Trust manager jobs in Guildford, surrey

Senior Fundraising Manager – Trust and Philanthropy

Salary- £40,940 per annum

Location- Remote working in the UK, with regular travel to London and other parts of the UK.

Reporting to- Director of Fundraising

Contract- Full-time, permanent

Closing Date- 11th January 2026 at Midnight

Who we are?

Futures For All is the largest social mobility charity in the UK. We help to level the playing field between state and independent schools by giving all young people access to the same prestigious networks available to the top fee-paying schools. 

We believe that by inspiring young people to explore their ambitions through our speaker programme, facilitating access to multi-day experiences of the world of work, and supporting young people to successfully seize opportunities available to them, then we can make a profound difference to the lives of young people, their future happiness and prosperity. 

By 2028, our ambition is that every young person in the UK has access to high quality work experience. Yet today, less than half of young people leave secondary school having had any work experience whatsoever.

Role Summary:

Whilst Futures For All has been fundraising for all of our 15 year history, we are now at a point in which increasing voluntary income and diversifying our charitable income streams is vital to the charity’s long-term success.  The new role of Director of Fundraising took up management of the team in 2024, and is now in the process of building a bigger and brighter team to support increasing income over the next few years.

The Senior Fundraising Manager – Trust and Philanthropy will play a pivotal role in raising funds from grantmaking trusts and HNWIs (philanthropists) towards the work of Futures For All.  They will go beyond simply writing applications and reports, to build relationships with prospects and donors, ensuring that each are guided through the solicitation cycle towards maximising their grant to the charity.  They will work closely with colleagues, volunteers and leadership to ensure each prospect/donor is engaged appropriately and accurate information is provided in a timely manner.  They will also support the overall function of the Fundraising team, supporting other forms of fundraising. They will build relationships with prospects and donors, ensuring that each are guided through the solicitation cycle towards making major donations. 

Futures for All (formerly Speakers for Schools) seeks an individual with experience working with high-value supporters and strong relationship-building skills to become our new Senior Fundraising Manager – Trust and Philanthropy.  With an exceptional network of senior stakeholders and volunteers, the potential for growth in fundraising is great.

As the UK’s leading social mobility charity, we’re on a mission to help state-educated students nationwide to reach their potential by providing work experience placements and inspirational talks. 

If you’re an enthusiastic, self-motivated, team-player with experience of major donor fundraising, then this is the role for you.  You’d join the team at a time of progression, with a new, focussed plan for the organisation targeting growth in our work experience and inspirational school talks. For this to be successful, we need to grow and diversify our income, particularly from grants and gifts, and are growing the fundraising team from 3.5 to 5+ members to support this increase.

Your role as Senior Fundraising Manager will be to help identify, cultivate, ask and steward philanthropists and grantmaking trusts, working with the Director of Fundraising, Fundraising team, wider colleagues and volunteers to ensure they are solicited to the highest possible standards. The team will support you and there’ll be training on offer to help you succeed.

If you are an expert communicator and relationship-builder, you could join an ambitious, collaborative team, passionate about raising funds to increase the richness of state education and level the playing field for children across the UK.

Key Duties / Responsibilities

Strategic Purpose

• Fundraising from grantmaking trusts and foundations – build and maintain a pipeline of trust prospects and donors with potential to give £10k+ per annum.
• Fundraising from major donor individuals – building relationships with prospects and donors leading to gifts of £5k or more.
• Collaboration – working with colleagues, Ambassadors and Trustees to engage potential supporters, attend events and solicit donations.
• Proposals and reports – develop and deliver accurate and inspiring fundraising applications and reports meeting and surpassing donor and prospect expectations.

Engagement

• Stewardship – work closely with the Donor Relations Manager to ensure all trust donors are stewarded effectively.
• Collaborate with staff, volunteers and leadership – ensuring you have an expert knowledge of the work of Speakers for Schools and can communicate it passionately and accurately to prospects and donors.

Delivery

• Events – utilise and support fundraising events to create a culture of giving and fundraising within Futures For All. Working alongside the Events Co-ordinator to identify attendees and shape engagement events.
• Data and reporting – ensure information on donors is correctly recorded in Salesforce, and supporting KPI and other reports created by the Director of Fundraising.
• Other duties – supporting the work of the Fundraising team and wider organisation as required.

Education / Experience / Knowledge

Essential

Experience of making the direct asks for funds from prospective donors.

Strong relationship-building skills, with the ability to cultivate and steward philanthropic relationships effectively.

Experience of compelling proposal and report writing for a grantmaking and philanthropy audience.

Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.

Enthusiastic and a self-motivated team player.

Desirable

Proven ability to raise income from grantmaking trusts, manage a portfolio of established and new trust donors, achieve targets as part of a fundraising business plan.

Experience working in a social mobility or education-focused charity.

