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

Purpose of Role

We have a fabulous opportunity for someone who loves innovation, new product development and facilitation to join us on a 9 month contract. Our partnership with the BBC remains the backbone of our fundraising but we’re stretching deeper and wider to ensure our flagship campaigns, Red Nose Day and Sports Relief alongside new initiatives, keep engaging the UK public and our critical partners in ways that are relevant, exciting and scaleable. We’re looking for an interim Fundraising Innovation Lead to facilitate rapid new fundraising product development and testing with new and existing audiences in support of our income growth strategy.  You’ll work right across the organisation to bring insight to action; to make new things a reality and to help us explore and conquer new fundraising territory.  You’ll be a facilitator of people and thought processes; a creative and strategic business partner and you’ll know how and when to use innovation approaches to narrow briefs and blow up ideas. If you have the ambition to play a leading role in reimagining and re-birthing Comic Relief’s fundraising then we’d love to hear from you. 

As Fundraising Innovation Lead you’ll facilitate growth in our income and supporter base by working with colleagues to turn insight and ideas into new revenue streams, products and propositions. You’ll use innovation techniques and processes to engage multi-disciplinary teams in tackling business problems and harnessing opportunities to ensure Comic Relief lives and breathes its disruptor brand through its fundraising.  Each year, working with stakeholders, you’ll lead on the development of minimum viable products; from design through to testing, iterating based on learning and pushing out to full product delivery, handing off to audience teams to maximise potential through their fundraising strategies and plans.   

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 

• Keep abreast of the external marketplace to identify audience behaviours and habits (buying and giving) and market trends in order to bring growth ides to colleagues and explore potential for Comic Relief’s fundraising programme 

• Implement and continually refine innovation and NPD methodologies that enable inclusive and x-organisational engagement and facilitate their use directly and indirectly in order to grow income and our supporter base 

• Business partner with colleagues to understand opportunities for growth and business challenges in order to assess; rank and decide on innovation and New Product Development priorities as part of annual and ongoing business planning cycles 

• Working with colleagues, establish mechanics for regular strategic and creative hackathons that lead to frequent real-time testing of ideas that can be strengthened and developed with investment to achieve new and increased income and engagement of supporters 

• Work with colleagues to deliver innovation priorities and New Product Development initiatives through inception to full role out 

• Participate in campaign planning and delivery multi-disciplinary teams to facilitate growth planning and innovative action in order to deliver campaign goals and objectives  

• Provide training and ongoing support for teams and individuals in best practice innovation approaches 

• Deliver ad-hoc innovation projects as required 

• 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 

Person Specification  

Essential Criteria  

• A deep understanding of product design principles and innovation methodologies and approaches 

• A proven capability in applying innovation methodologies to deliver revenue growth 

• Experience in a sales / fundraising focussed role, applying new thinking or approaches to drive growth 

• Extensive experience of analysing and using data and creative insights to inform decision making; with proven abilities in interpreting data and insight into actionable plans and initiatives 

• Ability to understand risks, issues and dependencies within a project / campaign and to synthesise this information to provide accurate and timely advice to drive decision making 

• Effective relationship builder with strong stakeholder management and communication skills, and the ability to adapt to different styles and ways of working 

• Excellent facilitator, with experience of coaching and developing others, as well as leading cross-disciplinary teams in a matrix management approach 

Desirable Criteria  

• Experience of delivering innovation programmes in a fundraising environment 

• Experience of fundraising for international and national 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 and application questions.

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