​​​​This role is offered on a hybrid contract giving you the opportunity to also work from home three days a week.

PURPOSE OF JOB:   

As Fundraising Creative Strategy Lead you’ll ensure our fundraising responds to what we know about our audiences and what makes them tick; cuts through in a crowded market place and positions Comic Relief as the successful fundraising disruptor brand it is known and loved for.  You’ll inspire creativity in others by living and breathing our brand and our values, demonstrating through all you do, how we can leverage these to most effectively engage old and new supporters and translate that engagement into income that will drive our mission forward. 

This is a fundraising role, focussed on the creative leadership of our fundraising plans – that means writing fundraising propositions; developing fundraising creative territories to brief and preparing fundraising creative guidelines and approaches; calls to action and ‘money buys’ that will ensure campaigns and projects deliver target income and associated KPIs. 

Through your understanding of fundraising strategy and your ability to develop compelling creative propositions, you’ll set the direction for our content and creative teams to fulfil briefs by delivering key assets as defined in campaign and project strategies and plans.  You’ll directly manage a creative strategy manager and work closely with Marketing colleagues as well as forming part of cross-organisational multi-disciplinary teams to deliver campaigns and initiatives that drive our fundraising success. 

Key responsibilities:

• Work with the Head of Campaign Strategy & Planning and key colleagues across the Fundraising team to inspire a high-performance culture and ambitious approach to fundraising

• Working to brief, define creative direction for our fundraising campaigns and projects, working with colleagues and as part of cross-organisational multi-disciplinary project teams to develop strategies and plans

• Specifically translate  plans into successful creative approaches which both secure internal buy-in for campaign strategies, and generate clear direction for briefing creative and content teams

• Lead, line manage, coach and mentor team members and colleagues to ensure they are enabled to deliver their best work, incl setting objectives; conducting performance reviews and ensuring personal development plans are in place for line reports

• Work with colleagues in Funding and Content to define creative approaches, based on what we are funding and required access to partners in order to generate high impact fundraising need and impact stories and calls to action

• Working closely with Marketing colleagues, prepare and sell-in creative territories; propositions, calls to action and money buys to cross-organisational teams and colleagues, inspiring creativity and innovative thinking whilst ensuring our creative approaches are firmly rooted in what will drive engagement and income success

• Where necessary, engage and manage external creative teams or additional resources in support of fundraising creative development

• Engage colleagues in our creative development; ensuring test and learn methodology, sound research and audience testing is applied to creative development approaches

• Prepare copy and artwork as needed or sign off on fundraising assets created by our internal content teams to ensure our investments drive anticipated returns

• Inspire and facilitate creative and innovative thinking and action, working with colleagues, including our Innovation Lead, to ensure our fundraising campaigns and projects represent our disruptor brand and speak to new external innovations appropriate to target audience segments

• Feed into robust and transparent review of creative approaches ensuring learnings are captured and quickly applied to future campaigns

• Play an active role in the Fundraising Team, working collaboratively to enable inclusivity and diversity in order to drive high performance and an action-oriented culture

People management

• Proactively undertake business planning, prioritise activities and set clear and realistic objectives based on capacity, expertise and aspirations.

• Provide balanced, constructive feedback, undertake effective performance management to embed accountability and proactively support the professional development and growth of staff.

• Maintain regular two way communication and dialogue with staff, ensuring information is cascaded and escalated as needed.

• Model an enabling, inclusive and empowering leadership style that builds a values-based culture throughout the charity

Person Specification

Essential Criteria

•  Experience of developing successful multi-channel fundraising creative approaches, assets and campaigns

• A proficient fundraising copy writer and creative thinker

• Proficient user of Adobe creative suite and visual editing tools

• A good understanding of fundraising, having devised and implemented successful fundraising creative approaches

• Experience of using audience insight to inform proposition development and creative approaches

• Experience of working as part of matrix project teams, taking the lead where appropriate

• Knowledge of fundraising and project management methodologies and experience of working with different approaches to project planning and delivery

• Exceptional relationship builder with strong stakeholder management and excellent communication skills, able to inspire others

Desirable Criteria

• Experienced line manager, able to coach and develop others

• Experience of developing creative work across different fundraising / revenue generating streams, ie Individual Giving; Schools & Community Fundraising; corporate and philanthropy

• Experience of user testing to inform creative development

• Proficient user of Adobe creative suite and visual editing tools

• Experience of fundraising for international and domestic causes

• Accredited fundraising or marketing qualification

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Comic Relief we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Why work at Comic Relief

There are lots of good reasons to join us at Comic Relief. You can read more about our employee benefits, such as our commitment to flexible and hybrid working. We ask staff to come to the office twice a week, normally on agreed team days, so that we can do all those things that are difficult to do online. Our office is based in Whitechapel, London, There are lots of opportunities to develop your skills and experience at Comic Relief, including opportunities to become a Mental Health First Aider or to participate in our Employee Network Groups that focus on making Comic Relief a more inclusive place to work.

Disability Confident employer

As part of the Disability Confident scheme, we take positive action by providing first-round interviews to candidates who have a registered disability, provided they meet the minimum criteria for the role, as demonstrated on their CV.

We ask that candidates that wish to be considered for this scheme email j.scott@comicrelief.com to discuss further. Please do not email CV's/cover letters.