Proven ability to engage philanthropists and senior volunteers and speakers who support these approaches.

Futures for All Values:

Passion: 

We are committed to levelling the playing field for young people across the UK, creating social mobility and tackling disadvantages.

Agility: 

We challenge our ideas of what is possible in order to better meet the needs of those we support. We are human, make mistakes, learn, evolve and adapt.

Integrity: 

We act with empathy and bring our authentic selves to work every day. We value and respect the talent, time and intentions of those we work with.

Collaboration: 

We are one team with one mission and only by working together can we deliver better outcomes for young people. We support each other unconditionally and feel motivation in shared success as well as individual progress.

Diversity: 

We know it takes people with different ideas, strengths, identities, interests, and cultural backgrounds to make our organisation succeed. We encourage constructive debate and critical friendship.

Diversity at our core

Futures for All is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to encouraging equality and diversity among our workforce and eliminating discrimination.

About You:

• Have the ability to raise income from HNWIs , manage a philanthropy portfolio of established and new donors, building strong relationships and confidently making the ask.
• Experience in creating inspiring and informative bids to grantmakers, utilising your written communication skills.
• Comfort in working with, and engaging HNWIs and business leaders who will donate and help the organisation to succeed.
• Be able to develop strong relationships with the charities senior stakeholders and staff, identifying opportunities for growth and innovative engagement.

We have big ambition, and our organisation strategy reflects this. As Senior Trust Fundraising Manager, your role will focus on securing five- and six-figure gifts from grant-giving trusts and foundations. You will provide exceptional stewardship to those trusts with whom we have existing relationships, whilst researching and cultivating new prospects to maximise income, value, and influence for The Children’s Trust. This role will be key in enabling us to strengthen long term financial sustainability, through multi-year funding relationships and to drive restricted and unrestricted income to realise the strategy for 2030.

WHEN APPLYING PLEASE INCLUDE A COVERING LETTER

This role is not open for sponsorship.

Skills and Responsibilities

To develop relationships to secure gifts and grants from Corporate Foundations, Trusts and statutory grant makers to achieve income targets. Responsibilities include:

Prospect Research:

• Identify and develop a pipeline of opportunities from grant-giving trusts and foundations.
• Use internal database, online resources, desk research, and contact mapping to identify new funder opportunities.
• Review trusts’ and foundations’ funding criteria to grow the prospect pipeline.
• Develop a thorough understanding of our work and future developments to identify new funding opportunities.

Submitting grant applications:

• Create compelling and persuasive funding appeals.
• Complete grant application forms and follow application processes as required.
• Work closely with colleagues across the Directorate and the wider charity to articulate our work and build strong funding propositions.

Leadership & Relationship Management:

• Lead and manage the Trusts and Philanthropy Executive by developing skills, conducting appraisals and overseeing ongoing development.
• Lead & steward a portfolio of existing charitable trusts and foundations, and cultivate new potential donors, ensuring their support is recognised and celebrated.
• Ensure funders are thanked promptly and that grant terms and conditions are applied.
• Provide progress reports and manage all formal reporting requirements on time.
• Build relationships in person, by phone, email, or virtual meetings to secure long-term commitment.
• Identify opportunities for funders to meet key staff and attend events and site visits that strengthen their relationship with the charity.
• Implement the High Value Donor Stewardship Plan.
• Take a proactive role in developing assets such as appeals and cultivation events.
• Work with colleagues across the charity to monitor and evaluate funded projects, producing reports that demonstrate impact.

Administration and Reporting:

• Manage trust prospects and donors on the CRM database, ensuring records are accurate and compliant with fundraising regulations.
• Budget management, cost control forecasting and taking corrective action to achieve budgets.
• Use the CRM database to manage task “actions”, prioritise and evaluate opportunities, and record funder interactions.
• Manage and develop a portfolio of high value relationships.
• Liaise with colleagues to ensure grant applications are coordinated across the organisation.

Education & Qualifications:

• Educated to GCSE (or equivalent) English and Maths
• Educated to degree level or equivalent experience

Experience:

• Significant experience and track record in trust fundraising.
• Experience of writing compelling proposals and appeals.
• Proven experience of working as part of a team to deliver ambitious income targets.
• Experience in undertaking prospect research and creating a pipeline of prospects through to cultivation, ask and stewardship.
• Experience of securing and managing statutory funding desirable.
• Demonstrable experience of using fundraising or relationship management databases.

Skills & Abilities:

• Exceptional skills with excellent attention to detail and proof-reading ability
• Excellent research skills
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills whether on the phone, virtually, in person or in writing
• Excellent relationship building skills.
• Professional, positive, and committed
• Results focussed with strong analytical skill.
• Adaptable and flexible, tenacious, and persuasive
• Financially astute, with the ability to understand project budgets and read the accounts of grant giving trusts.