Age UK Exeter is a local, independent charity with its own locally elected board of trustees.  We have grown a strong reputation for putting the individual older person at the heart of all we do, providing a wide range of support and opportunities to over a thousand older people in the city each week. We achieve this through our 110 dedicated staff, 300+ fantastic volunteers and the ability to find the funds we need to keep all our plates spinning!

This is where you come in. We’re looking for a Community & Corporate Fundraising Manager with the qualities and skills to take our community fundraising to the next level. By building on our supporter base of 1,000+ local people, many local businesses and our great reputation in the city, you will let people know the importance and value of what we do, engaging public support to realise our vision of a city where every older person is able to get the most out of life, whatever their circumstances. Our focus is on developing community, civic and business support to raise funds for us, growing the number of individual regular donors who want to support the charity and creating successful events.

We’re looking for someone with a proven track record as a charity fundraiser in a community, corporate or events team, who has the ability to lead, motivate and support a small fundraising team and can engage, enthuse and encourage a wide range of audiences to bring them to our cause.

Job Description

Main Duties:

• Build and maintain positive relationships with individuals, supporters, community groups and local businesses to increase their fundraising and encourage participation in events and activities
• Promote the fundraising needs of the charity to a wide range of audiences through the most appropriate channels
• Maximise individual, community and corporate engagement in the charity’s ‘Eat Together for Age UK Exeter’ fundraising campaign, 10k Run, Gala Dinner, Sponsored Walk, Big Knit  and Christmas Appeal
• Promote and increase regular giving by Direct Debit or via the website and substantially grow our ‘Friends’ supporter base
• Plan, develop and implement new initiatives, activities and events that will maximise fundraising income
• Line manage the Marketing and Digital Fundraising Co-ordinator (12 hrs pw) and the Community Fundraising Assistant (12 hrs pw)
• Recruiting, supervising and supporting fundraising volunteers within the team
• Give talks and presentations to local groups and businesses to encourage their support and participation in our fundraising activities and increase the number of Charity of the Year nominations we win
• Oversee our Blackbaud eTapestry CRM system to ensure it is up to date, using its data to manage relationships, understand what motivates supporters and provide good stewardship
• Work with Marketing Co-ordinator and Fundraising Assistant to produce engaging content for the charity’s social media and print channels
• Optimise press and media publicity associated with our supporters through press releases and radio/TV interviews
• Ensure all gifts and donations are appropriately acknowledged and enquiries are dealt with in a timely manner 
• Monitor and evaluate community fundraising activities against agreed targets reporting back to the Chief Executive and Board on a regular basis
• Keep abreast of developments, issues and best practice relevant to community fundraising
• Work within Institute of Fundraising guidelines
• Undertake any reasonable additional and ad hoc tasks as required

Probation Period: 6 months

Notice Period: 2 months on either side.

Annual Leave: 7 weeks per annum including Public Holidays on a pro-rata basis

Pension: Staff aged between 22 and state retirement age earning above the threshold for income tax will be automatically enrolled into the Scottish Widows Age UK pension scheme based on a 5% contribution by both employer and employee. Staff may opt out of the scheme within 30 days of receiving the scheme’s joiner’s pack for a full refund of any contribution made.

Travel: A mileage allowance of 40p per mile is paid for essential travel.

Time off in Lieu: At times some work may be required to be undertaken outside of your contracted hours for which time off in lieu will be granted.

Person Specification

Essential

• Proven track record as a fundraiser in a community, corporate or events fundraising team
• Ability to lead, motivate and support a small fundraising team
• Experience of working to and delivering targets
• Ability to plan and achieve set goals within realistic time frames
• Good understanding of fundraising principles and practice
• Knowledge of budget setting and the principles of cost-effective fundraising
• Well organised, with good initiative
• Excellent people skills and a confident and persuasive communicator with people at all levels both written and oral
• Confident IT user including internet, email, CRM databases and MS Office
• Understanding and experience of role social media platforms play in fundraising
• Networking skills that enable you to quickly make connections and build positive relationships that will help us reach our goals
• Ability to manage and prioritise competing demands
• Good understanding of fundraising best practice and the role of the Fundraising Regulator
• Empathy with and commitment to the work of Age UK Exeter
• Resilient in the face of the challenges fundraising can present
• Understanding of confidentiality and the requirements of General Data Protection Regulations

Desirable

• Experience and understanding of issues such as loneliness and isolation and dementia and the impact they have on individuals and families
• Experience of recruiting, supporting and supervising volunteers or working with or as a volunteer
• Understanding and experience of editing and updating websites within a content management system. 
• Sales and/or Marketing experience
• Sense of humour

Background Information 

We’ve been helping older people in Exetermake the most of life for over 30 years

Come and join us!

