Business Support Officer

About us

Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement (P&A) 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 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

About the role

We are looking to recruit a talented Business Support Officer to join the Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement (P&A) team at King’s College London.

The Business Support Officer provides crucial and comprehensive support for the Business Operations team to help ensure the continued success and evolution of the department. It is a fast-paced and varied post that will offer operational and administrative support to cover a diverse range of tasks, from planning and delivering team engagement activity, through to recruitment and onboarding, to supporting on financial analysis and reporting. They work closely with the Business Manager KCL Philanthropy and the People & Talent Manager but will also be a part of the wider Business Operations unit that ensures P&A is an efficiently and smoothly functioning unit.

As a significant part of the role, the postholder will be working closely with the Business Manager to support the work of the Philanthropy teams. The role will work with frontline fundraisers, as well as colleagues across the Department, to support in the processes and administration involved in cultivating and securing philanthropic gifts. They will also play a key role in supporting the Business Manager to drive forward important engagement and coordination across the Philanthropy team. In doing so, they will help support the creation of a high performing culture and allow fundraisers to focus on maximising philanthropic opportunities.

The Business Support Officer will also work closely with the People & Talent Manager, supporting in areas such as recruitment process, developing and organising training programmes and opportunities, and generally supporting on work to create an excellent working environment. This will cover activity in the Philanthropy teams and also more broadly across P&A.

The role will suit an ambitious self-starter who can co-ordinate and manage projects and processes across a variety of work areas within business operations, being motivated by working with both people and data. Someone who can build strong relationships across teams to ensure that ways of working are optimised to support our fundraising efforts and our wider department. And someone who will embrace working in a role that requires a degree of autonomy, in the context of a team that prides itself on its open, friendly, and supportive culture.

This is a full-time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract for 12 months. P&A 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

• An ability to build strong working relationships, with the ability to collaborate effectively as well as working as part of a large team set-up
• Proven success of good stakeholder management, and comfortable working and communicating with a wide range of individuals, including senior leaders
• Ability to prioritise, manage conflicting deadlines, work well under pressure and manage multiple tasks to deadline
• Highly organised and process-orientated with strong attention to detail
• Proven ability to own activities and manage own workload
• High level of IT literacy, including good working knowledge of Microsoft Office packages, including the use of databases
• Proven ability to synthesise large amounts of information from a variety of sources, interpret and present clearly

Desirable criteria

• Knowledge and experience of fundraising and working in a fundraising operation. Familiarity with basic fundraising principles and strategies
• Knowledge of a Fundraising Database (e.g. Raiser’s Edge)
• Experience with advising or supporting on people related processes

Closing date: 30 November 2025.