Starting Date: November/December 2024
Contract type: Permanent, open-ended
Salary: 41,400 GBP
Location: London, United Kingdom
Application closing date: 4th October 2024
About the Job
Better Cotton is now seeking a Social Impact Fundraiser who will help to drive revenue in support of the ongoing success and growth of Better Cotton globally. Better Cotton has set ambitious 2030 targets to improve the lives and livelihoods of cotton farmers. This role will be responsible for ensuring these ambitions are adequately resourced. You will work closely with relevant thematic leads and country teams for proposal design, coordination and reporting of funded projects. In addition to this, you will maintain and manage donor relationships. This post will report to the Programme Funding Manager with a matrix line to a Social Impact Manager. This challenging role offers excellent opportunities for personal and professional development, together with a competitive benefits package.
Responsibilities
Development of Social Impact Programmes
Participate in the development of thematic programmes that fulfil farmers’ needs while aligning with Better Cotton’s 2030 strategic goals:
- In close collaboration with Global Impact team and country teams support a programmatic co-creation process, that is marketable and fundable.
- Manage a coalition building phase of social impact donors and allies. This includes outreach to relevant stakeholders identified, pitching to prospective donors, creating fundraising materials.
- The Coordinator will likely manage individual donor relations, while also coordinating Social Impact Coalition Committees.
Fundraising efforts
- Manage relationships with donors/investors to increase success rate of applications and ensure continuous funding.
- Conduct research into funding opportunities for sustainable agriculture and livelihoods.
- Organize outreach efforts with new donors/investors strategically, sharing relevant material and/or pitching to prospective donors identified.
- Share interesting grant opportunities internally and assess feasibility, identify the project idea/concept to be developed and liaise with relevant teams internally.
- Lead the proposal development process. Work closely with other teams (Finance Team, MEL Team, country teams etc.) to support specific proposal development coordination tasks, such as developing proposal workplans, building budgets or logframes, writing non-technical sections, consolidating and editing written inputs, compiling annexes, writing narratives, collating information and other tasks as needed.
Better Cotton representation
- Represent Better Cotton and the programmes, when needed to present to donors and coordinate social impact funding panels.
- Where required represent programmes nationally and internationally through participation in relevant workshops and symposia and in collaboration with partners where fundraising or the potential for fundraising is deemed significant.
- Contribute to the development of programmatic documents, multimedia and publications for use in promotion of the work of the programmes. Ensuring the documentation reflects and is relevant to donor priorities.
- Building internal and external relationships
- Collate key information through high level of engagement with internal stakeholders
- Foster relationships with prospects, donors and other external stakeholders, by applying high levels of professionalism, using diplomacy with influencing and persuasion.
- Build relationships with bilateral agencies, trusts and foundations from a variety of countries, cultures, languages and charitable interests.
Management
Line management of a Fundraising and Partnerships officer.
Profile
The selected candidate will have the following skills, knowledge, and experience:
Essential
- A good understanding of the current donor landscape & fundraising environment, ideally in social impact.
- Experience in project design, with a facilitative approach to bring to meet both farmer needs and donor expectations.
- Effective fundraising management and planning skills
- Excellent writing skills that have resulted in successful proposals
- Ability to communicate clearly and simply
- Good active contacts within the donor community
- IT literacy, to include: Word; PowerPoint; Excel; Outlook; MS Teams
- Numerical literacy with the ability to analyse budgets
- Strong interpersonal skills, you enjoy networking
- Well-developed personal strategies for time management
- Ambition, positivity, determination and resilience
Desirable
- Knowledge of the agricultural sector
- Professional fundraising qualification or relevant qualifications in business management
- Professional qualifications in marketing and sales.
- Knowledge of Salesforce
- Fluency in English required. Other languages relevant to Better Cotton’s work considered an asset: French, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi, Urdu.
What we offer
- Competitive salary
- Hybrid working – One to two days/week in the offices in central London
- The opportunity to work from anywhere in the world for up to one month per year
- Flexible working, with core hours from 10 am to 4 pm local time
- Continuous learning and development
- Pension scheme
- 25 days paid annual leave, plus 8-9 Bank Holidays and a further 3 days off over Christmas
- Enhanced parental benefits
- A warm, positive working environment where everyone is valued
- The opportunity to make your mark and make a difference.
Working arrangements
The position is full-time (40 hours per week) and will be based in the London office. Better Cotton offers flexible working, with core hours being 10am – 4pm and the option to work from home one day per week. Travel will be required.
Apply now
Interested applicants with the required attributes are asked to send, in English, a detailed CV and a brief cover letter (2 pages maximum) to Better Cotton via this link.
Application deadline: 04.10.2024
We thank all applicants for their interest; however, only candidates short-listed for a telephone interview will be contacted.
Our hiring process
Initial Screening:
If you are selected, you will be contacted for an initial screening, which may involve a brief phone interview or video call. The purpose is to learn more about you, confirm basic qualifications, and discuss the role and organisation.
Interviews:
If you are confirmed after the initial screening, you will be invited for interviews. The interview process at Better Cotton may include one or more rounds of interviews with various stakeholders, such as the hiring manager, team members, and potentially senior management.
Assessment and Testing:
Depending on the role, you might be required to complete assessments, technical tests, or skills evaluations to gauge your competency and suitability for the position.
Reference Checks:
Once you progress further in the process, reference checks are conducted to validate your work history, skills, and qualifications, and for some roles, your education and criminal history.
Offer stage:
After completing interviews, assessments, and reference checks, the hiring team evaluates your performance and fit for the role. If you are selected and your references are relevant and satisfactory, you will receive a formal job offer letter outlining the terms of employment, compensation, benefits, and any other relevant details.
About Better Cotton
Better Cotton is the world’s largest cotton sustainability programme. Our 200+ colleagues of 37+ nationalities are united by a shared passion and commitment to achieving the Better Cotton mission: to help cotton communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment. Through our network of field-level partners a quarter of the world’s cotton is now grown under the Better Cotton Standard. We have united the industry’s stakeholders behind our efforts, from ginners and spinners to brand owners, civil society organisations and governments. Everyone who cares about cotton and its sustainable future can now be part of something better.
About our Values
The post holder will be expected to operate in line with our workplace values which are:
- Trustworthy (including honest, transparent, credible)
- As having Integrity (including responsible, authentic)
- Positive (including problem-solving, pragmatic)
- Engaging (including adaptable, inclusive, holistic)
- Daring (including courageous, innovative, game-changing)
Being you @ Better Cotton
Better Cotton is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer with a strong commitment to good practice and transparency in the management of natural, human, and financial resources.
We have a zero-tolerance approach to any attitudes or behaviours that put children or adults at risk of harm. Safeguarding incidents are acts of serious misconduct and are grounds for disciplinary action, up to and including, dismissal and referral to relevant authorities for criminal prosecution. Therefore, all offers of employment are subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks.