Guardian UK Jobs – Fundraising Director

About the job

ECONOMIST EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION

We’re a small, creative and fast-growing independent charity. We were established inside The Economist in 2012, and we’ve developed an innovative educational programme that makes a real difference to children’s thinking and communication skills. We enable disadvantaged 9- to 14-year-olds to join inspiring discussions about the news that teach them to think critically, communicate effectively and understand the world.

We have ambitious plans to scale up globally, and we’re looking for a brilliant, entrepreneurial fundraiser who is excited to play a lead role in making this happen. You could have a charity, public or private-sector background.

This is a new role, as our Chief Executive, Emily, currently leads on fundraising. You will take on responsibility for growing our income, including generating new leads and doing the hands-on work of designing the right partnerships with companies, preparing compelling applications to trusts and foundations and implementing new fundraising initiatives. You will line-manage a talented partnerships manager and have the opportunity to build a fundraising team as you grow our income. You’ll join a supportive, highly-committed team of 12 as a senior leader, working closely with Emily, with scope to make the role your own and shape the future of the charity.

We raised around £600,000 last year and our plans require us to at least double this over the coming four years. There are promising new fundraising ideas that we are yet to explore, and you’ll be able to draw on unique strengths including one of the world’s top media brands and our track record building multi-year partnerships with leading trusts, foundations and companies.

In the past year, we’ve grown our programme from reaching a few hundred UK teachers to over 4,000 teachers and 100,000 children in 111 countries. We’ve expanded our team and we’re launching new initiatives to extend the ways we train, support and collaborate with teachers. We’re committed to significant growth in America and we are piloting in-person work with a school district in Atlanta.

This is just the beginning of our journey. If you are passionate about changing outcomes for disadvantaged children, looking for an opportunity to make a big impact and ready for a challenge, then we would love to hear from you.

About Us

We empower disadvantaged children with the thinking and communication skills they need to thrive in our world of complex socioeconomic and environmental challenges, misinformation and polarisation. We do this by collaborating with inspiring teachers who are committed to overcoming barriers to equip their students with skills for future work and citizenship in the modern world.

Our programme: We provide world-class teaching resources for classroom discussions about global news stories, and twice a year we run Topical Talk Festival: the world’s biggest news festival for young people. Children join international discussions with each other and global topic experts online, and build towards publishing their opinions in writing, audio journalism and film for the chance to win awards.

Our impact: The children we reach make significant additional progress in creativity, problem-solving, listening with and open mind and speaking with confidence; skills associated with better outcomes from higher wages to improved wellbeing. They learn to apply these skills to engage with the issues shaping their lives and communities. We rigorously measure our impact and we’re continuously learning.

OPPORTUNITIES WE CAN OFFER YOU

• Take on a senior leadership role in a high-impact social-change organisation with bold growth ambitions.
• Grow and develop along with the organisation.
• Join a friendly, driven and highly-effective team. We are deeply committed to being an inspiring, happy place to work, where we learn and achieve things together that matter. We invest in training and development and we work informally, flexibly and collaboratively. We measure our success by our impact on children and our team.
• Flexible working, with core hours from 10am to 4pm and a minimum of two days spent in the office each week.
• Build partnerships with senior people at leading global businesses by collaborating with colleagues across The Economist Group, one of the world’s premier media brands.
• Economist Group benefits including a great central-London office (The Adelphi Building near Charing Cross), private medical insurance, and training and mentoring opportunities.

Responsibilities

Hands-on doing

• Lead responsibility for achieving income growth targets.
• Design mutually-beneficial corporate partnerships and prepare, present and negotiate successful proposals for senior people at leading businesses.
• Write compelling applications to trusts and foundations to secure five and six-figure gifts.
• Generate new leads and build a healthy pipeline through networking, presenting, representing the organisation at external meetings and events, prospect research and building relationships with colleagues across The Economist Group, tapping into their world-class networks.
• Build effective relationships with funders, and internal stakeholders at The Economist Group.

Strategic And Leadership Responsibilities

• Lead on development and implementation of our fundraising strategy for ambitious, sustainable growth that supports our mission, working closely with our Chief Executive. This will include developing established streams as well as conceiving and testing new ideas.
• Line-manage our Partnerships Manager, and develop her and our partnerships programme to grow current relationships.
• Lead on budgets and financial management for fundraising. Ensure the correct allocation of funding to projects, and prepare budgets and financial updates which tell a clear story about funders’ impact.
• Work with the Chief Executive and Partnerships Manager to drive engagement with fundraising across the team.
• Work with our Operations Manager and Partnerships Manager to optimise our fundraising operations, processes and CRM.
• As we aim to expand our work in the US, the role might require some international travel. 

Required Attributes And Experience

You are…

• Inspired by our mission.
• Creative.
• A great problem-solver – you’re able to explain the reasoning behind how you approach problems.
• Bold and resilient – you’re excited by the challenge of driving our growth.
• Driven, persistent and action-oriented.
• Clear and compelling verbally and in writing – you’re able to engage people with our work and build strong relationships.
• Comfortable with ambiguity – you’re able to decide on a smart course of action and find new / your own ways of doing things.
• An insightful and empathetic listener – you can identify what people care about and tailor communications to motivate them.
• Supportive, trusting and collaborative.
• Curious and open-minded.
• Organised and able to balance short and long-term goals.

You have…

• Experience meeting and exceeding ambitious targets and driving significant fundraising growth. You’ve consistently secured, renewed and developed donations / partnerships worth at least £50,000.
• Experience designing and delivering outstanding, mutually-beneficial corporate partnerships.
• Experience preparing and managing budgets, analysing and communicating effectively with figures.
• Experience from the charity, public or private sector. You don’t necessarily need a charity background.

We’re particularly keen for you to apply if you are from a community under-represented in the charity sector or have lived experience of facing extra barriers because of your background.

If you require any adjustments for your interview, just let us know.

We also welcome you to apply if you are excited by this opportunity but don’t meet every single requirement. You might be the person who could have the biggest impact in this role, so please get in touch.