Quality and Impact Manager

Job Description

The Quality and Impact Manager will help Future Projects turn good ideas and funding into services that change lives. By strengthening project management, quality, data and impact systems across the charity, the postholder will help teams deliver ambitious, well-run charitable services that respond to local need, tackle poverty and disadvantage, and use resources wisely.

Working alongside Department Heads, service and project leads, they will help established services and time-limited projects mobilise confidently, sustain quality and outcomes, adapt when needs change, and transition or close responsibly. They will combine practical support with independent oversight of progress, risk, compliance, impact and the effective use of resources, stepping in early when extra capacity, challenge or direction is needed.

They will also lead CRM, monitoring, evaluation and reporting arrangements and act as the organisation's Data Protection Lead. By helping us use information responsibly, understand what is changing for the people and communities we serve, and tell the story of our impact, they will drive continuous improvement and help shape stronger, more sustainable and strategic services.

Context

Future Projects provides a broad range of services and support across food and essentials, community support, health and wellbeing, employment, education, learning and skills, and community connection through Future Support, Future Education and Future Radio.

This includes established services alongside time-limited, contracted and grant-funded work. Each is different, but all aim to help people build stronger, safer and more hopeful futures. As we grow, we need proportionate systems that protect quality, sustainability and accountability without limiting creativity, responsiveness or trusted relationships.

This charity-wide role sits within the charity's Core Team and is managed by the Funding and Development Manager. It works closely with Department Heads and service leads, team leads, Finance and senior leaders.

It is a practical, collaborative improvement role, working alongside accountable leads rather than managing their teams or delivery: bringing clarity to complexity, supporting sustainability, setting high but achievable standards, enabling colleagues to succeed and intervening constructively when additional support is needed.

Key Deliverables

• Service Planning, Mobilisation and Sustainability
• Quality Assurance, Performance and Continuous Improvement
• Funding, Resource and Compliance Assurance
• Data Protection, CRM, Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact
• Evidence, Insight and Organisational Capability

Person Specification

You will be someone who enjoys bringing clarity to complexity and helping good people do their best work.

A strong and self-directed quality and improvement professional, you will combine strong project-management skills, rigorous organisation and analytical thinking with warmth, curiosity and the ability to motivate, support and constructively challenge others.

You will move confidently between strategic aims, operational detail and data, while never losing sight of the people, communities and stories behind the numbers.

Credible with frontline teams, Department Heads, service leads, funders and senior leaders, you will build trust and use evidence to strengthen services without creating unnecessary process.

Essential Criteria

• Experience supporting services, projects or programmes across the lifecycle, including planning, mobilisation, risk management, review, transition and closure.
• Strong organisation and prioritisation skills, with the ability to maintain oversight of multiple services, time-limited projects, deadlines, dependencies and reporting requirements.
• Experience of quality assurance, performance management and continuous improvement, including identifying underperformance and supporting effective recovery and sustained improvement.
• Strong monitoring, evaluation and data-analysis skills, including the use of quantitative and qualitative evidence to understand outputs, outcomes, impact, trends and risk.
• Experience of CRM, case-management or reporting systems, improving data quality and helping colleagues use systems consistently and confidently.
• Experience of funded or contracted services, including interpreting requirements, maintaining evidence, reporting accurately and supporting budget and spend monitoring alongside Finance and accountable leads.
• Ability to translate organisational strategy, charitable aims and funding commitments into practical plans, measures and improvement action.
• Excellent communication, influencing and relationship-management skills, including producing concise reports and constructively supporting, coaching and challenging colleagues while maintaining trust.
• Good working knowledge of UK data-protection requirements and the confidence to act as the organisation's Data Protection Lead, alongside sound awareness of wider charity compliance responsibilities.
• A proactive, solution-focused and resilient approach, with sound judgement, attention to detail, the ability to work independently and collaboratively, and a clear commitment to Future Projects' mission.

Strong Applications Will Evidence the Following

• A recognised project-management qualification, such as PRINCE2, APM or equivalent, or willingness to work towards one; training may be provided.
• Experience in the charity, voluntary, public-service or social-enterprise sector, particularly across community support, education, employment, health or related services.
• Experience of theory of change, logic models, impact measurement, dashboards, funding bids, impact reports or evidence-led communications.
• Experience supporting organisational change, system implementation or cross-team improvement work.

About Future Projects

Future Projects is a charity founded in 2000 by two volunteers who had become increasingly frustrated by the social exclusion, poverty and lack of support available in their local community.

They recognised that the issues people faced on their Norwich housing estate one of the most deprived in the UK could not be resolved by addressing one problem at a time in isolation.

They worked with the local community to understand its needs and ambitions and developed projects in youth work, education, media and advice.

Today, we help people in difficult situations build on their strengths and capabilities and develop the skills, confidence and resilience to take control and transform their lives.

We do this through practical support and opportunities spanning food and essentials, community support, health and wellbeing, employment, education, learning and skills, and community connection, voice and belonging.

Our current projects and services are organised in three distinct departments:

• Future Support
• Future Education
• Future Radio

Detailed Duties and ResponsibilitiesKey Deliverable 1: Service Planning, Mobilisation and Sustainability

Purpose: Support established services and time-limited projects to plan well, start strongly, remain sustainable and adapt confidently, with responsible transition, closure and legacy arrangements where needed.

