Deadline: 23:59, Monday 25th May

The Sutton Trust is the UK’s leading social mobility charity. We believe every young person should have a fair chance in life, regardless of their family’s income, the school they go to or where they grow up. But today in Britain, the opportunity to succeed is heavily shaped by socio-economic background. Our mission is to change this. Our programmes empower young people to access life-changing opportunities, and our research influences national change to deliver a fairer future.

Each year, together with our university and employer partners, we support over 14,000 young people to reach their potential through our university, apprenticeship and career access programmes. And our support doesn’t stop there. We engage our thriving alumni community to help them to succeed in their professions and to act as advocates for social mobility.

Our rigorous and extensive research shines a light on barriers to opportunity from the early years to the workplace, and we strive to influence national policy change with evidence-based solutions to tackle educational and workplace inequality. Using insights from our programmes and research, we also test and scale new ideas in education and employment practice.

As an independent charity, our work is entirely reliant on the generous support of our community of donors. The need to support our work to tackle Britain’s low social mobility has never been greater.

Fundraising at the Sutton Trust

The Sutton Trust is at an exciting point in our organisational journey, with a new Chairperson and ambitions to significantly grow our impact and fundraising as part of our 2030 strategy.

Over the past five years the impact of the Sutton Trust has increased, especially in our programme numbers, securing a relatively stable income of c.£6m over a number of years. In recent years this has grown to c.£7m, and our organisational strategy to 2030/31 will continue this fundraising trajectory to increase income to £12m. With a growing portfolio of income there is considerable enthusiasm and opportunity to build upon existing relationships and establish new ones in support of the work of The Sutton Trust.

Our fundraising approach will continue to focus on major gifts, harnessing and increasing our networks, and multi-year partnerships to leverage a range of drivers to secure support. Our Development team consists of 4 sub teams, with a Head leading each team: Philanthropy, Corporate, Trusts & Foundations, and Operations.

The Role and Team

We are looking for a proactive and organised Philanthropy Assistant, to ensure the team can provide consistent high-quality stewardship to existing funders and continue to build a strong pipeline of prospective funders.

You will work closely with colleagues to ensure administrative and logistical support is in place for our funders, notably those who are individual donors, and provide support to the Head of Philanthropy and Director of Development to manage donor income, engagement and events. You will be organised and proactive, adept at multi-tasking and working across a variety of projects to successfully support senior leaders.

You will be keen to learn from senior fundraisers and implement exciting new approaches for the Sutton Trust, and bring strong communication and interpersonal skills. As Philanthropy Assistant, you will support both the Head of Philanthropy and Director of Development in their work with individual donors, including undertaking prospect research, writing briefings and compelling reports, coordinating meetings and donor visits, and maintaining accurate donor records.

Main duties

• Admin support for donor relationships (primarily Director of Development and Head of Philanthropy) – meeting logistics, travel bookings, briefings, logging communications on Salesforce and in donor folders.

• Admin for donations from individuals – working with Finance Team to process income correctly, creating gift receipts, thank you letters, logging income on pipeline and Salesforce.

• Logistics and supporting planning for events and meetings – working with the Director, Head of Philanthropy and CEO’s EA to support planning and booking for donor events, meetings and programme visits.

• Administration of existing online giving platforms – reconciling reports from online giving platforms (e.g. JustGiving, CAF) against our banked income spreadsheet, pipeline, and logging on Salesforce.

• Donor prospect research and meeting briefs – using existing information, and searching for new information, to compile donor profiles and meeting briefs for Philanthropy donors.

• Salesforce updates – supporting the team to ensure all relevant information is logged, including ensuring all information is accurate and up to date.

• Collateral updates – working under direction, writing and updating collateral including proposals, reports, mailings and newsletters, and supporting with basic proofreading.

• Supporting the stewardship of our individual givers, including online and regular givers, providing them with an excellent donor experience and keeping them engaged with our work.

• Support Development team colleagues to respond to queries from prospective and current donors in a warm, professional and timely manner, delivering high-quality stewardship and upholding the reputation of the Trust.

• Ensure you appropriately follow policies and procedures on due diligence, Salesforce, and data management.

• Other appropriate duties as necessary from time to time.

Person Specification

We welcome applications from individuals who have experience in:

• Excellent verbal and written communication, internally within a team, and in communicating with donors and supporters.

• Able to provide administrative and logistical support to busy colleagues in a clear and effective manner, managing multiple priorities at once.

• Experience managing multiple priorities and tasks to successfully achieve project or other goals.

• Experienced at using Salesforce or other fundraising CRM software to accurately record funding relationships.

• Knowledge and experience of the education and/or not-for-profit sector (desirable).

• Experience of using online donation platforms and processing information from multiple sources eg JustGiving, CAF, Give As You Live. (desirable)

• Experience of working in a high value team, identifying and engaging those with potential to give major gifts. (desirable)

We are also looking for an individual who:

• Sympathetic to the aims of the Trust and our mission to increase social mobility.

• High degree of initiative and the ability to take responsibility for a range of administrative and supporting activity.

• Strong communicator, skilled at persuading others through writing and conversation.

• Excellent attention to detail.

• Able to multi-task and prioritise multiple activities.

• Able to work independently and as part of a team.

• Is eligible to work in the UK (see here for information about right to work)

Terms of Appointment

• Contract: Full-time, Permanent

• Salary: £30,800-£31,500

• Working location: Minimum of two office days per week. 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.

• Office location: The Sutton Trust, 9th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP.

• Hours: The standard working hours are 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. This role is likely to also be required to attend events / meetings outside of normal working hours during weekday evenings and occasionally at weekends, in line with organisational policies.

• A 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 23:59, Monday 25th May, with interviews being held at our London offices on Tuesday, 9th June and Wednesday, 10th June.

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.