations and wards, training and activities for individuals and groups.

Helping the team to identify future community development organisations for support in line with the ecobirmingham strategy and help secure funding.

Develop a directory of local sustainability organisations or individuals that can support local communities.

Using the One Planet Living® Bioregional framework to help identifying and agree what type of support community organisations need to deliver greener, healthier, and fairer outcomes.

Recruit local sustainability organisations (local charities, not-for-profits, and local small medium enterprises) and individuals (associates or volunteers), that can provide paid and unpaid support for local communities.

Help promote the directory through running network events for members around good practice topics, a focus on a particular community, or funding bid opportunities.

Annually update the directory membership to ensure quality of information and membership.

Deliver some aspects of sustainability support.

Research to support sustainability action planning for individuals, organisations, and wards.

Evaluation of projects through the collection and analysis of feedback

Contribute to the direct delivery of ecobirmingham sustainability services to empower and inspire communities, either through your existing expertise or being developed in role. We are currently lacking in house expertise around community gardening and healthy eating, but other areas could be other areas of ‘One Planet Living’ such as energy, education, sustainability action plans for individuals and organisations.

The following responsibilities are expected of all staff:

Committed to people centred solutions – recognise barriers and understand that one approach will not fit all. Working with communities, to build solutions that help each individual on the first steps of their sustainability journey. 

Ready to listen and learn – transparent and empathetic when sharing our experiences and create a welcoming space for others to share theirs. Always aim to apply our learning to improve how we work. This includes a commitment to equal opportunities, diversity and inclusion in our operations and delivery. 

Professional in our approach – use evidence, tools, and training, to develop our knowledge needed to maximise our organisation’s environmental, social and economic impact. This includes a commitment to understanding how to use our organisational systems that are required for your role, such as electronic communication and storage, data handling, project and budget management, HR system, Office and Garden systems, Health and Safety and Safeguarding.

Any special conditions: 

This role is flexible. It is office based at our centre in Northfield, however we do allow some home working to meet operational needs. The expectation of this role would be at least 2 days in the office, and the other 2 days at external meetings or working from home. The office may move to another central location in Birmingham in the next 12 months.

If we receive additional funding in the future, there is the option of extending the role in the future to 5 days a week (37.5 hours)

This role will require travel across the Birmingham area, often carrying material for events, therefore, ideally access to your own transport is required. (Travel costs will be reimbursed).

This post may occasionally require flexibility to work unsociable hours at weekends and evenings. (estimated at least 6 evenings and 6 days on a weekend over a year).

This role will occasionally involve helping the team with events involving children and vulnerable adults we work with; therefore, we will require a successful DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check. 

Along with the main duties you will also be expected to carry out any other duties reasonably asked of you.

This job description is for the stated hours. It is normal practice to review periodically job descriptions to ensure that they are relevant to the job currently being performed, and to incorporate any changes which have occurred or are being proposed. Manager and employee carry out the review process jointly and you are therefore expected to participate fully in such discussions. In all cases, it is our aim to reach agreement to reasonable changes, but where it is not possible to reach agreement, we reserve the right to make reasonable changes to your job description after consultation with you.

Application Process

You can download the job description and application form here https://ecobirmingham.com/get-involved/jobs/

Please complete and return the application form and the equalities monitoring form to [email protected] (preferred) or by post to Anne Dasgupta, ecobirmingham, 53 Church Rd, Northfield, Birmingham. B31 2LB

Please note that CVs will not be accepted.

We are keen to support applicants from diverse backgrounds and experiences. Have a look at the person specification in the job description and if you feel you meet or can demonstrate transferable skills and experience that meet most of our essential criteria, please apply. We are willing to provide training to the successful candidate. If you would like an informal chat about this role, you can email our Head of Programmes. [email protected]

Applications to be received by midnight on Sunday 2nd June 2024.

Interviews will be held in person at our offices on Monday 10th or Tuesday 11th June 2024.