Deadline: 10am, Monday 25th September 2023

The Senior Partnerships Officer sits within the Trust’s Development team, which manages our fundraising work and relations with our donor community. The role will deliver high quality account management to a portfolio of low to mid-level corporate partners and support across a range of high value partners. The work will also involve supporting the Trust’s stewardship programme and scoping out new funding opportunities in line with our broader fundraising strategy.

The role will be line managed by the Development Manager and will work closely with colleagues across the Trust to ensure that the maximum value is realised from corporate partnerships against the Trust’s wider mission of championing social mobility. This is a permanent position and an exciting opportunity to contribute to a successful and growing income stream and meaningfully engage with a wide network of companies.

Main duties

• Account managing a portfolio of mid-level corporate partners donating around £10-20K per year and ‘corporate givers’, who donate ad hoc alongside engaging on our programmes. This includes partnership planning, impact reporting and providing comms and recognition.
• Supporting members of the Development Team to account manage high value and consortium partners.
• Responding to new business enquiries, scoping out new funding opportunities and drafting proposals. 
• Active prospecting and pipeline development in line with wider corporate and programmes strategy.
  
• Leading the team’s impact data collection and updating the Trust’s CRM system to support with drafting of reports and proposals across the corporate portfolio. 
• Supporting the Development Manager and Senior Donor Relations Manager to deliver central corporate stewardship activities e.g., award submissions and drafting the corporate newsletter.  
• Working closely with the Programmes Team to steward corporate partners around volunteering and engagement.
• Attending regular Employer Working Group meetings to share opportunities and information with colleagues across Programmes, Research, and Policy teams.
• Liaising with Finance to produce invoices and creating gift agreements to secure financial pledges from corporate partners and providing expenditure reporting.
  
• Representing the Trust at external events.  
• Acting as the Trust’s first point of contact, by providing a responsive and efficient service for general external and internal telephone and email enquiries
• Other duties as necessary from time to time.

Person Specification

Skills and experience

• Have experience in relationship management e.g., responsibility for corporate accounts, liaising with external stakeholders, working on other key partnerships or similar;
• Enjoy working with impact and outcomes data to create compelling narratives for reporting purposes;
• Have excellent verbal and written communication and strong presentation skills;

• Have first-class interpersonal skills - a natural ambassador able to represent the Sutton Trust in a range of settings;
• Have experience in or an understanding of the not-for-profit sector, education and/or corporate sectors;

Competencies

• Are sympathetic to the aims of the Trust and its mission to address educational disadvantage;

• Have excellent attention to detail;
• Have a high degree of initiative and the ability to take responsibility for a wide variety of tasks;
• Are personable, flexible and discreet; able to fit in to a small team and also work collaboratively across a wider team;

Other

• Are eligible to work in the UK*

For appointments at the higher end of the salary range, we would also be looking for:

• Experience in fundraising and prospect research;
• Experience working with Salesforce or a similar CRM system;

• Experience with donor relations and stewardship activity such as supporting with events, creating tailored resources including impact reports, presentations and engagement plans;
• Evidence of comms and/or project-management skills, including preparing volunteering schedules, delivering partnership launches, and creating marketing materials.

Terms of Appointment

• Salary: £32-35k per annum
• Contract: Full time, Permanent
• Working location: Minimum of 2 office days per week
• Office location: The Sutton Trust, 9th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP. Our home working policy gives staff the option to work from home for up to 60% of the time, with approval from their line manager.
• Hours: The standard working hours are 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and may also be required to attend events / meetings outside of their normal working hours during weekday evenings and occasionally at weekends
• DBS check may be required

Scroll down to find out about our staff benefits!

Please note that your application should be submitted in one go - you can view the questions by clicking on the link if you would like to prepare in advance.

Interviews

Applications should reach us by 10am, Monday 25th September 2023, with first round interviews held over Zoom on Monday, 9th October 2023, and second round interviews held at our London offices on Monday 16th October 2023.

Safeguarding statement

The Sutton Trust believes that a child, young person or vulnerable adult should never experience abuse of any kind. We all have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and young people and to keep them safe. Therefore all posts undergo a safer recruitment process, including but not limited to, disclosure of criminal records where necessary and eligibility to work in the UK. We have procedures in place to promote safeguarding and a safe culture at the Trust.

Contextual recruitment

The Trust is committed to ensuring equality of opportunity and that all applicants receive equal consideration for employment. We strongly encourage individuals from all backgrounds, including those underrepresented at present at the Trust, to apply for this role. As such we particularly welcome applications from people with disabilities, Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQ+ and from different socio-economic and educational backgrounds. We are committed to being an inclusive and welcoming place to work and know that greater diversity will lead to even greater results for the young people we support.

We are committed to providing reasonable adjustments for disabled candidates throughout our recruitment process and during employment.

We also operate contextual recruitment at the Sutton Trust. Our application process gives you the option to include information about your background, such as whether you were eligible for free school meals, whether your parents went to university, or whether you attended a state school. For more examples and information on contextual recruitment, please see our website.