The LEGO Foundation is a Danish corporate foundation headquartered in Billund and working globally. We passionately believe in the power of play in education and social development more broadly. Our aim is to build a future where learning through play empowers children to become creative, engaged life-long learners. Children benefit from the transformative power of learning through play to develop the social, cognitive, physical, emotional and creative skills to serve them, their communities and society throughout a lifetime.
The position
The Advocacy Lead is a newly created role that will be responsible for the LEGO Foundation’s global advocacy efforts, ensuring that the potential for play and creativity in learning and early childhood development is communicated with impact, giving children the skills they need to thrive and become lifelong learners. The role will initially develop the Foundation’s advocacy approach, before transitioning to a greater focus on developing a portfolio of investments in support of our aim to influence policy, shape dialogues and change behaviours. The Advocacy Lead will have a strong focus on working across the organisation to ensure that the advocacy framework is reinforcing the programme and research work already taking place and encouraging integration of everything the Foundation does.
Key roles and responsibilities
The Advocacy Lead is a newly created role that will be responsible for the LEGO Foundation’s global advocacy efforts, ensuring that the potential for play and creativity in learning and early childhood development is communicated with impact, giving children the skills they need to thrive and become lifelong learners. The role will initially develop the Foundation’s advocacy approach, before transitioning to a greater focus on developing a portfolio of investments in support of our aim to influence policy, shape dialogues and change behaviours. The Advocacy Lead will have a strong focus on working across the organisation to ensure that the advocacy framework is reinforcing the programme and research work already taking place and encouraging integration of everything the Foundation does.
Key competencies and skills
Education, Skills and Experience
- Educated to Masters Level or equivalent in a relevant specialism – such as education, politics, ECD, public health or international development
- Significant experience of successful international advocacy, experience in programme design.
- Significant experience in education, ECD, or skills policy, ideally with a focus on the Global South.
- Experience of working within government systems and/ or experience of influencing government agencies, private sector organizations or NGOs
- Knowledge of the evidence bases pertaining to portfolio development and implementation in education/ECD/ skills
- Ability to speak and write articulately about programmes for children, and gain credibility with a variety of audiences
- Excellent partnership/stakeholder management skills – must be able to work across teams and formal accountability lines within and outside of the Foundation
- Strong working knowledge of impact measurement in advocacy, and programme monitoring, evaluation and learning
- Demonstrable track record of partnering effectively with other high level stakeholders
Attributes and Capabilities:
- A self-starter, with resilience, pace and flexibility
- A collaborator who enjoys working with a wide range of people and across cultures
- An innovative thinker with a pragmatic and solution oriented mind-set
- Belief in the importance of evidence-based decision making
- A persuasive communicator with excellent verbal and written English
- An appetite for risk and ability to learn from what doesn’t work
- Willingness to travel c. one trip/month – often long-haul.
- Able to relocate to Billund, Denmark