Head of Charitable Funding Partners

Do you want to make a real difference by raising six and seven figure gifts from charitable funders? Do you like writing convincing cases for support and building long-term relationships? Do you want to play a key role in a new ambitious fundraising and volunteering campaign?

We are now in the planning stages of our next campaign. Inspired by our founder, Joseph Chamberlain, it will aim to change lives locally and globally. It will be unique and ambitious and will place Birmingham as one of the leading fundraising and volunteering universities in the world.

There is a rare opportunity to join the DARO Leadership team at this exciting time in campaign preparations in a fixed-term maternity cover post (one year) as the Head of Charitable Funding Partners. You will work closely with colleagues across the campus, particularly the Business Engagement and Research Support teams, to achieve a financial target by proactively identifying and creating new charitable funding opportunities (with a particular focus on Trusts, Foundations and other charities). Working closely with academics and professional services colleagues you will make new strategically important applications and support existing relationships and bids where appropriate.

Our University has a proud history of philanthropy stretching back to its foundation in 1900. With a clear vision to change the lives of the people of Birmingham, Joseph Chamberlain raised the funds required to build the University from citizens and corporations based locally and around the globe. Since then philanthropy has continued to play an important role in shaping the University. There have been a number of fundraising campaigns, including a £1m urgent capital appeal after the Second World War and a £1.4m campaign to fund the Vale ‘student village’ in the 1960s. In 2015 we closed the Circles of Influence Campaign, raising £193 million, making it the largest HE fundraising campaign outside Oxbridge and London.

The University has global reach, including several partnerships with other leading universities around the world, and is grounded in its local community, having opened the first fully comprehensive University secondary school in the country in 2015. We are an ambitious and successful research-intensive University (one of the top 100 research-led universities globally) and have produced 11 Nobel Prize winners, including three who received their awards in 2016. Academics here are exploring the impact of climate change, helping to prevent global health epidemics, and changing our understanding of Shakespeare. Our students come from nearly 150 countries and our flagship outreach programmes mean that almost 25% of our student population come from disadvantaged backgrounds, one of the highest proportions in the UK.

DARO exists to support this academic and student community by engaging, inspiring, and celebrating alumni, individuals, and charitable funders who give their money, time, and networks to support the University’s strategic priorities. The Office, which is comprised of 60 staff across five teams, is focused on fundraising and volunteering from alumni and individuals who are passionate about changing lives, through funding various research trials, supporting student bursaries, mentoring students, and providing internships.