Part-time Freelance Fundraiser for innovative mental health social enterprise

Who we are

Talk for Health (T4H) is a small, not-for-profit Social Enterprise with a big ambition – to make therapeutic talk accessible for all.

Founder Nicky Forsythe is a Psychotherapist and Talk for Health as a Social Enterprise ‘gives therapy away’ by teaching lay people the skills of therapeutic talk.

This enables people to set up highly effective, structured ongoing groups to support wellbeing.  We think of these groups as part of your ‘Psychological 5 a day’: a wellbeing practice that is relevant to all  of us.

The Talk for Health programme was developed in 2008 and we became a Social Enterprise in 2013. 

We have been funded in Islington by the NHS since 2014 and analysis of 500 people through the programme has demonstrated that T4H is as effective as therapy and lower cost/longer-lasting.  It also builds supportive communities.  Our data has enabled us to gain some support from 3 further funders.

With NHS cuts in full swing without an end in sight, we need a Fundraiser to help assure our sustainability.

Person specification

We are looking for someone with the following qualities and experience:

• A dynamic self-starter who wants to help a fledgling organisation with huge potential to grow
• Desirably: experience fundraising for Social Enterprises.  We are a not-for-profit but not a charity. We need someone who understands funding for Social Enterprise or is willing to learn
• Ideally: experience with Public Sector bids, Events and Philanthropy as well as grantmaking bodies
• Ideally: experience with Mental Health

Role and pay

Our Fundraiser would:

• Advise on strategy
• Maintain and build our prospects pipeline
• Take a lead in fundraising aspects of our annual awareness-raising event: inviting and following up prospects to add to our pipeline
• Help submit 30 bids a year to raise, ideally, £120,000 commitments per year.  We have bid-writing capacity and talent in-house but need our Fundraiser to produce initial drafts and project-manage bids

To be successful, we have learned from experience that our Fundraiser must:

• Fully familiarise themselves with our marketing and fundraising assets
• Have a 2 hour catch -up meeting with us once a month and a 15-minute catch up call once a week
• Attend some of our events to get the feel of what we do

We are currently able to pay £1,250 a month for 4 days a month.  We anticipate this would rise as our turnover rises.

This would be a freelance role so you would need to demonstrate that you run your own business.