Freedom project regional manager jobs

Acorns Children’s Hospice provides specialist care and support for babies, children and young people who are life limited or life threatened. Supporting over 750 children and nearly 1,000 families annually, Acorns is a vital lifeline for families across the West Midlands and Gloucestershire during unimaginably difficult times.

Individual Giving is a key pillar of Acorns’ fundraising strategy, delivering sustainable income through supporter retention, stewardship and meaningful donor engagement. Following a recent team restructure and significant investment in the function, Acorns is now looking for an Individual Giving Manager to help shape and grow its retention programme.

Reporting to the Senior Individual Giving Manager, you will manage the delivery of warm fundraising campaigns across a range of channels, including appeals, newsletters, telemarketing, email and regular giving. Contributing to a team income target of c.£1.5m, you will focus on retaining and developing supporters, using data and insight to maximise performance and supporter lifetime value.

This is an exciting opportunity for a driven fundraiser who enjoys testing new ideas, using data to inform decisions and taking ownership of campaign delivery. With strong support from senior leadership and the freedom to put your own stamp on the role, you will play a key role in the future growth of Individual Giving at Acorns.

Hybrid, 2 days per week at preferred location (Birmingham, Worcester or Walsall).

As Individual Giving Manager, you will:

• Deliver multi-channel retention campaigns including appeals, newsletters, telemarketing, email and regular giving activity
• Support a team income target of c.£1.5m by maximising supporter retention and increasing lifetime value
• Develop and grow the mid-value programme for donors giving between £200 and £5,000 annually
• Create tailored supporter journeys, stewardship plans and small-scale events that bring supporters closer to Acorns’ work
• Develop engaging fundraising concepts and write compelling copy across print and digital channels
• Work closely with colleagues across Data, Marcomms and Fundraising to deliver excellent supporter experiences
• Identify opportunities to test new approaches, challenge existing activity and drive continuous improvement

Essential skills and experience: 

• Campaign delivery experience within individual giving, direct marketing or supporter engagement
• Experience using data and insight to improve campaign performance and supporter retention
• Copywriting skills and the confidence to develop fundraising concepts
• Experience managing budgets, forecasts and campaign reporting
• A curious, analytical and test-and-learn mindset
• A proactive, solutions-focused approach and the confidence to work independently
• Experience working across a range of fundraising or marketing channels

Desirable, but not essential:

• Experience working across more than one organisation
• Experience delivering supporter retention programmes
• Confidence working independently and taking ownership of campaign delivery

This role could suit an experienced Individual Giving Officer looking to take the next step in their career. As the team grows line management opportunities may become available.

Benefits include:

• 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• 5 days holiday buyback scheme
• 5% employer pension contribution
• Life assurance scheme (2 x annual salary)
• Retail discounts (including the Blue Light card)
• Cycle to work scheme
• Discounted gym membership
• Access to expert financial health and wellbeing support

About Barnabas Aid

Barnabas International is a large family of Christian ministries and charities focused on giving practical support to suffering, abandoned and persecuted Christians around the world. The ministry was founded in 1993, and since then, it has funded projects in more than 100 countries, providing hope and help to millions of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Some of our key projects include supplying food aid, medical supplies, educational and vocational training, Bibles, micro-enterprise, disaster relief, help for victims of violence, and support for pastors and church leaders. Barnabas Aid also provides advocacy for religious freedom, especially for persecuted and suffering Christians.

Barnabas is a Christian ministry and a charity. Employees are expected to subscribe to the Vision, Mission, Value and Statement of Faith, and their work may be viewed as being vocational.

There is an occupational requirement for applicants to be practising Christians, who are engaged in their local church, in order to be able to carry out our roles.

Overview

The role will provide high-quality administrative, systems, and research support to the Quality Team, enabling consistent quality assurance across the grant-making cycle. The postholder will administer and improve the team’s Salesforce processes and data standards, coordinate key workflows and information management, support the Director of Quality, Quality Assurance Specialist and Impact (MEAL) Coordinator with scheduling and documentation, and deliver defined research tasks and short projects (e.g., into quality assurance approaches, MEAL frameworks, tools and best practice) to strengthen the team’s work.

Key internal relationships: Director of Quality; Quality Assurance Specialist; Impact (MEAL) Specialist; Regional Directors, Programme Managers and Project Officers; ICPO; Finance; Data/Systems owners.
 

Key Responsibilities

Salesforce administration and systems support

• Administer the Quality/Projects components of Salesforce (and associated tools), including user support, data standards, fields/picklists, basic configuration tasks within delegated permissions, and documentation of processes.
• Maintain data quality rules and routines (validation, required fields, definitions, and guidance) and run regular data quality checks, working with colleagues to resolve issues.
• Produce and maintain reports/dashboards for the Quality Team (e.g., pipeline status, stage-gate progress, approvals, conditions, timeliness, data completeness, and quality metrics).
• Log, triage, and coordinate Salesforce improvement requests, liaising with system owners/IT and supporting user testing and roll-out of updates.
• Create and maintain user guidance (how-to notes, short training materials) to support consistent use of Salesforce and associated quality workflows

Administrative support to the Quality Director and team coordination

• Support the Quality Assurance and Impact (MEAL) Specialists with planning timetables, collating papers, maintaining decision/action logs, and following up actions with stakeholders.
• Prepare and format documents to agreed standards (templates, document control, version control) and maintain an audit-ready filing system in SharePoint (or equivalent).

