Major Gifts Fundraiser

Overview

The position:

We are seeking a creative, collaborative and effective fundraiser to drive long-lasting improvements for millions of farmed animals.

This is an exciting time to join a growing organisation, with ambitious plans to become more self-sufficient and financially stable for the long-term. You can be part of our Development Team helping to make this happen.

You’ll manage a portfolio of donors, have the opportunity to develop new relationships and shape our income now, and for the future.

By raising valuable funds and securing major gifts from high net worth individuals, you can make sure that our work continues to have long-lasting impacts – ending cages for egg-laying hens, convincing corporates to commit to improving chicken welfare in their supply chains, challenging the Government over the use of fast-growing breeds of chicken, and working to secure the first legislation to protect farmed fishes.

Through your work you will also have the opportunity to educate and inform our supporters, connecting them to our cause and creating greater awareness about the suffering of farmed animals.

We will be holding a webinar on Thursday 16th May at 7pm BST for you to find out more about the role and to ask any questions you may have. The webinar will be hosted by Gavin Chappell-Bates, Head of Development and Klara Schmidt, Digital Fundraiser. If you’re interested, please register here.

A recording of the webinar will be available within 48 hours after the end of the event.

Salary:

• Starting Salary of £35,870 or £39,457 for Inner London Weighting.
• For more information about the Major Gifts Fundraiser salary please click here.

Hours:

This is a full time position of 37.5 hours per week over Monday to Friday.

From 1st July 2024 we are piloting a four day working week across the whole of the UK organisation. This pilot is planned to run for 12 months, at which point a decision will be made by our Board of Trustees as to whether this will become permanent. Success of the trial relies on the organisation being able to achieve the same or improved level of impact in four working days as five, with staff experiencing either the same or improved levels of wellbeing.

During the four day week pilot, working hours for this position will be reduced to 30 hours per week, spanning Monday to Thursday, with no reduction in salary. This will be a temporary change to the contractual terms with the successful candidate. The appointed person must be prepared to increase their working hours to 37.5 hours per week if a return to a five-day working week is decided.

Who you are:

We are looking for someone who can, through compelling and inspiring writing and communication, engage donors and potential funders in a variety of different formats, whether that’s email updates, thanking them for their support, or drafting a funding proposal. Ultimately, you will need to be able to bring them closer to our work, so that they can understand their individual contribution and the impact their donations can have, and are more likely to take action as a result.

You will also need to be able to build strong relationships, with the ability to understand the motivations of our donors, demonstrate the impact of our work, spot opportunities to engage them, and ask for their financial support at the right time.

Many of our donors come from the Effective Altruism (EA) community, so having an understanding of this community and how to engage it will be helpful. You will help to grow our supporters within the space, raising our profile and spotting opportunities to develop relationships with prospective new donors and funders.

Home-based, you will enjoy collaborating and working independently. As a self-starter, you are able to work autonomously and use your initiative to solve problems and see projects through from start-to-end. You’ll thrive on a varied and interesting mix of tasks and projects.

You’ll keep good records and understand the importance of clean and up to date supporter and donation data in creating efficient systems and processes.

We foster an environment of feedback, development and learning at THL UK. You’ll be someone that values receiving feedback, is able to assess your own performance, and has a desire to want to learn, develop and improve as an individual.

Prior experience of major donor fundraising is beneficial, whilst knowledge and understanding of trusts and grants fundraising would also be helpful. However, we are also keen to hear from you if you have relevant transferable skills and are looking to transition into this exciting area.

We’re looking for the right person, committed to the work we do at THL UK, with values that align with our own, and with the right skills and attitude – an exceptional and confident relationship builder and strong communicator.

We will provide relevant learning and development opportunities, tailored to your experience and personal needs, which could include in-house training, external training and fundraising events and conferences.

Be part of our mission to end the abuse of animals raised for food.

Primary Duties:

