The purpose of this Contract Notice is to alert potential suppliers to an opportunity. This notice seeks proposals for the provision of grantmaking strategic advisory services for National Citizen Service Trust (the “Authority”). This is the first time that the Authority is grant-funding the delivery of experiences for young people and forms a major part of the organisation’s strategy to work more closely with the youth sector and deliver impact with young people across England. The strategic adviser will support the Authority with expert advice on how to design its grants and where to upskill and build capacity as a grantmaker. In addition, they will also be engaging directly with and promoting opportunities to the youth sector.

Context:

The Authority’s vision is of a country of connected, confident, and caring citizens where everyone feels at home. For over a decade, and for around three quarters of a million young people, the Authority has already had an incredible impact.

The Authority has defined a new strategy that includes giving young people the choice and flexibility in how they experience the Authority. A network of partners will be commissioned to deliver a range of experiences services for young people – including residential experiences as well as community-based programmes closer to home.

Over the past 12 years of commissioning, the Authority has learnt a lot about what approaches work for the youth sector, and what drives impact for young people. the Authority will therefore be grant-funding our community-based experiences.

Given this is new activity for the organisation, the Authority is procuring a strategic adviser to support its grantmaking activities, to help ensure the greatest chance of success.

A detailed Scope of Requirements is provided within the Invitation to Tender but in summary the Authority intends to put in place Contracts for the provision of grantmaking strategic advisory services.

The Authority is looking for the support of a strategic adviser in the following areas:

1. Design and development:

●Advising on the overall structure of the grant scheme.

●Advising on the structure of individual grants.

●Advising on appropriate grant assessment criteria.

2. Market engagement and promotion of grant opportunities:

●Advising the Authority on the development of an accessible and engaging process for both market engagement and grant application.

●Supporting the delivery of in person and/or virtual market engagement sessions alongside the Authority.

●Actively promoting grant opportunities within their networks and supporting applications.

3. Application assessment:

●Supporting the Authority to conduct the application assessment.

4. General advice and support:

●Providing expert advice to the Authority to ensure that grantmaking activities meet its objectives and are appropriate for the sector

●Providing advice and support to the Authority on securing match funding