• Lead and continually improve proportionate service and project initiation and planning arrangements, ensuring clear purpose, outcomes, governance, ownership, delivery model, milestones, resources, risks and reporting.
• Work with Department Heads, service and project leads and team leads to develop practical plans, mobilisation schedules, sustainability actions, dependencies, readiness checks and launch arrangements.
• Coordinate or support agreed mobilisation and change activity across staffing, partnerships, systems, premises, procurement, communications, compliance and operational handover.
• Maintain an accessible organisational view of key services and time-limited projects, milestones, risks, decisions and dependencies so leadership can prioritise support and intervene early.
• Support sustainability, variations, extensions, transitions, closure and legacy planning, ensuring commitments are completed, evidence and learning are retained, and responsibilities are handed over clearly.

Key Deliverable 2: Quality Assurance, Performance and Continuous Improvement

Purpose: Help teams deliver work they are proud of and keep improving, combining objective oversight, practical support and constructive challenge so that quality is sustained and problems are addressed early.

• Develop and maintain proportionate service and project-management, quality-assurance and continuous-improvement standards, tools and review arrangements that are useful to leads and appropriate to the scale and risk of the work.
• Monitor progress against plans, milestones, KPIs, outputs, outcomes, service standards and other contractual or internal deliverables, using reviews, sampling, audits and direct engagement with teams.
• Identify gaps, slippage, non-compliance or emerging risks early; agree clear improvement or recovery plans, track actions and escalate material concerns promptly.
• Provide additional planning and improvement capacity, problem-solving, coaching and constructive challenge where accountable leads need support, while strengthening their ownership and capability rather than creating dependency.
• Use feedback, complaints, incidents, safeguarding learning, staff insight and participant or stakeholder experience to identify, test, embed and sustain improvements and share learning across the charity.
• Prepare concise service and project-performance reports, dashboards and briefings for the Core Team, leadership, trustees, funders and stakeholders as required.

Key Deliverable 3: Funding, Resource and Compliance Assurance

Purpose: Protect the trust placed in Future Projects by helping funded services and time-limited projects remain compliant, well evidenced, sustainable and on track, with early action where risks or pressures emerge.

• Work with the Funding Manager, Finance team, Department Heads and service or project leads to interpret funding or contract requirements and convert them into clear delivery, evidence, monitoring and reporting arrangements.
• Lead or coordinate monitoring and reporting cycles, maintaining a forward calendar of deadlines, evidence requirements, claims, reviews and submissions and quality-assuring information before it is issued.
• Support Finance and accountable leads to review spend against budgets, forecasts and funding conditions; highlight variances, pressures or inefficient resource use early and help agree action to keep delivery on track, without replacing their financial accountability.
• Support accountable leads to maintain complete, accurate and auditable records and respond effectively to funder reviews, audits, due-diligence requests or performance meetings.
• Ensure service and project planning addresses relevant legal, regulatory, contractual and best-practice requirements including health and safety, safeguarding, data protection, equality, employment and partnership responsibilities with the appropriate organisational leads or specialist advisers.
• Escalate significant resource, delivery or compliance concerns early and support proportionate corrective action, contingency planning or formal change control.

Key Deliverable 4: Data Protection, CRM, Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact

Purpose: Turn information into understanding, helping the charity improve delivery, protect the rights and trust of people whose data we hold and demonstrate its contribution to its mission, strategic aims and charitable objects.

• Lead the design, implementation and continuous improvement of CRM, data-capture, output, outcome and impact-monitoring arrangements across the charity's services.
• Agree clear definitions, measures, responsibilities and data standards, ensuring information collected is proportionate, useful, accessible and aligned with service, funding and organisational priorities.
• Support and train staff to complete data requirements accurately and on time; undertake data-quality reviews, resolve recurring problems and strengthen confidence in systems and reporting.
• Collate, analyse and present internal data and metrics, identifying trends, disparities, emerging needs, risks and opportunities and helping leaders turn insight into service improvement and stronger planning.
• Design or support evaluations of services and time-limited projects, combining quantitative evidence with participant voice, stakeholder feedback, case studies and stories so performance is understood in human terms and impact is communicated honestly and powerfully.
• Provide verified evidence and insight for funder reports, annual reports, impact reports, trustee reporting, the website and other external communications, working with relevant colleagues to protect confidentiality and secure informed consent.
• Act as the organisation's Data Protection Lead, promoting lawful, ethical and secure use of personal data; advising colleagues and senior leaders; maintaining oversight of policies, records, access, retention and data protection impact assessments; coordinating training, audits and breach response; and acting as the main contact for data-protection matters and the ICO.

Key Deliverable 5: Evidence, Insight and Organisational Capability

Purpose: Connect frontline experience, external evidence and strategic priorities so that the charity keeps learning, strengthens the sustainability of its services and makes confident, well-evidenced decisions.

• Support the Funding Manager and service leads with data, needs evidence, evaluation findings, service design, outcome frameworks and contributions to funding bids or applications.
• Maintain an informed understanding of relevant external data, research, policy, local need and sector trends and share concise insight with funding, leadership and delivery colleagues.
• Bring together learning across established services and time-limited projects, identifying common themes, effective practice, gaps and opportunities for improvement, collaboration, sustainability or