The Church of England
Grants Policy & Product Owner
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Grants Policy & Product Owner
The National Church Institutions (NCIs) operate a wide range of grant-making activities to support the work and mission of the Church of England, distributing in excess of £250 million a year to dioceses, cathedrals, parishes and other organisations across different thematic areas administered by separate grant making teams.
The NCIs have recently implemented a Grant Policy Framework and a new Grant Management System (Vera Solutions Amp Impact) to support compliant, consistent and efficient grant-making across the grants portfolio, whilst ensuring proportionality across the breadth of grant types and grantees. Considerable work has been undertaken to align NCI grant making processes around best practice standards and ‘out of the box’ system processes, and to adopt a consistent policy for grant making including a standard grant agreement. This provides a strong foundation for continuous improvement and maturing of grant making activity, with the ability to take advantage of greater system functionality and new capabilities. However, it will be important to foster alignment between grant teams and processes and to preserve the integrity of the system design in a way which is consistent with the policy framework.
The Grants Policy & Product Owner will be responsible for helping to embed new ways of working across the grant teams, ensuring consistent adoption of the system and processes, and monitoring compliance with the Grant Policy Framework. They will act as a subject matter expert to support NCI Grant Teams to ensure best practice operation of new grant processes, take advantage of new system functionality as it becomes available and to maintain, interpret and update the Grants Policy Framework as needed in accordance with legal and regulatory expectations.
This is a fixed term contract for 18 months.
Closing date - 17th July 2026
Responsibilities
This is a pan-NCI role which will report in to the NCIs’ Project Management Office, line managed by the Deputy Director (PMO), but will work collaboratively with Grants, Finance, Legal, GDPR, Risk & Assurance and other NCI teams to help support effective grant making which stewards the Church of England’s resources appropriately to help serve, support, encourage and enable the mission and ministry of the Church.
Your Main Responsibilities Will Include
Grant Policy Ownership
- Owning, interpreting, implementing and updating the Grants Policy Framework to ensure that it meets the needs of the Church, is compliant with all relevant regulations and good practice, and creates a positive experience for grantees.
- Convening, co-ordinating and working with Grant teams to ensure consistent application of the grants policy, including helping them to apply the policy accurately and consistently, including supporting its adoption for new grant initiatives as needed.
- Convening, co-ordinating and working with Legal, Risk, GDPR and Finance teams to ensure that grant making processes and policies are in line with relevant regulatory requirements, enforce appropriate control frameworks and ensure transparent evidence trails.
- Providing training and guidance to grant teams and others to build confidence and capability in the application of grant policies and processes.
- Facilitate learning and networking between NCIs grant teams on grant-making issues, and work collaboratively with grant managers to ensure the grant policy remains fit for purpose.
- Supporting due diligence, eligibility assessment, risk management and quality assurance in relation to grant making activities as required.
- Escalate matters as required to the relevant senior leaders in Finance, Legal, Data Services, Risk & Assurance, and Grant Making teams, and as needed to the Chief Operating Officer and other Chief Officers.
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Grant System Product Ownership
- Own the functional design of the Grant System including the data model and associated processes.
- Champion the use of the system and associated processes and policies across NCI Grant Making activity.
- Approve any changes to the system design, having appraised and understood user needs and technical considerations, and adhering to best practice out-of-the-box principles (i.e. adopt not adapt) and NCI grant policy.
- Keep abreast of the supplier’s product roadmap development to inform future strategy.
- Collaborate with the Grant Portal Product Owner and the Technical Systems Owner to:
- Evaluate and prioritise bug fixes, enhancement requests and new functionality available in releases (both compulsory and optional);
- Develop and manage the long-term strategy and roadmap for the system;
- Co-ordinate critical activities such as bug fixes, releases and enhancements and associated user acceptance testing and communications.
- Co-ordinate and Chair the Grant System User Group, facilitating a collaborative and consultative approach to developing the system roadmap and encouraging full adoption and compliance with the intended use of the system.
Qualifications
You will be an experienced grants professional with a strong understanding of best practice in proposal development, charity law, due diligence, financial controls, grant assessment, and monitoring, evaluation and learning. You will also be someone who is technology-confident, with experience using grant management systems, and able to implement technology-enabled processes to drive efficiency and effectiveness. Naturally collaborative, you will be able to persuade and influence others, and to build confidence and capability across our grant making teams.
You should be able to demonstrate the following skills, experience and qualifications:
- Considerable experience of grant making within a large charity or foundation;
- Experience designing or advising on grant-making processes which create a positive grantee experience and facilitate learning and impact.
- Good understanding of charity law, financial control and risk management in relation to grant making;
- Credible professional, demonstrating strong technical knowledge and an ability to authoritatively guide others, including developing capability and enforcing policy compliance;
- Collaborative approach, able to work effectively with multiple teams and colleagues, building effective relationships and carefully negotiating differences in approach and opinions;
- Experience of advising senior colleagues and supporting governance bodies through analysis and reporting;
- Experience of using and /or implementing Grant Management systems;
- Good understanding of using technology and data to drive efficiency and compliance in grant making or other processes;
- Experience of developing and implementing new technology-enabled processes, including delivering associated documentation and training;
- Excellent communication skills, written and verbal;
- Enthusiastic; able to energise others and champion ways of working; able to influence and persuade others effectively; and
- Strong organisational skills.
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About Us
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About The NCIs
The National Church Institutions comprises a wide variety of teams, professions and functions that support the mission and ministries of the Church of England in its vision to be a church, centred on Jesus Christ, for the whole nation - a church that is simpler, humbler, bolder.
We Include. You Belong.
Our Belonging and Inclusion Strategy aims for everyone in the National Church Institutions (NCIs) to feel that they belong, and are valued for who they are and what they contribute. Together, our people contribute in different ways towards our common purpose, whichever NCI they work in and whatever their background.
Living out our values in all that we do, we:
- Strive for Excellence
- Show Compassion
- Respect others
- Collaborate
- Act with Integrity
We believe our commitment to belonging and inclusion fuels our progress and drives us forward. The NCIs are a safe, inclusive workplace for people of all backgrounds and walks of life. We welcome applications from people of all faiths and of no faith. We want to encourage applications from a diverse group of people who share our values. Even if you have never thought about working for us before, if you have the skills and experience we’re looking for then we would like to hear from you.
Use of AI in your application
We appreciate that you may want to use AI tools to help you with your application. We're happy for you to use AI to come up with ideas and help structure your thoughts, but you shouldn't use AI to fabricate information or write your whole application for you. One of our values is integrity, and although we want you to demonstrate your best self, we don't want an AI-generated persona. If you simply copy and paste AI-generated content into your application, this will reduce your chances of success.
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