• Thanking and stewarding some of our key major donors – acting as a direct point of contact for their queries and questions, keeping them updated with our work, thanking them for their support and donations, building strong, long-term relationships, and developing them as prospects or donors to elicit further gifts, through regular email, telephone and face-to-face contact, thank you cards, networking, written updates, online and face-to-face meetings, and other feedback as appropriate.
• Creating and submitting funding asks to secure funding and achieve your own fundraising targets and those of the wider organisation, with a focus on securing multi-year funding. This will include creating cases for support and funding briefs for specific projects, working with the Programs Team to pull together all relevant information, as well as completing bespoke funding proposals. You will also need to be able to identify opportunities, know when is the right time to make an ask and what type of ask it should be, whether a one-off gift, multi-year funding, unrestricted or for a specific project, or match funding to help leverage a specific campaign or appeal.
• Coordinating our funding pipeline – managing and monitoring what stages our major givers are at in their cultivation journey, tracking details of funding applications/asks made, managing deadlines for applications and monitoring reports, tracking and reconciling donations and providing receipts, securing relevant funding agreements, and capturing the motivations, giving history and details of interactions of our donors.
• Leading on the development of our quarterly newsletter – a document designed as a key engagement tool specifically for our major gifts audience, to keep them up to date on our latest news, victories and forthcoming plans.
• Mapping out and developing our major donor programme for the next twelve months and beyond – planning a calendar of content and touch points to further cultivate and steward our key donors, such as exclusive webinars, networking meet-ups or larger fundraising events.
• Coordinating the major donor version of our annual supporter survey – collaborating with colleagues to align this to our general supporter survey, targeting questions with a major donor audience in mind, collating and analysing responses, and using them to inform and develop our major donor programme.
• Hosting donors at events – inviting them to protests and other events, such as our legal challenge against the use of Frankenchickens, and making sure they are well looked after.
• Prospect research – identifying, researching and assessing potential new major gifts prospects, and then developing cultivation plans for further engagement.
• Supporting the Head of Development with our trust and grant fundraising. This could include collaborating with consultants to complete prospect research and applications, creating and submitting low-level funding bids, and working with colleagues from across the organisation, to coordinate the submission of monitoring reports for our funders.
• Helping drive understanding of and engagement with fundraising across the organisation, with staff, volunteers and trustees – giving presentations, leading workshops with other departments, engaging staff, volunteers and trustees in the thanking process (i.e. getting them to send thank you cards to donors), and regularly updating the wider team on fundraising progress.
• Supporting other fundraising campaigns and initiatives, such as our end of year appeal, working with your colleagues in the Development Team to help find match funders from our pool of our major givers.
• Attending relevant events and conferences, to meet and cultivate prospective new funders and steward existing donors, develop learning and understanding, network with your fundraising peers, keep up to date with the fundraising sector and look for opportunities to raise our profile amongst funders and donors within the EA community.

In addition:

• Participating in team meetings including note-taking and facilitation.
• Attending in-person team workshops several times a year.
• Helping us make THL UK an inclusive workplace where employees and supporters are proud to be members of the movement.
• Demonstrating commitment to creating a stronger and more effective animal protection movement through inclusion and belonging, recognising the need for all of us to do better for social justice on a personal and organisational level.
• Helping us galvanise further support by lending your organisational skills to fundraising events and supporting our Managing Director and Head of Development by planning meetings and events.
• Performing any other duties assigned by the Head of Development.

For full details of the role, including the key competencies we see as the the most important requirements for being successful in this position, please visit our website here.

THL UK is an equal-opportunity employer. We are committed to furthering equity and inclusion, and we value diversity. We seek people from a wide range of backgrounds who will bring a fresh perspective to the team, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it makes us stronger.

We make employment decisions by matching our organisational needs with the skills and experience of candidates, irrespective of race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, neurodiversity, age, or veteran status.

​We are proud to be a Disability Confident Committed Employer, demonstrating our commitment to recruiting, retaining, and supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, based on their skills and talent.

You can read more about how The Humane League UK is working on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion here.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding accessibility, please contact us via [email protected] and we will be happy to discuss, via email or telephone, reasonable adjustments that you may require throughout the process.

Good to know:

You will have access to:

• ​A fully remote work environment and team (all equipment is provided)
• A 4 day working week (note: this is a year long pilot until July 2025 when its continuation will be assessed)
• A pro rata share of 25 days leave plus Public Holidays (reduced proportionately during four day week trial)
• ​Flexible working hours
• ​A workplace pension
• An annual learning and development budget
• Support for mental and physical wellbeing
• £25 per month reimbursement towards home working costs

At The Humane League UK, animal welfare is at the forefront of our everyday work and as such, many of our employees are vegan by personal choice. All of our events and workshops offer only plant-based meals. We welcome all mission-aligned candidates to apply, no matter where you are in your journey to end the abuse of animals raised for food.

We are looking to speak to a wide range of candidates with diverse backgrounds – #NonGraduatesWelcome

Our employees all work remotely but still enjoy a supportive, collaborative environment.

All applicants need to be:

1. ​Fluent in written and spoken English.
2. ​Live and have the right to work in the UK (we are unable to consider applications from those without the right to work in the UK).
3. ​Committed to our mission to end the abuse of animals raised for food.

The Process:

All applicants will be contacted within one week of the closing date to let you know if you have been successful in reaching the next stage.

Our full interview process comprises of the following stages:

• A skills test to give us an opportunity to see your skills in action (completed remotely).
• Join an online interview (via video call) so we can learn more about each other.
• Final Interview (via video call as above)

For full details of our recruitment process please click here.

Tagged as: advocacy and outreach