Venture and Fellowship Volunteering Opportunity at Ashoka UK
Time commitment: 3 months full time starting in July 2014
Location: Ashoka UK’s office at 15 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, London, E2 9PJ
Volunteer position – expenses covered: London Travel Card Zones 1-2 + £5 per day for lunch
About Ashoka
Ashoka is a global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs – men and women with systems changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Since 1981, we have elected over 3,000 outstanding social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 70 countries. Ashoka UK is in its seventh year of electing fellows and has currently elected 24 leading UK social entrepreneurs to the Ashoka fellowship. Please see www.uk.ashoka.org and www.ashoka.org for more details.
Role and Responsibilities
We are looking for an entrepreneurial, bright and details-oriented individual with a passion for social entrepreneurship and innovation to join our team for 3 months. The role will primarily involve working on Ashoka’s core programmes, Venture (the search and selection of leading social entrepreneurs in the UK) and Fellowship (supporting elected Fellows through connections, strategy, communications and events). The Venture process involves carrying out careful research into potential Fellows, and presenting detailed background information in a persuasive format about the strongest candidates. Fellowship activities involve organising events, logistics, building community and brokering partnerships.
The successful candidate will have experience of the citizen sector (social sector/ not-for-profits) in their extra-curricular activities, and a track record of taking initiative. The role would suit someone who is inquisitive and self-motivated, organised and details-oriented, enjoys analysing social enterprise models and is excited to build Ashoka’s community partnerships.
We expect the candidate to enthusiastically join in our core organisational activities as well. This is a great opportunity to experience working in the not-for-profit or social enterprise sectors and take on considerable responsibility.
Venture (40%):
· Carrying out research into leading social entrepreneurs in the UK
· Evaluating candidates with the Venture team and presenting research on short-listed candidates in the form of a concise ‘profile’
· Assisting the co-ordination of annual Fellow Selection Panels
· Attending networking events to raise Ashoka UK’s profile and increase the number of applications
· Meeting with leaders in the non-profit / venture philanthropy world to build our network of nominators
Fellowship (40%):
- Co-ordinating events and meetings for Ashoka Fellows and experts from the business sector
- Supporting the Fellowship Manager in programme operations and tracking
- Administrating new engagements with business experts and donors, and strengthening relationships with existing partners
Admin (20%):
- Support the UK team with database management on Salesforce
· Provide day-to-day admin support to the UK team
Required Skills and Experience
· Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
· Demonstrated track record in producing high quality written materials
· Ability to work productively, proactively and independently, on own initiative
· Excellent time management skills
· Organised and detail-oriented
· Experience in the citizen sector, either as a social entrepreneur or a volunteer, trustee etc.
How to apply
Applications for this role should be submitted by Monday 16th June 2014 exclusively through our online platform at http://bit.ly/1peIX9t. We will conduct interviews in London w/c 23rd June 2014, so please let us know if you’ll definitely not be available. For any further information, please contact Clarice Ramalho at cramalho@ashoka.org.
Please note that you must be eligible to work in the UK to apply for any paid or unpaid position at Ashoka UK.