Philanthropy Executive

Job Summary

Salary: circa £32,000 per annum (dependent on experience)

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.

The team regularly comes together in our London office for collaboration, meetings and relationship-building, and the successful candidate will be expected to attend these in person where appropriate.

If you share our values and believe that children’s lives should not be torn apart by war, we want to hear from you.

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 mid 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 wider Fundraising Engagement department. 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
• Lead and grow the mid-value giving programme, focusing on supporters giving between £1,000–£10,000 annually, including regular givers with the potential for deeper engagement and increased support.
• Develop tailored cultivation, stewardship and solicitation strategies to maximise income, retention and long-term donor value, while personally managing a small portfolio of bespoke donor relationships through highly personalised engagement and relationship-building.
• Lead on the writing, design, and delivery of the quarterly Philanthropy newsletter, and support the wider philanthropy team in the development of high-quality donor materials, including reports, proposals, and broader donor communications
• Identify, research and qualify new and lapsed donors, including regular givers, to build a strong £1k+ philanthropy pipeline.
• Develop and deliver cultivation, stewardship and solicitation strategies to engage prospects and donors and maximise income generation.
• 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
• Work with the Philanthropy and Partnerships Engagement team and Fundraising Engagement teams to plan and deliver cultivation, stewardship and fundraising events, including high-level donor meetings and Ambassador-led events.
• Represent War Child at events and meetings to build relationships, steward donors, identify new prospects and ensure effective follow-up and engagement opportunities are maximised.
• 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 War Child Alliance 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 War Child’s Safeguarding and PSEAH (Protection from Sexual Exploitation, Abuse & Harassment)Policies.
• We are committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace. All staff are expected to actively contribute to this by embedding principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging into their day-to-day work, decision-making, and interactions with colleagues, partners, and supporters.

 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

• Experience of developing and managing relationships with mid to high value and major donors, including cultivating and/or securing 4–5 figure gifts from individual donors.
• Experienced in identifying, researching and qualifying new prospective donors and developing robust cultivation plans
• Able to perform in a target led environment and deliver 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
• Solid understanding of the principles of major donor fundraising and how to apply them
• Confident IT skills with strong proficiency in Microsoft Office; familiarity with Canva is desirable.
• Experience working with fundraising databases such as Salesforce or similar platforms.
• 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
• Able to attend the London office for meetings and events, and to support occasional fundraising events, including some outside normal working hours.
• Interested in international development issues and have an understanding of, and commitment to, War Child’s vision, mission and aims

About Us

At War Child we are driven by a single goal – ensuring a safe future for every child affected by war.

Using our 30 years of experience and proven methodologies, we aim to reach children as quickly as possible when conflict breaks out and stay long after the cameras have gone to support them through their recovery. We work with local communities and governments to help protect and educate children, and support them to heal and learn, for a safer, brighter future.

We understand children’s needs, respect and stand up for their rights, and put them at the centre of everything we do – because one child caught up in conflict is one child too many.

Every day, our local teams are in communities and in refugee camps creating safe spaces for children to play, learn and access psychological support, and we specialise in responding rapidly to emergency crisis situations to deliver immediate and critical care impartially to help to those who need us most, when they need us most.

Because no child should be part of war. Ever.

Our Values

• Bold:We use our passion and creativity to deliver high quality evidence-based work designed to maximise our beneficial impact for children in conflict.
• Accountable to children:Children can rely on us to respond to their voices and to treat them with respect and dignity.
• Anti-racism:Anti-racism is not merely a belief. It includes actions that we mainstream throughout our work to change and challenge policies and behaviours that perpetuate racism.
• Transparent:We expect to be held to account by our supporters and participants and we respond with openness and honesty.
• Supportive of each other:We support each other to achieve ambitious goals and be the best we can be. We are honest and open, sharing our successes & confronting our challenges.

Our Benefits

• Flexible working- we recognise the considerable benefits that flexible working can bring and are happy to discuss any possible flexible working options with our employees from hiring. For most roles, the following types of flexibility are usually possible: flexible hours, occasional working from home and compressed hours.
• Annual leave– 28 days per year (full-time) rising to 33 days with service, plus bank holidays
• Pension- all eligible employees automatically enrolled into a Group Personal Pension Plan with a 5% employer contribution, with minimum employee contribution on a salary sacrifice basis. This increases to 6% after one year's service.
• Family leave– we offer enhanced Maternity, Partner/Co-Parent/Paternity Leave, Adoption & Shared Parental Leave
• Health & wellbeing- employees may take advantage of a healthcare cash plan and a range of wellbeing initiatives and training. In addition, all employees have access to free, confidential one-to-one wellbeing consultations with trained counsellors.
• Learning & development- dedicated to the investment in learning and continuing professional development for all our employees
• Workplace Nursery Benefit– employees make tax and NI savings on nursery costs for children up to the age of 5
• Flexible public holidays- up to two standard UK public holidays can be exchanged for those that have cultural or religious significance.
• Voluntary contributions can be made through payroll allowing employees to claim back on a range of cancer treatments.Cancer Cover:
• GP 24/7 Helpline:A GP helpline is be available to all UK employees providing access to a qualified GP, 24/7 via a telephone or webcam consultation, and offers diagnosis, advice and reassurance on a range of medical matters, as well as authorisation of private electronic prescriptions.
• Welcome Bag for new starters:A War Child Tote bag, War Child T-shirt and some other practical things to welcome new colleagues to War Child.
• Discounts on War Child Merchandise: 25% discount on full price War Child merchandise, available to all employees, sold through Everpress.
• Range of flexible benefits such a Cycle to Work scheme and season ticket loans.

Flexible Working

We positively support flexible working arrangements. These currently include: office working, homeworking, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexi-time, flexi-place (hybrid working) and job shares. We would be happy to discuss individual flexible working requests during the interview process.

How to Apply

• To apply, simply submit an application through our Current Vacancies page and attach a copy of your CV.
• On occasion, we might close a vacancy early due to a high number of applications being received. Interested candidates are encouraged to submit their application as early as possible.
• If you have any questions about reasonable adjustments before or during your application, we welcome the opportunity to talk about what we can do to fairly adapt our process for you. Please share what you’re comfortable with to help us put the right support in place, by emailing careers@warchild.org.uk. Anything you tell us will be kept completely confidential by our HR team.
• We are unable to provide sponsorship for this post. In order to apply, you must be able to demonstrate your eligibility to work in the country where this role is based.

Safeguarding

Our work with children and at-risk adults to ensure their safety is our top priority. We are committed to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults in all aspects of our work. We maintain a zero-tolerance policy for any behavior or practices that put children and/or vulnerable adults at risk of abuse or harm.

Successful applicants will be required to comply with and sign our Safeguarding Policy, Code of Conduct, and PSEAH Policy. You can find the Safeguarding and Integrity policies here:https://warchild.sharepoint.com/sites/Integrity

Diversity and Inclusion

We value diversity and inclusion and are committed to ensuring that all our people and job applicants are treated fairly, irrespective of where, what or whom they were born, or of other characteristics. We want to offer a safe and inclusive workplace where all our people, especially those who are currently marginalised or underrepresented, can be themselves at work. You can read our Diversity and Inclusion policy on our website, and if you have any questions about our commitment to diversity and inclusion do get in touch: https://www.warchild.org.uk/our-work/policies-and-reports/diversity-and-inclusion

Pre-employment Checks

Employment with War Child will be subject to the following checks prior to your start date:

• a satisfactory police record check to include a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and/or an International/National Criminal Record Check
• a clear vetting and Due Diligence check
• receipt of two professional satisfactory references