CEO Recruitment Information Sessions

Over the last couple of weeks, our current CEO and trustee board held information sessions as part of our CEO recruitment process, and we also took in questions over email from candidates that couldn’t attend the online events. All the information shared with candidates is included below, as part of our commitment to running an open and inclusive process.

About the CEO role

What’s the most essential thing for this role?

The most essential thing for this role is to bring the energy, hope and a sense of possibility to make Oxford better for everyone.

Because Oxford Hub is not a service-led charity, it means that a lot of our work is based on community needs and opportunities for action. You will need to quickly build relationships and connections within the city and across the team to build and maintain momentum for our community volunteering and community development work.

The new CEO will lead on finding opportunities to make a difference, secure funding to support these, and work with the team and partners to get things done. In this role, you need to be positive, creative and have the ability to make things happen even when everyone around us is not sure that it would be possible.

As an organisation, we are in a good position to take risks compared to others in the system — we have a good amount of independent funding, we are not delivering statutory services, we have a strong team, there’s a brilliant network of partners and volunteers to work with, and our smaller size means we can test and learn (and sometimes fail!) more easily.

The new CEO needs to be able to hold uncertainty really well, be able to help others in the team hold that uncertainty and set up ways of working that support this agile culture.

What is the current split of time / focus for the current CEO, and how is time split across the offices?

It varies hugely week-to-week and depends on what is going on internally in the organisation (e.g. if we have any staff changes or recruitment) and what is going on externally in the organisation (e.g. time around the Marmalade festival).

For the current CEO, there are three main areas:

• Some work is internally focused on CEO and organisational matters: this can include things such as working with trustees, supporting fundraising, safeguarding or managing digital improvements.
• Other time is spent in direct work on the frontline, with members of the team, delivering training, attending events or supporting colleagues who are exploring new projects or doing improvement work.
• Finally, some time is fully externally facing, working with partners in statutory agencies or local organisations, ensuring there is appropriate connectivity and collaboration for the work that we do across Oxford, and advancing work that is important for the city as a whole.

This role is an in-person role, and the current CEO splits time across both offices but also attends lots of meetings with partners across the community. Sometimes there is work from home time if there are online meetings, but this tends to be the minority of the time.

What would success look like in six months’ time in this role?

We would expect and encourage the new CEO to bring their own experience and perspectives and to work with the board in setting objectives for the short-, mid- and longer-term. From her perspective, the outgoing CEO considers three main areas of focus in the coming months:

1. Building energy and momentum. A lot of the work of the outgoing CEO has focused on building energy to develop opportunities to make a difference in the city across our community development and volunteering programmes. It will be important to make sure that the team internally feels settled after the changes in leadership, and that they can contribute to the collective mission of the charity and help advance the work. During this time, it will also be important to quickly establish the necessary external relationships to deliver our work across the city.

2. Continuing to develop the work. We work across volunteering and community development. In volunteering, things have changed a lot post-pandemic, and we need to continue to find different ways of encouraging residents and students to connect to the city through social action opportunities. We know people have struggled to fit volunteering in their lives after the pandemic, but we need to continue to be creative about how we approach and motivate people to get involved in this area of work. Within community development, we have a diverse team who runs a huge range of activities across OX4. The diversity of the team brings complexity around supporting colleagues in their day-to-day work and personal development, to make sure that everyone has all they need to do their best. It will be necessary to work closely with the Head of Community Development in this area.

3. Medium-term funding. It is likely to be important to work with the team and current funders to make a medium-term fundraising strategy that responds to the changing landscape. We have some long-term funders and are in the fortunate position of having high reserves, but like most charities, we do a lot of fundraising year on year, and strengthening the medium-term funding position will be important.

What are the biggest challenges likely to be in the role?

Things are difficult in the world at the moment, with the cost of living crisis pressures exacerbating inequality across Oxford city. The person who takes on this role needs to hold collective hope and a sense of possibility and be able to inspire others to take action, even when things are hard.

What is the best thing about the role?

For the outgoing CEO, it is definitely the team and the network of partners that Oxford Hub works with on a daily basis — it’s a real privilege to work alongside people who are committed to shaping a better future for Oxford, challenging inequality, and living their values at work.

About Oxford Hub activities

Where can I find the latest Oxford Hub strategy?

Oxford Hub is working towards three key objectives to build an Oxford that is better for everyone: thriving individuals, community participation, systemic change. We do this by focusing on two core activities: community volunteering and community development. Our achievement towards these objectives are showcased in our latest Annual Review, alongside the outcomes that we are seeking to achieve.

What was the effect of the pandemic on connecting with wider communities?