·Coordinate team processes, including shared calendars, team meetings, process documentation, and communications that help the Quality Team operate consistently.

Research and special projects (Quality assurance, MEAL and learning)

• Undertake defined research tasks to support the Quality Team’s priorities (e.g., QA approaches in grant-making, MEAL frameworks and tools, file review methodologies, sampling approaches, learning loops, and good practice in documentation and audit trails).
• Produce short research summaries/briefings with practical recommendations for the Director of Quality and Specialists, including options, pros/cons, and implications for Barnabas processes.
• Support discreet improvement projects (e.g., updating templates/checklists, improving guidance, piloting a new dashboard or QA tool) and track actions to implementation.

·Maintain a small library of standards, templates, guidance, and reference materials (including MEAL and QA resources) for the team.

Pre-Committee Proposal Scrutiny

·Formal review of all project proposals before submission to the projects subcommittee to improve quality by ensuring:

oProposals are internally consistent;

oProposed solutions credibly meet the identified needs;

oThe response is proportionate and broadly consistent with other Barnabas Aid projects of a similar nature;

oBeneficiary selection is conducted appropriately and can be justified;

oThe proposal is strategically aligned, represents good value-for-money and meets all of Barnabas Aid’s project policies;

oRelevant harms have been considered and mitigated;

oA proportionate M&E approach is in place;

oPrudent but pragmatic financial arrangements (e.g. split into tranches, use of intermediaries) are adopted and justified.

·In conjunction with regional teams, undertake light editing of proposals to improve clarity and correct inconsistencies and typographical errors.

·Document checks to ensure all due diligence activities have been conducted before proposal is put to the subcommittee.

Post-Committee Follow-up

·Track actions provided by committee to ensure projects fully implement committee decisions (e.g. splitting into tranches, reporting requirements, risk management, etc)

·Draft, for regional team’s approval, project approval/project rejection letters to partners, including all relevant provisions for management of the grants.

Compliance, confidentiality, and continuous improvement

• Handle sensitive information responsibly, ensuring appropriate confidentiality, data protection, and information security practices are applied.

·Support the Quality Team to evidence required checks and maintain consistent records across systems and files, raising risks or gaps as appropriate.

Other duties

The above is not an exhaustive list of duties. From time to time, the employee may be asked or required to carry out other additional tasks, or duties, over and above their usual day to day activities. Employees are expected to work collaboratively across the regional team, including providing flexible support and surge cover as needed.
 

Person Requirement

Essential

·Bible-believing follower of Jesus: Demonstrates a personal commitment to discipleship and growing in faith. In good standing with their Church, actively

participating in its life and community. Committed to affirming and signing Barnabas Aid’s Statement of Faith.

·Educated to degree-level or equivalent, with strong administrative and systems experience.

·Evidence of continuous professional development relevant to administration, data/systems, quality, research, MEAL, or project/grants work

·Experience in a busy administrative role, supporting multiple stakeholders, scheduling meetings, and coordinating actions to deadlines.

·Experience administering or providing ‘super-user’ support for a CRM/database (preferably Salesforce), including maintaining data standards and producing reports/dashboards.

·Experience with document control and shared filing systems (e.g SharePoint), including version control and maintaining audit-ready records.

·Experience undertaking structured research tasks and producing clear summaries/recommendations for non-specialist audiences.

·Highly organised with strong attention to detail; able to manage multiple deadlines and stakeholders.

·Strong systems aptitude: able to document processes, apply data standards, run checks, and support colleagues to use systems consistently.

·Ability to produce clear reports/briefings and summarise research into practical recommendations.

·Confident with Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams, SharePoint) and comfortable learning new systems.

·Discretion and good judgement when handling confidential/sensitive information.

Desirable

·Experience working in the charity, international development, or faith-based sector.

·Salesforce administration training/qualification (or equivalent CRM certification).

·Training in research methods, MEAL, data analysis, or quality/process improvement

·Experience in grants administration, governance support, programme/project support, or compliance-focused roles.

·Experience supporting QA, audit, MEAL, or learning processes (e.g., file reviews, indicator tracking, learning events).

·Ability to build and maintain Salesforce reports/dashboards and/or familiarity with basic Salesforce admin concepts (profiles/permissions within delegated scope).

·Familiarity with MEAL concepts (monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning) and how they support quality and learning in programmes.

·Understanding of grants governance, restricted funds, and/or donor intent in a charity setting.

·Experience working in a distributed/remote team environment.

Personal Qualities

·Service-minded and collaborative; enjoys enabling others to do their work effectively.

·Proactive and solutions-focused; comfortable addressing issues, prompting actions and following up with colleagues.

·Curious and methodical; able to work independently on research tasks and present findings clearly.
 

How to Apply

Please apply by submitting your CV and a cover letter demonstrating how your skills and experience make you a good fit for this role and for the mission of Barnabas Aid.