Fundraising & Partnerships Manager

ABOUT THE ECONOMIST FOUNDATION

We are a fast-growing charity that uses the journalistic expertise at The Economist newspaper to develop young people’s news literacy.

What we do: We enable inspiring discussions about the news in schools. We give teachers educational news content, resources and training so they can have lively conversations with their students about current affairs. We also bring together schools from different communities for discussions with each other and leading global experts on the issues, using an innovative online platform.

Why we do it: By joining these discussions, young people build news literacy: the knowledge, skills and confidence to make up their own minds about current affairs. This can make a real difference to a young person’s life: news literacy is hugely valuable socially, in education, the workplace and beyond. We prioritise reaching disadvantaged and marginalised young people in a diverse range of communities. 

Our impact: Young people in our core programme, the Burnet News Club, make on average 133% more progress than control group students in news literacy skills including reasoning, healthy scepticism and open-mindedness. More than nine out of ten teachers tell us the programme improves their teaching practice. 

Why now: We live in an age of political uncertainty, major global challenges, misinformation and one-sided debates. It is ever more important to understand what’s really happening in the world, but it is becoming harder to do that. News literacy is increasingly seen as a priority in education, business and politics. We're excited about the opportunity this presents to grow our impact, and we have ambitious plans to do this in the coming two years. This new role is essential for delivering our growth plans.

Our story so far: We are very ambitious about growth, but we're building on a strong track record. The Foundation was set up by our Chief Executive from inside The Economist in 2012. Since then, our core programme has achieved national scale and is running in over 80 schools across the UK, reaching 1,600 young people every week. We have generated growing income from diverse sources including leading trusts, foundations and companies. We are actively engaged with the news literacy community, speaking at events internationally and giving input to the Fair Education Alliance, News Literacy Network and parliamentary inquiries.

ABOUT THE ROLE

A new role to enable our ambitious growth plans

We have a bold strategy to scale up our work. Our vision is for it to become common in UK state schools to have high-quality discussions about the news, both within classrooms and with other schools in different communities and countries.

In 2019 - 2021, we plan to make strides towards this vision by doubling the size of our core programme, reaching many thousands more young people with new programmes and beginning to work internationally. In April, we piloted a project which involved schools in Europe, North America, Australia and Argentina.

This role is an exciting opportunity to be directly responsible for enabling this growth, building on our success so far and realising the potential of our strong brand and existing relationships. Our funders and partners to date have included leading foundations, law firms, consultancies and financial institutions.

You will report directly to the Chief Executive and together with her you will lead the development and delivery of our fundraising strategy.

This is a full time role, or it could be four days per week (salary pro-rata) for the right candidate.

Responsibilities

Working closely with the Chief Executive, and receiving support from her where needed, you will:

1. (50%) Generate new funding and partnership opportunities to secure five-figure donations.
 

• Research and identify the right organisations and people to reach out to.
• Make new connections with trusts, foundations and companies.
• Represent the charity at high-level events, and identify opportunities to do so.
• Organise events or experiences to support cultivation progress.
• Design bespoke partnership proposals.
• Apply for grants from trusts and foundations.
• Influence and negotiate to secure new partnerships and donations.
   

2. (30%) Oversee existing partnerships and donor relationships to maintain and grow long-term support.
 

• Steward relationships with partners and funders, keeping them engaged and feeling appreciated.
• Project-manage partnerships, maintaining excellent communication.
• Put together high-quality and timely reports for trusts and foundations.
   

3. (15%) Help to develop the Foundation’s fundraising strategy, embed a culture of fundraising and drive a focus on growth across the organisation.
 

4. (5%) Help to grow our profile.
 

• Ensure that our communications activities are effective in engaging new supporters, partners and schools.
• Secure opportunities for the Foundation to be represented at events and in influential conversations relevant to our work.

Skills, attributes and experience
 

• Passion for fundraising. You are energised by making things happen and seeing a plan through to the end. You enjoy connecting people with a cause, you’re bold enough to ask for support and you aren’t disheartened when an application doesn’t succeed.
• Experience writing proposals / pitching / applying for grants to secure donations of at least five figures. Experience securing donations from a range of sources, including individual philanthropists, grant-making organisations or companies, is desirable.
• Ability to think critically and creatively to solve problems.
• Exceptionally strong communicator: able to listen and build rapport. You are able to generate trust in you and the Foundation’s work, and persuade people to give support.
• Excellent organisational and time management skills: able to stay on top of multiple, varied projects and relationships. Adept at balancing short-term demands with longer-term goals.
• Experience planning and managing successful projects and partnerships.
• The drive, adaptability and initiative to move conversations forward and close them. Proven track record turning ideas into actions and outcomes. Able to work collaboratively but also in a self-directed way.
• Passion for our mission and helping us to grow.
• Teamwork: you take ownership of your work and you enjoy working collaboratively and contributing to a supportive team.
• Experience of the charity sector and / or the UK education system is desirable.
   

This role involves working with young people, so you will be required to have a DBS check (which we will organise).

ENJOY THE ADVANTAGES OF A SMALL, FRIENDLY CHARITY WITHIN A LARGER BUSINESS

The Economist Foundation is an independent charity that sits within The Economist but also works quite separately.

As we’re a small organisation, we can test and implement new ideas quickly, and every member of staff has a significant impact on our work and direction. We’re an informal and very friendly team. We make each other lots of cups of tea and we like finding excuses for social activities, which have included walking tours and museum trips, mini golf and ice-skating. We work hard but also flexibly, and some of us use that flexibility to be involved with other projects outside of work, from volunteering to film-making.

The Foundation was named by Escape the City as one of The Escape 100: Best Companies to Escape to in 2019.

At the same time, we have the advantages of a larger company. There are excellent benefits at The Economist Group, including a very good pension plan (the company will contribute up to 11%), private medical insurance, gym discounts and much more. There are plenty of opportunities to learn from the expertise in the company. There is a formal mentoring scheme and a good training programme, and the Foundation works closely with senior colleagues in the editorial team as well as many other parts of the business.

We’re supported by a global media brand which is becoming ever more valued in an uncertain world.

DIVERSITY

We welcome applications from candidates from all backgrounds. We know that diversity within an organisation makes it stronger. And we know that maximising our impact depends on reaching and supporting young people, and teachers, from all backgrounds. So we deeply value diversity in all respects, including age, cultural identity, race, colour, ethnic origin, national origin, gender, religious beliefs, disability, class or sexual orientation. We are passionate about continually improving our understanding of barriers to diversity and inclusion, and finding ways to overcome these in everything we do.