director of fundraising jobs
How's your job search on our site?
Chief Executive Officer (Part-time, 3 days/week)
Veterans With Dogs (VWD) is seeking an experienced, values-driven and credible Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to lead our charity into its next chapter. This rare and exciting opportunity offers the chance to guide a small, high-impact team at a pivotal stage in the charity’s growth.
Location: Flexible / UK-based, with regular travel to Exeter, training sites, and key meetings as required. We are flexible in how this is structured, and relocation is not required.
Salary: £45,000–£55,000 pro-rata (equivalent to £27,000 - £33,000 for 3 days/week) + 3% pension contribution
Contract: Permanent
Hours: 21 hours / 3 days per week
Holiday: 28 days per annum (FTE), plus bank holidays
Reports to: Chair of Trustees
Direct reports: 3
About Veterans With Dogs
Veterans With Dogs is a UK charity that transforms the lives of Armed Forces veterans living with mental health challenges. Through the provision of highly trained assistance dogs and trauma-informed support, we help restore purpose, independence, and dignity to those who have served.
Founded in 2012, our work addresses a vital gap for veterans living with PTSD, anxiety, depression, and complex trauma. Through our award-winning PALS™ (Partner Animal Life Skills) programme, we support veterans to rebuild their lives, with the constant support of a trusted companion by their side.
Following a period of governance transition and renewal, we are entering a new and exciting phase. We are strengthening leadership, systems, and strategy to ensure long-term sustainability and greater reach, while maintaining the quality, care, and integrity that sit at the heart of our work.
We recognise that this is a senior leadership role within a small organisation and are committed to flexibility in how the role is delivered. We are open to conversations around working patterns and location to ensure we attract the strongest possible candidate.
We are also open to shaping aspects of the role around the strengths and location of the successful candidate.
We would particularly welcome candidates who can bring fresh perspective, while respecting and building on the strong foundations already in place.
This is an opportunity to shape the future of a respected and growing charity at a pivotal moment, with genuine scope to influence strategy, culture, and long-term impact.
The Role
The CEO will provide strategic direction, operational oversight, and cultural leadership for Veterans With Dogs. Working closely with the Board of Trustees, the CEO will oversee the delivery of the charity’s mission, ensure operational excellence, develop our long-term strategy, and foster a values-led and high-performing team.
This is a hands-on, multi-dimensional leadership role, ideal for a calm, pragmatic, and inspiring individual with experience of organisational stabilisation, stakeholder engagement, and sustainable growth. You will build strong relationships with the team and stakeholders, maintaining a visible and engaged leadership presence both in person and remotely.
This is a genuinely part-time role with a focused and manageable scope, supported by an engaged Board of Trustees and a committed team. The role is designed to be sustainable within the allocated hours.
Key Responsibilities
Leadership & Strategy
- Lead the development and delivery of an interim plan and longer-term organisational strategy
- Translate strategic goals into clear operational priorities and plans
- Foster a compassionate, inclusive, and mission-aligned organisational culture
- Act as a credible and inspiring ambassador for Veterans With Dogs with stakeholders, funders, partners, and the public
- Guide the charity through stabilisation and values-led, sustainable growth
Governance & Compliance
- Ensure compliance with all relevant charity law, regulation, and best practice
- Work in partnership with the Board of Trustees, supporting effective governance and reporting
- Implement and embed improvements in HR, finance, safeguarding, IT, and operational systems
- Lead on organisational risk management, ensuring policies and procedures are in place and regularly reviewed
Operations & Programme Delivery
- Oversee day-to-day operations to ensure safe, ethical, and effective service delivery
- Ensure safeguarding standards are upheld for both veterans and dogs
- Drive continuous improvement in programme quality, delivery, and impact measurement
- Ensure operational systems and data processes are robust, compliant, and fit for purpose
People & Culture
- Lead, support, and nurture a small, dedicated staff team and wider network of volunteers
- Promote staff wellbeing, clear communication, and professional development
- Work with trustees to assess future staffing needs and build leadership capacity
Finance & Sustainability
- Work with trustees and advisors to ensure sound financial management and reporting
