King's College London

About Us

Fundraising and Supporter Development (F&SD) provides a fundraising and alumni engagement function in support of King’s College London. We are proud to work with colleagues across the university and its health partners to help them serve society through world-leading education, research and healthcare.  Our work also includes a partnership with the Maudsley Charity in support of children’s mental health initiatives between the university’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience and the South London & Maudsley NHS Trust.

We are a committed team that brings together fundraisers working across different channels, alongside colleagues who promote King’s College London’s engagement with its worldwide alumni community. Our work is underpinned and enhanced by a range of dedicated professionals in supporting areas covering donor relations, proposition development, supporter engagement, supporter operations and business operations.

We have an impressive, well-established track record of success in securing support that allows the university and partners to deliver on their missions. This includes our global, award-winning World Questions: King’s Answers campaign, which set the standard in the sector and enabled us to raise substantial funds to help tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. Ambitious and innovative, the team has won awards such as a CASE Platinum Award for Fundraising and a CASE Gold Award for Donor Relations and Stewardship.

We are strongly values-driven with a focus on sustaining an excellent and supportive culture, which we see as key to creating a successful team that can support the university and its partners in making a real and positive difference to the world we live in.

More on King’s College London

King’s College London is an internationally renowned university delivering exceptional education and world-leading research. The university is dedicated to driving positive and sustainable change in society and realising our vision of making the world a better place.  Through its commitment to exceptional education, impactful research and genuine service to society, King’s College London is creating positive change in its communities, both in London and on the world stage. The Strategic Vision 2029 looks forward to King’s College London’s 200th anniversary in 2029 and sets out ambitious plans in five key areas:

• Educating the next generation of change-makers
• Challenging ideas and driving change through research
• Giving back to society through meaningful service
• Working with our local communities in London
• Fostering global citizens with an international perspective

Find out more here -  https://www.kcl.ac.uk/about 

About the role

The Donor Relations Manager role is a great opportunity for an ambitious individual with a creative, motivated and detailed work ethic to join our fundraising environment and take the lead on the project management and creation of exceptional stewardship.

At King’s, we produce over 120 annual impact reports for our donor community, showcasing how funds have been spent and ensuring projects are on track. Topics range from cutting-edge research to scholarship support, and all are business critical to a successful donor journey, as well as a vehicle to tell powerful and inspiring stories.

The post-holder will lead in ensuring the timelines and delivery of these are project managed in collaboration with the Donor Relations Officers and fundraisers across the Arts & Sciences, Health and International Teams – encompassing a breadth of King’s fundraising priorities - with the opportunity to lead on creative ideas.

They will also support with the creation of the King’s Annual Impact Report, a physical and online publication showcasing the powerful stories of King’s students and research. The 2023 Annual Impact Report can be viewed here. The post-holder will bring an eye for detail and narrative, signing off bespoke reports for gifts in partnership with fundraising colleagues.

The post holder will have ownership of a number of stewardship plans for major donors and principal gift donors (who give over £3 million to the university), to steward through impact reporting, donor naming and recognition and creative stewardship projects.

Reporting to the Senior Donor Relations Manager, and working closely with Major and Principal Gift Fundraisers, Gift Implementation (who ensure funds are allocated and spent correctly across the university), Proposition Development (who scope out fundraising projects and write compelling cases for support and proposals for funding), Fundraising & Alumni Communications and our Strategic Events teams, the post-holder will empower us to deliver an innovative and comprehensive donor relations and stewardship programme. Strong project management, writing and organisational skills are key, as well as someone with a keen eye for detail and strategic thinking.

The role is deadline driven, so individuals should have the ability to work well under pressure, prioritise, multi-task and take initiative.

The post-holder would be joining a team of storytellers, wordsmiths and creative minds who have the privilege of taking the world-leading research and real-world impact that King's College London’s bright students, academics, researchers and clinicians provide and turning them into powerful stories to share with our donors and wider community of supporters.

Our core goal is the delivery of bespoke, thoughtful, consistent and impactful content and experiences to our donor community to adhere to our reporting commitments, thank them for their support and ensure they see the value they bring to our organisation, and this post will play a vital part in delivering this.

This is a full-time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract. F&SD has a hybrid working approach, with a minimum of 40% of time in the office. Typically, this equates to two days per week, but we’re very happy for colleagues to be in more frequently if they so wish.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Project management skills – working across multiple stakeholders to co-ordinate the delivery of donor impact reports
2. Creative writing skills – skilled storyteller, ability to make a story compelling, contagious and inspire action
3. Strong editorial, copy writing and proof-reading skills
4. Insight driven – ability to think about what is and isn’t working, see new innovations in the sector and take on feedback from our donor community
5. Ability to meet deadlines, work well under pressure and deliver projects to budget
6. Strong relationship management and people focused skills, bringing teams on board with ideas and using collaboration to achieve shared goals
7. Willing to focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and ensure the team’s output and processes are accessible and equitable

Desirable criteria

1. Adobe InDesign software experience
2. Understanding of one or more of: UK Charity sector/ Higher Education
3. Experience of using Microsoft Dynamics or similar customer/donor data base and associated processes and systems
4. Digital production skills e.g. basic video creation (through editing clips together on video making platforms)

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community. In F&SD we want to build a diverse team, which represents the communities served by the organisations we support. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's. We are open to discussing flexible working arrangements, including part-time, compressed hours and/or job shares, as appropriate. We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘ How we Recruit’ pages.

This role with have two interview stages, a standard skills-based interview followed (for up to two appointable candidates) by a Core Values interview. We are able to offer sponsorship for candidates who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK.