Are you passionate about building lasting relationships that create real impact? Join Guide Dogs as our Major Donor Fundraising Officer and help change lives by securing vital funding from high-value supporters.
In this exciting and rewarding role, you’ll focus on cultivating and managing relationships with philanthropists capable of giving £10,000 or more. Working with existing supporters, your goal will be to deepen their connection to our cause and inspire transformational gifts that support our work with blind and partially sighted people across the UK.
You’ll manage your own portfolio of major donors, taking ownership of income targets and leading face-to-face ‘asks’ to secure significant and multi-year funding. Whether you’re building compelling cases for support, planning prospecting events, or guiding senior stakeholders through a donor meeting, you’ll be at the heart of our mission—ensuring every supporter feels valued, heard, and inspired.
This is a truly collaborative role. You’ll work closely with colleagues across Guide Dogs, from our services teams to senior leadership, to match donors with projects that speak to their passions. You’ll also nurture a strong network of advocates—Trustees, volunteers, and staff—who can help open doors and deliver powerful donor experiences.
If you’ve got a background in major donor or high-value fundraising, love creating meaningful connections, and thrive when meeting bold targets, this could be your next big step.
About Us
No two people with sight loss are the same, and none of our people are either. So, we are proud to offer a range of person-centred benefits that can support each member of staff in ways that really mean something to them – and show them how much they mean to us. We offer a flexible benefits package, discounts and cashback scheme, a generous holiday allowance and matched contributory pension scheme to care for our people.
We value in-person collaboration with our teams and those we support, so the ability to travel to our sites is needed. This role offers flexibility in location, with the option to be based near one of our key office sites in Leamington, Reading, London or our National Centre near Warwick.
However, we understand that the right candidate may be based elsewhere, and we’re open to discussing other locations. The role requires a presence in a Guide Dogs office one to two days per week, but beyond that, we offer a hybrid working arrangement that allows for flexibility while ensuring strong collaboration with colleagues and teams. Home-based could also be considered for this role. Most team meetings take place in Reading or National Centre, Leamington so access to either of these locations is important.
You’ll be working 35 hours per week, worked 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.
How to apply
Further details on the full role are attached below. When you are ready to apply, submit an online application form via this page.
As part of your application ensure you provide evidence and examples of how your skills & experience meet the criteria as set out in the attached job description. You will also be asked to complete a few job-specific questions as part of this application process, so please be prepared to write your answers to these questions.
If you want to know more about the teams who work at Guide Dogs, you can find it on our Careers Page
Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
Guide Dogs welcomes applications from all sections of the community and actively encourages diversity to maximise achievements, creativity and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability or nationality.
As a Disability Confident Employer, we are proud, whenever possible, to offer an interview to all candidates that meet our selection criteria, and who indicate they wish their application to be considered under our Disability Confident interview commitment. For more details, visit our careers site.
If you are successful you will need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK via our digital ID checking supplier; in addition, we cannot offer visa sponsorship at this time.
Every day is different at Guide Dogs. And no person with sight loss is the same. We work side by side, on our sites and in the community, in schools and on our streets, supporting people to live the life they choose. Our staff therefore also work in different ways to support the delivery of our life changing work.
Safeguarding
Guide Dogs is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children, young people and adults at risk of harm with whom we work. We expect all our employees and volunteers to fully share this commitment.
At Guide Dogs, we believe in fair and equitable hiring practices. A criminal record will not automatically disqualify an applicant from consideration for a position. Each case will be evaluated individually, taking into account the nature of the offense, its relevance to the role, and the time that has passed since the incident. We encourage all candidates to disclose relevant information, and we assure you that it will be handled confidentially and fairly.
Guide Dogs follow Safer Recruitment practices to ensure we are safeguarding the vulnerable people we work with. As part of this, we require a full work history with any gaps accounted for & a minimum of 2 professional referee details fully covering the past 5 years. If you are applying for a disclosure role, please note that you will be required to undergo an enhanced DBS check and sign up to the DBS update service.
For high volumes of applications, we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than advertised.
Registered Charity
More than 1000
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Job purpose
This is an exciting time to join Action for ME. With developments in research and policy alongside delivering services which are in high demand, you will enjoy working in a fast-paced and continually changing environment. You will be responsible for overseeing operational programme design and delivery, reporting of progress, and measuring the impact of all Action for ME work to improve the lives of people affected by ME. Better meeting their needs today while taking action to secure change for tomorrow. You will also assist the Chief Executive in implementing the organisational strategy, and by adapting and evolving delivery models on the ground. As you will have operational management and oversight for our Healthcare Services and hold the Designated Safeguarding Lead role for the organisation, you will bring considerable services-related experience at a management and leadership level. The Chief Executive will focus predominately on external matters and therefore you must have experience of managing an organisation to achieve high quality programmes with evidenced impact and motivated teams. You will act for the Chief Executive on topics, as agreed, and deputise during their absence.
Key duties
1. Leadership
- Ensure that children and adults with ME are at the heart of everything we do through meaningful engagement and participation to influence all aspects of our work.
- Deputise for the CEO and represent and promote the Charity at national meetings and events.
- Deputise for the CEO during periods of absence, and in relation to specific matters, issues or elements of operation as delegated from time to time by the CEO, ensuring a consistency of approach and decisions aligned with the organisation’s objectives.
- With the CEO and HR Business Partner, lead on implementing the People and Culture Strategy and ensuring our Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging plan is achieved.
- To provide support, leadership and coaching to the Management Team to ensure the smooth running of the organisation and development of the Charity.
- Contribute to the development of the overall strategy for Action for ME, ensuring that the best use is made of available resources within agreed priorities. Ensure that agreed strategy is delivered to target and in line with agreed budgets.
- Work closely with the Chief Executive and Trustees to ensure effective reporting to the Board and sub-committees.
2. Operations & management
- Manage the day-to-day operations of the Charity ensuring high quality service provision that meets all best practice, legal and regulatory frameworks and internal policies and procedures.
- Hold overall management responsibility for our Healthcare Services including the role of the CQC Nominated Individual, ensuring all regulatory requirements and compliance are met.
- Manage the staff and volunteer team, including holding regular meetings and ensure the efficient running of the office ensuring a culture that supports, inspires and motivates the team while ensuring required standards and quality are met at all times through effective performance management.
- Act as the organisational Designated Safeguarding Lead (children and vulnerable adults), working closely with the Designated Safeguarding Officers, colleagues and the Safeguarding Lead Trustee; facilitate the annual safeguarding audit (led by the Lead Trustee) and ensuring safeguarding standards across the organisation are maintained.
- Contribute to the learning and development of key personnel including coaching support (either directly or through the identification of external coaches) to enhance performance.
- Establish (where not already in place) and maintain a clear performance outcome-focused management system driving positive change and improvement across all teams.
- Ensure that policies and procedures are effectively implemented and kept up-to-date to enable the effective management of operations and support growth.
- Take the lead role for data protection, health and safety, compliance and risk management across the organisation and act as the Designated Safeguarding Lead.
3. Finance & income generation
- Hold financial leadership responsibility, working closely with the Finance Manager and the Fundraising Director to ensure sustainability for our work.
- Ensure effective financial management with procedures in place which are kept up-to-date and implemented accordingly.
- Provide support and engagement, where appropriate, to actively grow our income.
4. Working with others
- Lead, nurture and develop relationships with key stakeholder groups and partner organisations, both locally and nationally, supporting Action for M.’s place as the ‘go to’ organisation for people affected by ME
- Lead on new business ideas and pilot projects in line with the strategic objectives; with colleagues, develop the business case, identify and manage risks, lead implementation across teams, evaluate success and learning and make recommendations for future development.
5. Other key accountabilities
- Be proactive in keeping up to date with developments affecting operations and maintain and improve personal competence through continuous professional development.
- Take direction on projects and priorities from the CEO, which may vary from time to time.
- To ensure best value in all service delivery.
Person specification
Experience and Knowledge
- Proven experience in an operations, leadership, or senior management role, ideally within the charity service delivery or healthcare sector, with the ability to develop and implement strategic plans that drive organisational growth and reporting that demonstrates impact delivered. If you come from outside a support services background, you must demonstrate sound understanding of the regulatory and best practice requirements related to delivering support and/or healthcare services.
- An understanding of ME and associated/overlapping illnesses, the impact on people affected by it or a commitment and ability to understand the illness and lead services to meet the needs of children and adults with ME
- Experience managing multi-disciplinary teams, including remote workers, and fostering a supportive workplace culture where change is a constant.
- Safeguarding understanding at a management/decision-making level.
- Proven experience of building and nurturing strong relationships internally and externally at all levels.
- A sound understanding of outcome-focused, effective performance management, quality assurance and risk management.
- Strong financial acumen, including budgeting, financial planning, and resource management in the voluntary sector.
Skills and Behaviours
- Experience of governance, risk management, and compliance, including within regulated services, ideally within a charity and/or service delivery setting.
- Proven ability to think strategically, balance competing demands, use initiative to solve problems and actively seek innovative approaches to problem solving and delivering results.
- Strong interpersonal skills including motivational, negotiating influencing and networking skills which build strong internal and external relationships.
- An ability to understand, analyse and make effective use of data across all of our work.
- A proven ability to coach and motivate staff and to build and lead teams reflecting organisational culture and values, a respectful, constructive and energetic style.
- Proven, strong MS Office skills that supports writing, email, internet and database use.
- Demonstrable ability to work within our organisational values
Registered Charity
21 - 50
Our mission is to improve the lives of people affected by ME. Better meeting their needs today while taking action to secure change for tomorrow.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.