Fundraising Officer

We are looking for a Fundraising Officer to join our team and help us maximise income from trusts, foundations and statutory sources to deliver on our ambitious new five-year strategy. You'll be part of a dynamic, closely-knit team who truly love what they do and will see the impact of your work first-hand as you help us inspire and empower the next generation of environmental leaders.

Title:Fundraising Officer - Trusts and Foundations
Start date: As soon as possible
Contract type: Full-time, permanent
Starting salary: £27,850 - £30,689 depending on experience
Location: Bristol (hybrid), London (hybrid), Manchester (hybrid) or fully remote
Hours of work: 35 hours per week, 5-day working week. Some evening and weekend work will be required, for which time off in lieu (TOIL) can be taken
Benefits: 25 days annual leave plus public holidays, increasing to 30 days after 5 years, additional paid professional development and volunteer days, workplace pension, flexible working, robust training package on joining, professional development opportunities and more

About the Fundraising Officer - Trusts and Foundations role

As Fundraising Officer - Trusts and Foundations, you will work closely with the Fundraising Manager and the Chief Executive to grow our income from charitable trusts, foundations and statutory funding sources, with a particular focus on securing high-value unrestricted and multi-year funding. You will be a driving force behind our fundraising applications and reports, producing compelling, tailored fundraising content to drive donor engagement and maximise income opportunities. With support from the Fundraising Manager, you will also manage the trusts and foundations pipeline, from researching new prospects and identifying the most appropriate approach for each funder to coordinating grant administration, monitoring and reporting. To succeed in this role, you will be a skilled and persuasive communicator with a keen eye for detail, excellent organisation and time management skills and a flexible, highly proactive and self-motivated approach to your work.

Key duties

Income generation

• Support the Fundraising Manager to deliver our fundraising strategy, with a focus on maximising income from trusts, foundations and statutory sources.
• Proactively research and identify new grant funding opportunities in line with our yearly plans, strategic priorities and funding needs.
• Maintain an up-to-date rolling pipeline of grant funding opportunities and provide regular reports on performance against objectives.
• Write tailored, high-quality and compelling funding proposals and other cases for support, steering input from colleagues and external partners as needed.
• Ensure that funding applications are produced and submitted in a timely manner.
• Coordinate all grant administration and compliance with funders’ due diligence and terms and conditions when funding is secured.

Monitoring and reporting

• With support from the Fundraising Manager, ensure that grant monitoring and reporting requirements are fulfilled.
• Draft accurate, informative and engaging reports for funders that evidence progress towards key outcomes.
• Contribute to reporting calls and/or meetings with funders as needed.

Funder engagement

• Maintain strong relationships and regular communication with trusts, foundations and statutory funders to encourage ongoing and increased support.
• Support the Fundraising Manager with events and other stewardship activities throughout the year to cultivate new funder relationships and maximise engagement with existing funders.

Administration

• Maintain accurate and up-to-date records for trusts, foundations and statutory funding sources in our fundraising database, and support other administrative tasks as needed.

What we are looking for

We are looking for someone with excellent written communication skills who is comfortable drafting compelling and persuasive fundraising applications and reports, often on a tight deadline. You will be able to work effectively with colleagues from across the organisation and build and maintain strong relationships with funders.

It's essential that you have prior experience fundraising from trusts, foundations and/or statutory funders, successfully meeting and ideally exceeding income targets as well as a proven record of securing major grants and donations.

Knowledge of the youth, environmental and/or education sectors is an advantage but not essential.

You can see the full job description and person specification for the role in the Recruitment Pack.

Why work with us?

You’ll be joining a closely-knit, mission-driven team who truly love what they do. We work hard whilst maintaining a positive work-life balance and spend lots of time outdoors. In 2023, we were recognised by Escape the City as one of the top progressive places to work from over 13,000 nominations, after a rigorous assessment across six criteria, including Mission, Impact, People, Planet and Innovation.

Some of the benefits of working at Action for Conservation include:

• 25 days of annual leave plus public holidays, plus one additional day for each year served up to a maximum of 30 days
• Up to 5 days of professional development leave and up to 4 paid volunteer days each year
• Enhanced sick pay
• A workplace pension with 3% employer contributions
• Access to flexible working to help you maintain a healthy work-life balance
• Regular team and organisational away days in the great outdoors
• A robust training package as part of your onboarding and ongoing support with your development and career aims
• Opportunities to develop new skills and knowledge such as youth engagement, practical conservation and others
• Opportunities to shape the direction of our work and see the direct impact of your work on transforming young people's lives

Our commitment to diversity

Diversity is one of our core values as an organisation and we are committed to creating an inclusive working environment where diversity is valued and there is equality of opportunity. We also recognise that the climate and ecological crisis disproportionately impacts minority and/or marginalised communities – yet these voices are largely underrepresented in the sector. Currently, the environmental sector is the second least diverse in the UK, with just 4.8% of employees from ethnic minority backgrounds. If the environmental movement is to succeed in creating a greener future that supports society as a whole, we need diverse voices at the heart of our programmes. We therefore encourage people from demographics that are currently underrepresented in the environmental movement to apply.

Guaranteed interview scheme

We particularly encourage applications from people from ethnic minority backgrounds or living with a disability or long-term health conditions. We will offer an interview to any candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds or living with a disability who opt into our Guaranteed Interview Scheme when applying and who meet the essential criteria for this role

HOW TO APPLY

Closing date: 13 March at midnight

See the full job description and details about this role in the Recruitment Pack. To apply, complete the online application form.

Interviews will be held remotely on 25 - 27 March, with the possibility for second interviews, if needed, during the week commencing 01 April.

For more information and help with applying, email careers@actionforconservation.org