Product Manager – Digital Platform

Role Overview

Student Volunteer Army connects 50,000+ young volunteers a year with 258 schools and 7 universities across Aotearoa, through a digital platform built and maintained by an external development team: a volunteer app, admin/volunteer/teacher portals, and website. We're looking for a senior product leader to volunteer their expertise and set the strategy that takes this platform into its next phase: a clear product vision, a genuine revenue model (we already generate income through sponsorship, grants, and paid services to partner organisations such as IHC), and a roadmap our small team and external developers can realistically deliver. This is a genuine strategic mandate, not an advisory checkbox. Your input will directly shape a platform used daily by tens of thousands of young people.

Key Responsibilities

• Set SVA's product vision and strategy across our volunteer app, admin/volunteer/teacher portals, and website, and translate it into a prioritised roadmap and backlog for the next 4–6 months.
• Define and help implement a revenue model for the platform. We currently monetise through sponsorship, grants, and fee-for-service arrangements with partner organisations (e.g. IHC), and want to grow this deliberately rather than opportunistically.
• Provide senior oversight of our relationship with our external development partner (an offshore development agency): reviewing scope, holding delivery to account, and helping us brief and prioritise effectively.
• Advise our small internal digital team on product practice, and mentor them toward taking on more of this work themselves over time.
• Present roadmap and strategy updates directly to our Founder/Chair and leadership team.
• 5+ years in Product Management, including time at Head of Product level, with a genuine track record of setting product strategy from scratch, not just executing an existing roadmap.
• Direct experience building or scaling a revenue/monetisation model within a digital product: subscription, licensing, partnership, or service-fee based.
• Experience managing an external development agency or outsourced development team, not only in-house engineers.
• Comfortable operating with a lean, resource-constrained (nonprofit or early-stage) budget, and turning strategy into a realistic roadmap rather than an ideal-world one.
• Strong stakeholder communication: and present clearly to a small leadership team.

Time Commitment

Flexible: to be discussed and agreed with you directly. Given the seniority this role needs, we expect this looks like a few hours a week over a defined engagement,  rather than an indefinite ongoing commitment.