Philanthropy Executive

It’s an exciting time for War Child. War Child are sector leading with our heritage, connections, and relationships in the world of music, gaming, and events. Our friends are superbly connected and ready to use their networks to help us. With a talented, hard-working team, we deliver amazing, creative fundraising in spades that has a huge capacity to inspire people.

This is a fantastic opportunity for a motivated fundraiser with a passion for international development to join an award winning and ambitious team and help us to dramatically grow our income to reach more children in the worst conflict affected countries.  With a strong understanding of relationship-based fundraising, you will work with the Philanthropy team to generate income from a portfolio of existing and prospective high value and major donors. You will help to identify and research new prospects to drive the pipeline for the Philanthropy income stream and work closely with the Philanthropy and Partnerships team to plan and deliver cultivation and stewardship opportunities and events.

Your role

With a strong understanding of relationship-based fundraising, you will work with the Philanthropy team to generate income from a portfolio of existing and prospective high value and major donors. You will be part of an ambitious and growing Philanthropy and Partnerships team, with the opportunity to work and collaborate on exciting and creative projects with War Child’s Music Team and Strategic Projects team. The person in this role will have the chance to shine and really have an impact on our projects supporting children affected by war globally.

Your responsibilities

• To play a key role in maximising philanthropic income for War Child
• To directly develop and manage relationships with existing mid-high value and regular givers, including some high profile supporters
• Lead on writing and delivering the quarterly Philanthropy newsletter
• Identify new prospects and devise strategies for engagement to drive the pipeline for the Philanthropy income stream
• Work with the Philanthropy and Partnerships team and the Strategic Projects team to plan and deliver cultivation and stewardship opportunities and events 
• Systematically identify, research, qualify, and strategize a pipeline for £1k+ gifts, including regular givers
• Develop and implement strong stewardship, cultivation and solicitation plans for prospects and donors to generate significant income from the portfolio, including identifying lapsed donors and devising strategies for re-engagement
• Ensure that all communications with donors are stored accurately on War Child’s database, Salesforce and use Salesforce to send automated comms to mid-high value donors
• Attend and support on the delivery of high level cultivation events/meetings including our Ambassador led events
• Represent War Child with commitment and enthusiasm to build new relationships and contacts for War Child, working with colleagues to ensure that new prospects are followed up and their interest capitalised on
• Develop strong relationships and maintain excellent communication channels with other teams and departments
• Actively participate in regular department and team meetings, contributing to strategy discussion and decisions that will be beneficial to the development of fundraising activities
• Work with members of the programmes team including Programmes Director, Country Directors and UK senior managers to gain their support for specific proposals and solicitation of prospects
• Contribute to creating a culture committed to the safeguarding of children and adults and compliant to WCUK’s Child Safeguarding and Adults at Risk Policies.

These duties provide a framework for the role and should not be regarded as a definitive list. Other reasonable duties may be required consistent with the grade of the role.

You are

·        Experienced in independently developing and managing relationships with mid-high value and major donors (4 – 5 figure gifts)

·        Experienced in working in a target led environment with a proven track record of delivering against targets

·        Experienced in preparing detailed proposals, reports and other donor communications with both excellent verbal and written communications skills.

·        Experienced in working on fundraising events and confidence in networking, including with high profile (celebrity) supporters

·        Up to date and have a solid understanding of the principles of major donor fundraising and how to apply them

·        Experienced in identifying, researching and qualifying new prospective donors and developing robust cultivation plans

·        Confident in your IT skills with a good knowledge of Microsoft Office

·        Experienced in working with fundraising databases, Salesforce would be an advantage

·        Able to prove your ability in collaborative working with other team members at all levels, building positive and productive relationships.

·        Able to present information, verbally or in writing, including War Child’s mission, briefings and project reports to a range of audiences in a clear and confident manner

·        A results-oriented and problem-solving team member

·        Able to work to deadlines and manage workload effectively

·        Interested in international development issues and have an understanding of, and commitment to, War Child’s vision, mission and aims