- Contribute to financial planning, budgeting, and development of a sustainable reserves policy
- Help diversify income streams, supporting fundraising efforts, corporate partnerships, and individual giving
Fundraising & External Relations
Build and maintain relationships with funders, donors, corporate partners, and sector allies
- Collaborate with the fundraising trustee to develop new funding opportunities
- Represent the charity externally with credibility, transparency, and professionalism
- Strengthen partnerships with ADUK, ADI, Cobseo, and other key membership bodies
Person Specification
Essential
- Senior leadership experience within a charity, social enterprise, or values-led organisation
- Strong knowledge of charity governance, regulation, and trustee relationships
- Experience leading teams through organisational change or stabilisation
- Financial literacy with experience of budgeting, reporting, and planning
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills across diverse stakeholders
- A calm, values-based, and ethical leadership approach
Desirable
- Experience in health, mental health, veterans’ services, or trauma-informed work
- Experience working with boards during periods of strategic or leadership transition
- Fundraising and/or income generation experience
- Understanding of safeguarding best practice (for people and/or animals)
- Lived experience of the military or charity sectors (not essential)
Our Commitment
Veterans With Dogs is committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion. We actively welcome applicants from all backgrounds and strive to create a supportive, respectful, and empowering workplace. We recognise the value of lived experience and are committed to continuous learning as an organisation.
How to Apply
Please apply via Charity Jobs.
If you would like a confidential conversation before applying, we would be happy to speak with you.
Closing date to apply: 5pm on Thursday 11 June 2026
- First interviews (online): week commencing 22 June 2026
- Second interviews (in our Exeter office): TBC
Previous applicants need not reapply, thank you.
Veterans With Dogs is a registered charity in England and Wales (No. 1161554).
Apply with your CV and a Covering Letter to explain your interest and suitability for the role.
No recruiters at this stage please.
Previous applicants, please don't apply. Thank you.
Registered Charity
51 - 100
To improve the quality of life for Veterans who are living with mental health disorders with the support of assistance dogs
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as applications come in. They're ready to hire as soon as they find the right person. Don't miss your opportunity, apply now!
A rare chance to build something from zero — and see your work move millions of pounds to the world's most effective charities.
The opportunity
In recent years, some of the biggest problems in the world have gotten worse.
- The decades-long decline in extreme poverty has slowed.
- Factory farming continues to grow, with 13 billion farmed animals killed annually in the U.S. alone.
- The rapid deployment of increasingly powerful AI systems raises questions about safety and alignment that remain largely unresolved.
What gives us hope is that research-backed, scalable, but grossly underfunded ways to make progress on these problems exist.
More than 11,000 people have pledged at least 10% of their income to the world's most effective charities through Giving What We Can's 10% Pledge. Our global community gives over £63 million every year, funding malaria prevention, poverty reduction, animal welfare, AI safety research, and more.
GWWC has over 5,000 UK donors. £12.5M came from the top 300 alone in 2025. Despite this, there has been virtually no proactive relationship management. We believe there's huge potential to increase this figure with dedicated, high-quality donor stewardship.
London is GWWC's largest concentration of community members: over 2,600 CRM contacts and over 500 active pledgers. It's the natural centre of gravity for events and in-person engagement, with a rich ecosystem of high-net-worth individuals aligned with effective giving.
What you'll do
Build deep, lasting relationships with donors and pledgers. You'll proactively manage a portfolio of GWWC's highest-value community members through 1:1 meetings, calls, and thoughtful follow-up. Expect 8 to 10 meaningful conversations per week: coffees, dinners, calls.
Guide donors toward the highest-impact giving. Think of it as philanthropic advising. You're helping people think through where their giving goes furthest, directing generosity toward GWWC-recommended, evidence-backed charities. You'll also inspire people to give more, helping them see why giving more significantly and effectively can transform the impact they have with their donations.
Run high-quality donor events. Intimate dinners, networking evenings, and community gatherings. You'll have an events budget and the freedom to experiment with formats that build connection.