We’re looking for a Community & Corporate Fundraising Manager with the qualities and skills to take our community fundraising to the next level. In the last financial year we achieved nearly £50,000 in donations and over £77,000 from fundraising activities from a total income of nearly £1.5m. Of the fourteen different services we provide, three are free to the public and are therefore reliant on fundraising income survive and prosper. These are our Befriending services that link people together, our Dementia Carers Support project that provides practical and emotional support to over 120 carers of people living with dementia and our Information and Advice service which each year responds to around 2,500 enquiries and helps older people in Exeter gain an additional £1.1m in unclaimed benefits.

We need your energy, skills and resourcefulness to unlock the funds that can secure these services and also make a valuable contribution to the core costs of the charity. By building on our supporter base of 1,000+ local people, many local businesses and our great reputation in the city, you will let people know the importance and value of what we do, engaging public support to realise our vision of a city where every older person is able to get the most out of life, whatever their circumstances. Our focus is on building community, civic and business support to raise funds for us, growing the number of regular donors who want to support the charity and creating successful events. We use Blackbaud eTapestry donor management software to maximise our effectiveness and ensure we respond to our donors appropriately.

Here’s the back story

Age UK Exeter is a local, independent charity and part of a national network of 130 Age UKs across England. We have grown a strong reputation for putting the individual older person at the heart of all we do and now provide support and opportunities to over a thousand older people in the city each week. We achieve this through our 110 dedicated staff and over 300 fantastic volunteers who give their time and skills so generously for the benefit of others.

We’re an independent charity with our own locally elected Board of Trustees, responsible for our own funding and governance and part of the national Age UK network. We have our main centre and offices in Cowick Street, St Thomas, a further large centre in Mount Pleasant and provide community services right across the city.

A lot of what we do is about combating the loneliness and isolation that still faces so many older people in Exeter. Of the 20,000 older people in the city, over 7,000 live alone and a survey we conducted a little while ago showed that nearly a third of local people aged over 80 said they felt lonely most or all of the time.

Because we know everyone is different, we work hard to offer a wide range of opportunities for people to come together in ways that suit them. This could be anything from one to one befriending and telephone support to special interest groups, weekly social groups or a ‘Men in Sheds’ workshop where older men come together to refurbish old tools and gardening equipment for sale to the public.

We also support people with more complex health and social care needs through our Day Care clubs, Enabling, Home from Hospital, Dementia Carers Support and Wellbeing Exeter services. In addition to these we provide a comprehensive Information and Advice service that helps older people and their families navigate an increasingly complex world, claim the benefits to which they’re entitled and plan ahead for the future.

How We Make a Difference

In 2018/19 we provided the following:

• Information and Advice – responded to over 3,000 enquiries for help
• Benefits take-up – helped local older people gain an additional £1.1m in benefits
• Day services for older people with complex needs – 10,000 attendances
• Café offering good value, freshly cooked meals – 12,500 meals served
• Activity groups - Tai Chi, exercise, choir, computer training – 9,000 sessions
• Wellbeing and social inclusion – 200 older people supported
• Support for carers of people with dementia –  over 120 families supported
• Home from Hospital – 818 people supported at the RD&E
• Enabling & Home Help service –  over 24,000 hours of support to 250 individuals
• Volunteer visiting for older people who live alone – 2,500 visits
• Telephone contact-line for people living alone – 4,500 calls
• Men in Sheds refurbishing donated tools and garden implements – 60 men involved, raising nearly £60,000 in sales through our shop in Paris Street
• Drop-in social groups  – over 50 attendances per week
• We received 30,000 phone calls to our office
• And 11,000 visitors to our reception
• And we’re just completing a three year research project with the University of Exeter and the Open University looking at how older people’s formal and informal support networks can be enhanced and strengthened through the use of technology.

We need to realise nearly £1.5m every year to maintain all that we do and this is achieved by a mixture of fundraising and donations (9%), contracts with Devon County Council and the RD&E Hospital Trust (32%), fees (35%), grants (14%) legacies and our Men in Sheds social enterprise and shop (4%).

Closing Date for Applications:  12 noon, Wednesday 11th March

Interviews: Week commencing 16th March at 138 Cowick Street, EX4 1HS

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted by telephone but in the interests of economy we regret we are unable to acknowledge other applications.

For an informal discussion about the post, please contact Martyn Rogers, CEO