Funder looking for support to develop sector leadership programme

Cranfield Trust is on the hunt for researchers to help it develop a management leadership programme for voluntary sector leaders.

The funder is aiming to make the programme available to leaders and managers in small to medium sized charities.

Issues it is looking to explore is interest among charity managers in leadership training and how a training programme can be best developed.

The Trust’s chief executive Amanda Tincknell said it is looking to launch the programme after working with charities and finding that there “is little training geared to people developing their careers in the voluntary sector, to help then develop management skills early in their careers, or to help chief executives and senior leaders in smaller charities refresh their skills or fill skills gaps”.

She added: “Most voluntary sector staff do not take a great deal of general management training and prefer training that is specifically developed for the voluntary sector market.

“Much of the specialist voluntary sector training is geared to leadership and strategy, not management, so middle managers or emerging managers do not have many specialist voluntary sector learning opportunities.

“Some of the training available is also relatively high cost for smaller charities meaning it is not affordable, even more so in the current cost of living crisis which has hit charities as hard as the rest of the country.”



Research into launching the programme is being funded by the Masonic Charitable Foundation. The Trust is looking for a contractor to develop and partner in the research project, to start in mid-April and submit their findings to the Trust in October.

The deadline for submission proposals is 20 March. For more information contact: amanda.tincknell@cranfieldtrust.org.

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