Re-engage lapsed and non-reporting donors. When someone takes a pledge with GWWC, they commit to giving 10% of their income to effective charities. Some donors give through our platform (where we can track it), while others give directly to charities and report it back to us. Over time, many stop doing either: our data shows recording rates drop from 60% in year one to just 22% by year five without any proactive engagement. These aren't necessarily people who've stopped caring; many have simply drifted without anyone checking in. A single outreach test to 369 lapsed donors recovered $2.3M in reported donations. You'll do this systematically, bringing recording rates to around 70% for the group of people you're engaging with.
Inspire warm leads to take a giving pledge. Follow up with people who've attended events, expressed interest, or sit in our CRM but haven't yet committed. We expect approximately 80 new pledges per year from this work.
Build the strategy. You'll build the strategy in partnership with your counterpart in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is a joint endeavour: together you'll develop the model for how GWWC does donor engagement, then adapt it for each geography to replicate globally.
What we're looking for
A social chameleon with high EQ. You can read a room and calibrate, holding your own at a black-tie dinner or a casual coffee with equal ease. Different donors need different things; you instinctively know which register to use.
Energised by getting out there. You're the kind of person who'd rather have ten meetings in a week than five. You want to be out in the world, meeting people, opening doors, and building relationships. Some weeks half your outreach will go unanswered, and that doesn't slow you down.
Highly organised and strategic. You're able to use a CRM to maximise the number and quality of interactions you have, thinking strategically about how to invest the most time on the highest-potential opportunities, whether that's inspiring new donors or stewarding existing ones to give more.
Super agentic. Give you KPI targets and a CRM and you'll build the strategy from there. You're the kind of person who doesn't need to be told what to do next, you just see what needs doing and get on with it.
You really care deeply about these issues. You find the core questions of effective giving compelling. You can talk about why cost-effectiveness matters without sounding robotic, and you come across as authentic because you actually care about these issues.
5+ years of relevant experience. In fundraising, philanthropy, donor stewardship, major gifts, high-touch relationship management, or senior sales and partnerships. We care about what you can do, not credentials, but this is a senior role that requires demonstrated experience.
Nice to haves
We definitely don't expect any candidate to have all of these.
- Experience or familiarity with global catastrophic risks, global health and wellbeing, or animal welfare as cause areas
- Experience in the effective altruism or effective giving ecosystem
- Experience running or hosting donor events
- Experience with HubSpot specifically (CRM proficiency is essential, but HubSpot experience is a bonus)
- Understanding of UK tax-efficient giving (Gift Aid, share donations via ShareGift, payroll giving)
- Being a GWWC pledger yourself
- People management aptitude (you may grow a small team over time)
Compensation and benefits
- £77,000 – £89,000 depending on experience You can see how we calculate pay in our public salary calculator.
- Contract: One-year fixed-term contract with a three-month probation period. We're open to exploring making it permanent if the first year is successful.
Benefits include:
- Fully remote work (with regular in-person donor meetings and events as part of the role)
- 25 days paid leave + public holidays
- 10% employer pension contribution and private health insurance
- £4,000 annual professional development budget
- £4,000 annual mental health support budget
- The knowledge that your work moves millions of pounds to the world's most effective charities
About us
Giving What We Can is working towards a world without preventable suffering or existential risk, where everyone is able to flourish. We do this by making giving effectively and significantly a norm among those who can afford it.
Founded in 2009, we are best known for the 10% Pledge, where over 11,000 people have committed to donating at least 10% of their lifetime income to highly effective charities. Our larger community of ~20,000 pledgers and donors currently gives ~£63M annually, of which GWWC processes and grants £24M+ yearly through our own donation platform.
We're a lean, remote, performance-focused team. Our impact evaluation shows a 7x multiplier: every $1 spent on our operations generates $7 in donations to highly effective charities. We're committed to a high level of transparency. And we're growing fast, on track for more than 40% year-over-year growth on donations in 2026.
You'll report to: James Rayton, Director of Community & Partnerships
How to apply
You can apply by filling out the form linked in this job ad. We review applications on a rolling basis and will move quickly when we find the right person. Our process typically includes: application review → screening call → paid work test → interviews with James (line manager) and cross-functional team members → paid work trial → reference checks and interview with the CEO. We provide compensation for all work tests and trials.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us.
Giving What We Can is committed to building a diverse team and strongly encourages applications from people of all backgrounds.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.