Purpose of job:

As the Director of Fundraising, you will be a member of the senior leadership team and oversee fundraising activity across the organisation, including campaigns, digital and individual giving and more. With the power of Comic Relief’s brand, you will have the opportunity to drive high-profile public fundraising activities, build strategic income streams and be a liaison to a variety of internal and external stakeholders, including our board of trustees.

You are expected to have an outstanding track record of success when it comes to fundraising and generating income for charities, across a wide variety of income streams. We are looking for big and bold thinkers who can point to big successes they have directly achieved. Just as important as your track record is your ability to inspire and lead a large team, set objectives, manage performance and lead a team to get activity delivered on a regular and consistent basis. 

Key responsibilities:

• Oversight of a broad, eight-figure income portfolio made up of multiple income streams, campaigns and activities.

• Accountable for and management of all public fundraising functions including campaigns, digital fundraising, audience strategy, and schools & communities.

• Achieve ambitious fundraising and income objectives, and continually find opportunities for gaining new income, optimising current income, and growing income where possible

• To lead, inspire, manage and develop team members to deliver, with the ambition to exceed, their objectives

• Work closely with project delivery and content production teams to ensure successful launching and delivery of fundraising activity

• Work closely with Director of Funding to ensure all fundraising activity is aligned with impact and funding activity, including knowledge of what is funded and what projects and stories are available to use for fundraising

• Work closely with Director of Partnerships to support partner activities and campaigns

• Oversee all public fundraising products, propositions and offerings

• Ensure ROI is used to plan and select fundraising activity, and that ROI is measured on all activity

• Oversight of all fundraising related budgets and spending

• Responsible for project budgets and management of project financials to ensure on-time and on-budget delivery

 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

 Operational Leadership

• As part of the Senior Management Team, provide Comic Relief with visible and responsive operational leadership, ensuring teams are collaborating and co-operating with each other to ensure shared ownership of relevant outcomes

• Ensure there is quality management information for all organisational areas that enables knowledge sharing and proactive decision making.

• Build a strong, effective and well-led enabling department, with the necessary capability, expertise, systems and processes to deliver the organisation’s strategic and annual plans

Person specification

 Essential criteria

• Experience overseeing and managing a public fundraising and income portfolio at least £10m

• Significant expertise in strategies and tactics for supporter engagement, acquisition, and fundraising.

• Significant    experience    in    effectively    leading    and    managing    high    performing departments

• A track record of success in overseeing integrated fundraising campaigns across both online and offline channels.

• Expertise in direct response digital fundraising, including email automation and marketing, paid media, social media, content strategy and digital / UX journeys.

• Able to collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team including creatives, fundraisers, writers, digital experts, project managers, technologists and analysts.

• KPI and results-driven, willingly taking accountability and ownership of achieving income targets. In fact, thrives on being driven by results and performance.

• Excellent communication and presentation skills, across a range of audiences and stakeholders. Experience in developing senior stakeholder relationships across organisations and sectors, and pitching for income opportunities

Desirable criteria

• Experience with international fundraising

• Creative thinker, able to generate or work with others to generate new fundraising ideas, propositions and mechanics

• Experience in working with partnerships to drive income, including event partners and multi-stakeholder fundraising campaigns.

• Expertise in using audience research and insights to drive activities, campaigns and activities. Knowledge of test and learn strategies, using insights to optimise activities.

• At least 10 years experience in relevant roles with proven and successful fundraising results

• Experience with growing income from different donor segments, including high net worth

• Experience with urgent or crisis based fundraising, such as for humanitarian crises that arise

We recognise diversity and inclusion are a source of strength in achieving our mission. We therefore welcome everyone, trusting what makes us different brings creativity, styles and experiences to help us collectively do our best work. That’s regardless of your gender, age, ethnicity, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and cultural identity. We are on a journey, but if you join our team you will be part of a community that is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment where we want you to:

• Be valued for being yourself

• Do your best work, and be supported to break down barriers so you can succeed

• Be heard, respected, and treated as an equal, whatever your level, experience or background

• Be part of a team that is committed to making this happen – with our colleagues, partners, and contributors.

Comic Relief is committed to preventing and protecting all people from harm in their interactions with us. We expect all those that act in our name to uphold our approach to doing no harm.