As our Fundraising Officer you’ll play a crucial role in raising philanthropic income for the university. You’ll be joining us at an exciting time as 2026 marks the University’s centenary.
Your work will involve planning and delivering a range of fundraising activities aimed at raising charitable donations from alumni and other supporters. Projects will include an international giving day, telephone campaign, direct mail appeals, online crowdfunding projects and raising money at public events on our campuses.
This is a chance to make a real difference during an important year. You’ll be joining a friendly, supportive and passionate team and your work will have real impact — supporting students, research and the wider community through our centenary projects.
To succeed in this role, you will have:
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills including the ability to work with a wide range of people
- Experience planning and managing projects
- Excellent organisational and time management skills
- Good all round IT skills
- Ideally gained some prior experience in a fundraising role
This role is a fixed-term full time position, working 35 hours per week, providing maternity cover for 1 year from February 2026. Working hours would normally be 9-5pm Monday to Friday, but the role will require periods of out of hours working such as during the telephone campaign.
The role requires some days working at the Whiteknights Campus each week, but The Fundraising Team supports hybrid remote working arrangements too.
Registered Charity
More than 1000
Our core charitable objectives, defined by our Royal Charter, are to advance education, learning, and research for public benefit.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Director of Fundraising and Development (Maternity cover)
Reporting to: CEO as part of the Senior Leadership team
Direct reports: Head of Business Development, Head of Corporate Partnerships, Head of Individual Giving and Engagement, Head of Major Giving, Department Coordinator Location of work: Remote/ Home based with travel to London and occasional UK travel.
Contract Length: 18 months Maternity Cover
Contract Type: Proposed full-time, 35 hours per week; 28 hours per week or 35 hours compressed may be considered. The role may require occasional evening and weekend work.
Salary: £80,000 - £85,000
BACKGROUND
Magic Breakfast’s mission is to end child morning hunger in the UK now and for good. The latest research suggests that the number of children and young people at risk of hunger has rocketed to 2.7 million, meaning that one in five children don’t have enough to eat. When a child is too hungry to learn, they struggle to concentrate, absorb information, and manage big emotions, causing them to fall behind in their studies.
Magic Breakfast provides a nutritious and filling breakfast to over 300,000 children and young people every school day. We work with schools in areas of high disadvantage, helping staff target the children most in need without barrier or stigma. We are now at an exciting point in our journey as we launch Nourishing Futures, our long-term strategy, which capitalises on market changes and government commitments to scale our work, while redefining breakfast spaces not just as places to eat, but as places to thrive.
JOB PURPOSE
The Director of Fundraising and Development (Maternity Cover) will provide strategic leadership and direction across all fundraising and income-generating activities, ensuring the charity continues to deliver against its financial objectives and accelerates long-term, sustainable growth across our philanthropic, public, and commercial income streams.
You will bring strong communication, leadership, and interpersonal skills to equip, support, and empower the team through a period of organisational change. You will help the team optimise and make the most of the new organisational strategy, embedding strategic focus, effective decision-making, and collaborative leadership practices across the fundraising leadership group.
You will use your commercial acumen and fundraising expertise to identify opportunities and support the team to recognise, shape, and pursue them confidently and effectively, enabling them to take ownership and drive progress across all income streams. A key part of the role will be ensuring that new commercial and public sector income streams are recognised, understood, and capitalised on across the organisation, working closely with the newly established Head of Business Development to embed this focus and enable them to succeed in driving this work forward.
Working closely with the CEO and Senior Leadership Team (SLT), you will play a crucial role in maintaining momentum, ensuring continuity, and supporting the organisation to deliver the new strategy and business plan, helping to realise opportunities, navigate challenges, and ensure long-term sustainability during this maternity cover period.
You’ll be responsible for:
- Driving income growth: establishing high-performing income pipelines across all income streams, with a strong multi-year focus, supported by robust data, reporting, and pipeline management.
- Integrating and accelerating public sector and commercial income streams: Ensuring newly integrated income areas are understood, valued and operational across the organisation.
- Embedding and executing a unified, co-owned fundraising and development strategy: Partnering with the CEO, SLT and Board to embed strategic focus, ensure integration, and alignment with organisational goals.
- Strengthening leadership, culture and team performance: Providing coaching-based leadership, direction, support and empowerment, helping the team thrive and achieve ambitious income targets across philanthropic, public sector and commercial streams.
- Advance cross-organisational impact, insight and influence: ensuring fundraising and development is tightly integrated with organisational strategy, marketing/engagement, service delivery and external influencing.
For more information on the role or to apply please contact:
Katie Booth | peridot partners| email and phone number can be found on the website link
Simon Callaghan | peridot partners | email and phone number can be found on the website link
Timetable
Closing date: 9 a.m. Monday 12th January 2026
Candidates informed of outcome: By 5 p.m. Tuesday 13th January 2026
First stage interviews: Friday 16th January 2026 (Online)
Second stage interviews: Tuesday 20th January 2026 (In person, London)
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.