Fundraising Manager

About Home-Start:

We are a community-based charity with 30 years’ experience of supporting local families with children under the age of 5. We offer our combination of home-visiting, counselling and group support to families across Watford, Three Rivers and Hertsmere districts. By offering parents the support and guidance they need when their children are young, we can prevent crisis and ensure children have the best possible start in life. We tailor support to the needs of each family, supporting them to identify and tackle their most pressing needs. Our practical support ensures children have a safer, more stable home environment; our ethos of building family resilience ensures parents are better equipped to cope with adverse circumstances; and our focus on promoting a more secure parent-child attachment ensures parents can identify the kind of support their children need to thrive.
 

Working closely with colleagues from across the organisation and our contacts within the community, the successful applicant will support the external communications of the charity, helping to extend the reach of the charity. Raising awareness, developing donor and supporter relationships, working with the Directors to identify and develop funding streams.

The role:
As a Community Engagement and Fundraising Officer, you will play a vital role in helping our charity manage and develop relationships with our donors, supporters and our existing key relationships, whilst identifying and creating new relationships in our local areas to garner support and promote our services.

• You will be responsible for delivering activity to maximise fundraising from our community, including schools, individuals, local businesses and community groups. You will proactively recruit, grow and nurture supporters, empowering them to manage their own fundraising activities.
• You will manage our annual challenge event programme from supporter engagement, assisting fundraisers journey and utilising tools to maximise supporter’s impact.
• Crucial to your role will be building strong and lasting relationships with supporters, colleagues and volunteers, positively engaging with members of the public and maximising all fundraising opportunities.

What you’ll do:Principle duties and responsibilities

• Take responsibility for the delivery of effective Community Engagement and Fundraising.
• Actively promote all aspects of Home-Start Watford, Three Rivers and Hertsmere to local businesses, schools, community organisations, volunteer groups, and individuals.
• Motivate and influence supporters to independently manage their own fundraising activities, with your support, being the main contact for supporters.
• Work closely the Business Support Officer to manage and create social media content to promote fundraising activities, relationships with supporters and the relationships you build in the community.
• Prepare and deliver individualised communications, presentations and assemblies for a diverse range of audiences.
• Attend and run activities at a variety of community events when required, to ensure a strong presence from Home-Start Watford, Three Rivers and Hertsmere in the communities where we support.
• Identify and implement new fundraising opportunities and initiatives.
• Work closely with the other Community engagement and fundraisers, building on local knowledge, sharing best practice and creating a peer circle of support, including peers from HSUK our parent company.
• Act as an advocate within the community. Uphold our values, and communicate with enthusiasm, credibility, conviction and knowledge.
• This role will require occasional weekend and evening working.
• Keep up to date with all fundraising legal implications.
• You will be responsible for creating our quarterly newsletter, working with the rest of the team, to engage with our supporters.
• Create Bi-monthly board reports on the growth of community engagement, communications and fundraising, which will go directly to the trustee board. Occasional attendance at board, building a relationship with a trustee identified to manage fundraising.
• Annually, you will lead on the creation of the annual report and social impact reporting working across the team.
• Creating strong relationships with local magazines and identifying and managing news tools to ensure that we are sharing our successes and informing our audiences of our services. Occasionally creating press releases for campaigns and building a network of people to help share our news as far and wide as possible.
• You will also be involved in the updating of our website, working with the Business Support Officer and volunteers to ensure our website remains the best tool to advertise what we do.
• Creating and nurturing a small group of fundraising support volunteers to help facilitate events and share our story in the community.

What you’ll bring:Experience

• Preferable, fundraising experience of 1 year, in a community engagement or fundraising role in the charity sector.
• Demonstrable experience in building relationships within the community and with fundraisers.
• Demonstrable experience in managing your own income budget and monitoring expenditure against agreed targets. Analysis of income data, identifying trends, evaluating activity and ROI, and ensuring key learnings and insight are fed into planning and budgeting of future activity as appropriate.
• Demonstrated success in coordinating events, campaigns and initiatives.
• Familiarity with donor databases, CRM systems, and fundraising software.
• Able to provide direction, energy and capability to lead fundraising volunteers at community events.
• Understanding of fundraising principles, best practices, and ethical standards.
• Knowledge of Community Engagement and different fundraising channels.
• Awareness of current trends and innovations in fundraising.

Skills

• A motivated, articulate and confident communicator.
• A passion for making a difference to families and young children.
• An ability to analyse data.
• Understanding of risk management.

• Experience of client relationship management databases.
• Understanding of content creation systems such as Mail Chimp and Canva.
• Strong organisational and administrative skills including excellent attention to detail and effective time management.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work with a varied group of stakeholders.

Personal Attributes

• Passion for the vision of Home-Start Watford and Three Rivers and alignment with their values for supporting families.
• Proactive and self-motivated with a positive and can-do attitude.
• Creative approach to a limited marketing budget and working within a small team.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and handle sensitive information with discretion.
• Willingness to work occasional evenings or weekends for events and campaigns.
• Ability to represent the organisation professionally and ethically.
• Strong client facing aptitude and communication skills both written and verbal.
• Calm and patient when dealing with a range of internal and external stakeholders at all levels
• Team Player: working collaboratively and flexibly to achieve outcomes and keen to add value to the organisation’s culture and ethos.

What you’ll get

• Working with a small, friendly, supportive team, who are supported by a proactive trustee board.
• Flexible working.
• Generous holiday allowance.
• Job satisfaction, changing families lives and enabling children to have the childhood they deserve.
• Working in the charity hub, based near Leavesden film studios, in a modern office space, sitting amongst other charities and the local CVS, W3RT, within a collaborative and supportive workspace.
• Café and dining facilities, including outside space.
• Free onsite parking.

Closing date is July 11th at 5pm 2024, interviews are likely to take place w.c. 22nd July, in person, at our offices in Leavesden, Watford, Hertfordshire.