Philanthropy Researcher

This growing charity is entering an exciting and ambitious season of growth, implementing a five-year strategy with aims to more than double total income. The Philanthropy Team will play a key role, securing growth of around 300% across all income streams. This role will work closely with the major donor fundraisers, to identify, research and track individuals, companies and foundations for the purposes of fundraising and engagement. To create profiles, monitor engagement and track actions with the aim to understand the funders’ motivations and ensure alignment with the mission of Mercy Ships.

Specific tasks:

• Identify and evaluate the giving potential of prospective and existing major donors.
• Undertake research into potential major donors, producing detailed and personalised profiles which provide insight into their wealth, philanthropic preferences, networks and other factors which may influence their giving, in accordance with the Data Protection Act.
• Actively participate in donor pipeline discussions with the fundraising team, being responsive to their needs and priorities in identifying, engaging, asking and stewarding donors.
• Produce short briefing notes for CEO, Trustees and other key volunteers attending Mercy Ships events.
• Monitor news sources to identify issues of interest to Mercy Ships UK, including managing relevant subscriptions to sources of wealth information.
• Assist in the maintenance of information on the Salesforce database, ensuring that it is clean, clear, up-to-date and legally compliant.
• When required, to undertake ethical due diligence checks on Mercy Ships UK’s donors and potential donors and provide briefing material to inform decision-making about whether to pursue an opportunity.
• To ensure that Mercy Ships UK’s collection and storage of data is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulation (PECR) and Mercy Ships UK’s own privacy policy.

As duties and responsibilities change, the job description will be reviewed and amended in consultation with the post holder

About You:

Education/ Qualifications

• Educated to degree level or equivalent experience

Proven Experience

• At least two years’ experience of undertaking potential major donor research in a comparable organisation, or equivalent experience in a parallel sector (such as financial services)
• Knowledge of suitable databases, journals and wealth profiling services that will provide Mercy Ships UK with up-to-date and pertinent information in the most cost-effective way possible
• Proactively identifying and supplying new prospects to the Philanthropy team to grow the fundraising pipeline
• Experience of relational databases, in particular Salesforce (desirable)
• Familiarity with privacy policies and GDPR and their ramifications (desirable)
• Experience of a relevant due diligence process (desirable)
• Experience of creating queries and exports which identify prospects from within the database (desirable)

Skills & Abilities

• Ability to write well-researched, crisp briefing documents.
• Ability to work on own initiative to deadlines and within a small, integrated team
• Good analytical skills with strong planning, organisational and prioritisation abilities

Personal Qualities

• Able to actively support, promote and encourage Mercy Ships’ mission and values
• Good diplomatic skills & cross-cultural sensitivity
• A self-starter, able to use your own initiative

Equal opportunities

Mercy Ships UK is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all individuals and value diversity in our workforce.

DBS Check:

Candidates will be asked to declare any ‘unspent convictions.’ Further information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/216089/rehabilitation-offenders.pdf

All roles with Mercy Ships UK will require a Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/519060/Guide_to_eligibility_v8.1.pdf