THE CHARITY FOOTBALL LEAGUE IN BRIEF

JOB DESCRIPTION

The CFL (www.charityfootballleague.co.uk) runs six- and eight-a-side football leagues in Oxford, with 100% of its profits going to local children’s charity Jacari (www.jacari.org) which owns the CFL.

Each year, the CFL has 16-30 teams and over 150 players who play regularly. The ethos of the football league is competitive but friendly and fun, and we like to get to know our players and teams well. This makes for a unique atmosphere which is different from other commercial football leagues. We have a board of five Directors bringing significant experience from the worlds of business, technology, education and social enterprise, a team of FA qualified referees and volunteers who help to support the football league.

The new Entrepreneur in Residence will recruit, train and support a team of volunteers to run each league. He/she will be responsible for supporting with the marketing of each league, and its administration, with volunteers running each game night. It is envisaged that each league will become eventually self-sufficient, run by its own team of volunteers and supported by the Entrepreneur in Residence.

This structure will allow the CFL to grow within Oxford and Oxfordshire, and will be a model which can be replicated around the country to franchise to other small charities who can use it to generate funds for their good causes. The Entrepreneur in Residence will play a leading role in executing these expansion and franchising plans, driving business growth and hence kick starting sustainable opportunities for individuals and groups to play football with a purpose beyond Oxford.

We are particularly looking for a self-starter, someone who with the support of the board of Directors can grasp the challenge and drive CFL forwards. The successful candidate will have a track record of having shown initiative, perhaps having set up their own project in the past or having played a key leadership role in a particular project. They will be energetic, driven and determined to play an entrepreneurial part in shaping a venture that has the potential to generate huge impact for charities.

The Entrepreneur in Residence will need excellent interpersonal skills, being able to recruit, train, support and inspire each team of volunteers. They will also need strong partnership building skills, as they network to forge relationships with venues, sponsors, franchisees and potential supporters. They must also be willing to get their hands dirty, to book pitches, buy equipment and to fill in on game nights or administrative duties when volunteers have to withdraw, often at short notice. As such, they need to be flexible and have good organisational and administrative skills and event management skills.

As the key person driving the league forwards, the Entrepreneur in Residence needs marketing and PR skills, being the face of the CFL, being willing and able to broadcast and promote the league publicly to attract new teams, sponsors and players via a variety of channels.

The Entrepreneur in Residence also needs a commercial brain, being willing to sell and understand the financial models behind the football league. They will oversee the management of the CFL finances. They will also play an important part in supporting the board in thinking about the strategic long-term future of the CFL.

The CFL has come a long way in three years. We now need an entrepreneurial self-starter to embrace a leadership role in driving the league forwards and to take the social enterprise to the next level.

This is an outline job description and should not be regarded as an inflexible specification. Responsibilities will be reviewed periodically in line with service priorities and duties may change or new duties be introduced after consultation with the post holder. As a term of your employment you may be required to undertake such other duties and/or hours of work as may reasonably be required, and be willing to work during the evenings when needed on game nights.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Experience

Essential

• Experience of initiating or leading a successful project over a period of time
• Experience of project management
• Experience of working, or building good relationships, with partners
• Experience of customer relations

Desirable

• Business experience
• Voluntary experience
• Experience of dealing with a volume of administrative tasks
• Experience of working with, enthusing and engaging volunteers
• Experience of liaising with senior management (e.g.: board of Directors)

Qualifications

Desirable

• Full, clean driving license, and a willingness to drive
• Basic computing qualifications
• First aid qualification

Skills

Essential

• Excellent communication skills
• Confidence and good presentation skills, being happy to talk about CFL at public events
• People management skills
• Marketing and PR skills
• Event management skills
• Administrative skills, with strong attention to detail
• A knowledge of Word, Excel Spreadsheets and email

Desirable

• Finance management skills
• Internet and website technology skills (including a knowledge of WordPress)

Knowledge

Desirable

• Interest in and passion for football
• Understanding of social enterprise

Dispositions

Essential

• A self-starter, being willing to take on the responsibility to drive the league forwards
• Happy working independently
• Passionate and enthusiastic about the opportunity to improve and grow the CFL, and about the impact CFL has on Jacari, players and supporters
• Creative, with the willingness to think outside the box, implement new ideas and deal with difficult situations and persons when they arise
• Able to portray a positive image as the public face of the CFL
• Of responsible disposition, dedicated, organised, able to prioritise own work and have a professional attitude
• Willing to work to a work plan agreed with the board
• Approachable, responsive and helpful manner, and an open, facilitative, involving style
• Of friendly nature, with a sense of humour!
• Able to work under pressure
• Flexible and capable of using initiative, tact and discretion

Jacari, founded in 1956, is a fantastic charity which supports children in Oxford who don’t speak English as their first language. Despite the on-the-face-of-it affluence which many people associate with Oxford, there are great pockets of deprivation. Oxford has large numbers of children who struggle to learn, speak and understand English, hindering their integration into school and society. Jacari helps to solve this by matching up these children with personal private tutors. The tutors are volunteers recruited from the universities in Oxford, who visit the children in their homes once a week to teach English. The CFL has raised £20,000 for Jacari since starting in early 2012, and our ambition is that the Entrepreneur in Residence will oversee the expansion of the football league to cover all of Jacari’s annual running costs.