Fundraising Support

What will you be doing?

We're looking for a fundraiser to support our small fundraising team from November to May, covering key grant fundraising activity while our Fundraising Manager is on leave.

Thoughtful (formerly SAPERE) is the UK's national charity for Philosophy for Children (P4C) - we train teachers and support schools to embed philosophical enquiry in the classroom, helping children think more clearly, listen better, and reason together. We also work in prisons and community spaces to develop philosophical enquiry for everyone. We're a small, close-knit team, so this role will work closely with our co-directors developing funding applications based on templates and ideas already available, as well as the opportunity to build new applications based on pilot projects. 

You'll help keep our grant-making pipeline moving: monitoring prospects, researching new trusts and foundations that align with our work, and adding them to the pipeline where appropriate. You'll liaise with the co-directors to help shape and draft funding proposals, working to the deadlines and timeframes of individual funders.

You'll also draft content for our Individual Giving newsletter and for a grant-making/larger gift audience, helping us communicate our impact clearly to different supporters. Alongside this, you'll monitor grant reporting deadlines and requirements, working with the wider team to pull together the information needed for high-quality reports.

Throughout the placement, our Fundraising Manager will join periodic 'Keep in Touch' days during her leave, giving you the chance to review priorities together and share information on grant prospects and funder relationships - helping ensure a smooth transition when she returns.

Our current Fundraising Manager works 2.5 days a week; we'd expect this role to need somewhat less time than that. We're flexible on hours and working pattern, as long as you're able to stay in regular contact with our co-directors.

This role would suit someone with solid experience of trust and grant fundraising who is comfortable working independently, managing multiple deadlines, and writing persuasively about a small charity's impact.

What are we looking for?

We're looking for someone with solid experience of trust and grant fundraising, ideally within the charity sector, who can pick up an existing pipeline quickly and work with confidence and independence.

Essential:

• Proven experience researching grant makers and writing successful funding proposals
• Strong, persuasive writing skills, with the ability to adapt tone and content for different audiences (grant makers, individual donors, larger gift supporters)
• Good organisational skills, with the ability to track multiple deadlines and reporting requirements at once
• Confidence working independently and proactively, while keeping co-directors informed and involved at the right moments
• Comfortable communicating remotely and flexibly, with regular check-ins rather than day-to-day supervision

Desirable:

• Experience fundraising for education, criminal justice, or community-focused charities
• An interest in or affinity with our mission - improving learning and lives by developing the skills needed to thrive in school and society.

Most important is the ability to hit the ground running and work as part of a team: someone who can quickly understand our funding priorities and existing pipeline, and who has the fundraising judgement to know when to flag something to the co-directors versus when to push ahead independently.

What difference will you make?

Grant income is a vital part of how we fund our work and having invested in a Fundraising Manager for the last year and half we have built up a momentum that we don’t want to drop. With our Fundraising Manager on leave, your support will make sure our funding pipeline keeps moving and that we don't miss key deadlines or opportunities with grant makers.

Your research and proposal writing will help bring in the income that lets us keep working with schools and children across the UK, while your newsletter content will help us keep individual donors and larger funders engaged with our story. As a small charity, having dedicated capacity in this area during a staff absence makes a real difference to our resilience and our ability to sustain - and grow - our work.

Before you apply

We are open to what people are able to do for us on the fundraising front, and interviews will happen between September and October for a start in November.