Our pandemic response as Oxford Together, in partnership with Old Fire Station, City Council and others gave us a really brilliant opportunity to consolidate our purpose and identity as a place-based charity (rather than a student-led charity). We span out of Student Hubs in 2018, but during 2020 more and more residents became aware of our work in communities.

Our activities during the pandemic were not all ‘new’ work — we had been building our skills in volunteering and infrastructure over the previous 10+ years, which meant that we were well-placed to respond quickly in an emergency. It was a fantastic opportunity to widen our reach, and bring lots of different groups together under a common objective to support the city. This strengthened our relationship with individuals, community groups and other partners, and showed what was possible to achieve in deep collaboration.

The most important thing to highlight from the pandemic work is not the specific increase in reaching new communities, but the ability that the organisation had to respond quickly, being creative, agile, open and collaborative. The new CEO may wish to consolidate and further cultivate this approach for the future, seeking to implement ways of working and funding partnerships that support this approach.

Do you get many safeguarding cases?

On average we get two concerns per month, which are dealt with by the relevant programme manager, with support from the wider safeguarding team or partners. Our programmes are run in partnership with other charities and agencies, which means we don’t have a lot of safeguarding concerns that we hold as an organisation on our own. For example, any concerns about children on Big Brothers Big Sisters are directly passed on to their social worker; for issues arising within our social prescribing activity, safeguarding concerns are dealt with in partnership with our NHS colleagues.

Funding and Fundraising

Where does Oxford Hub’s funding come from

Our funding is very diverse — you can check the Charity Commission for more details. We work together closely with the University of Oxford, which contributes towards our volunteer infrastructure. There are lots of trust and foundation partners who also support our work in communities, some of them through significant multi-year grants. We receive some funding from statutory partners, some focused on ongoing delivery, such as social prescribing in OX4, but mostly based on making a difference when opportunities arise. We have a small but lovely supportive community of individual donors who donate regularly, and that’s something that we could grow in the longer-term, as part of making Oxford Hub more collectively owned by the community.

Is the CEO responsible for fundraising?

This is done in partnership with the Deputy CEO and the Head of Impact and Fundraising. Some of our funding relationships sit with the CEO, and the person in this role will often be connecting with partners to find opportunities for work and funding.

Board support and Role structure

How does the board work at Oxford Hub?

In practical terms, the board meets six times per year, and there is a smaller finance committee which meets regularly following the quarterly financial reporting schedule. There are additional meetings and working groups for specific tasks, for example, there are some trustees leading CEO recruitment, and others leading trustee induction.

We have recently appointed four new trustees to the board, and they bring new skills and perspectives to the sector. This includes people who have experience of governance, some of our partnership activities and volunteering in Oxford.

The board and the staff team work together as one team, and we strive to have a partnership approach in all the work. As part of this, we want to ensure there is connectivity across trustees and different members of the team while being considerate of trustees’ volunteer roles and the time they have available. With new trustees and a new CEO coming on board, there will be opportunities to strengthen this approach and find more opportunities to connect as one team.

Could I do this role 0.8 FTE?

Yes — in fact, the outgoing CEO used to do this role for 0.8 FTE for a long time, which enabled her to pursue other national consultancy roles and study opportunities. This was really beneficial for the organisation to bring in different networks and ideas into the team. We are very happy to discuss a 0.8 FTE role for the right candidate to accommodate other interests or caring responsibilities.

Thinking about the Co-CEO approach, are there thoughts on how the work could be allocated or could this be decided by the CEO’s based on strengths/ expertise?

The idea of a formal co-leadership role is new to the organisation, and so we expect this will be a conversation during the interview and recruitment process. We know that co-leadership roles are increasingly common in the sector, and support the sector to be more inclusive. If you are applying as a pair, we are open to hearing your initial thoughts on how you would like to split the role that has been outlined in the role description, and any thoughts regarding the practicalities of managing the role on a day-to-day basis. In cases where two individuals wish to apply as joint applicants, we would expect to receive one jointly authored cover letter (which may be longer than the maximum two pages prescribed for individual applicants) along with two CVs (one from each applicant).

What does the handover and induction support look like for the new CEO?

Although the outgoing CEO will not be in place by the time that the new CEO is appointed, the board will support interim arrangements during the transition period, and support the new CEO to get started when they are in post.

What would the line management/supervision of the CEOs look like?

Our outgoing CEO meets fortnightly with the Chair of trustees to discuss workload, challenges, partnerships and any aspects of the work that also need to be shared more widely with the rest of the board of trustees.

In addition to this line management support, there are a number of peer support spaces, particularly as part of the Marmalade Core group when it comes to discussing city-wide work, and the charity leaders forum where local CEOs meet to share and discuss joint challenges.

We encourage the new CEO to discuss professional development opportunities, training needs and any other support with the Chair of trustees, both on appointment and at any subsequent time.