Assistant Head of Fundraising (Empowering Local Fundraising) – YMCA, Greater London

Job Title: Assistant Head of Fundraising (Empowering Local Fundraising)

Location: London/Hybrid with Tuesdays in the office

Salary: £57,574.79 per annum

Weekly Hours: 35

Reference: YMC1251225

About YMCA

YMCA was founded in 1844 and is a global movement and the world’s largest youth-focused charity. In England and Wales, YMCAs are based in over 700 communities across 168 local authorities, helping young people and communities reach their potential. YMCA England & Wales supports and strengthens the federation of local YMCAs delivering that work: providing homes, youth work and opportunity where they are needed most.

We are ambitious. Together with our local YMCAs, we aim to build 10,000 new homes in the next five years, and raising the funds to do it is central to our plans.

About the opportunity

This is a critical strategic role focused on helping local YMCAs access more funding by harnessing our collective fundraising knowledge, learning and expertise. This includes supporting local YMCAs to access new government funding opportunities arising from the National Youth Strategy and developing effective models for opportunities that are administered or delivered locally. Empowering Local Fundraising is the pillar of our fundraising strategy that helps our 78 local YMCAs raise more money themselves, working alongside our centrally organised national fundraising.

As our first permanent Empowering Local Fundraising hire, you will build this function from first principles. In year one you will prove the model; then you’ll scale what succeeds. You will:

• Develop the “Scale Track”: a replication model that finds fundable local applications and enables other YMCAs to repeat them.
• Develop and test effective models for trusts and grants fundraising, including supporting local YMCAs to access new government funding opportunities and funding administered or delivered locally.
• Shape how national and local fundraising work together across trusts and grants, major donors, corporate and individual giving, building on learning from emerging national and local models.
• Build on our Fundraising Showcase events and use what you learn to shape a future Fundraising Academy for local fundraisers.
• Manage shared intelligence and tools on our Y-Hub platform, so every YMCA benefits from the same prospects, templates and assets.
• Be the point person for local YMCAs on fundraising, building strong relationships and chairing our Fundraising Forum for peer learning.
• Explore and test opportunities for shared fundraising events that local YMCAs can participate in and benefit from.

The role sits at Assistant Head level and reports to the Head of Fundraising. It offers real influence over strategy and the chance to grow a team as the function develops. Few fundraising roles afford you an opportunity to design something new, test it quickly and see it scale across a wider federation.

About you

You are a fundraiser who builds things that last, and who gets results by enabling others rather than directing them. You will bring:

• Proven expertise in designing, piloting and scaling replicable fundraising models and processes.
• A track record of working collaboratively across organisations, influencing and coordinating many partners with differing capacity, without line authority.
• Strong general fundraising expertise, ideally in housing or youth work, including community and events fundraising.
• Substantial experience in trusts, grants and foundations fundraising, and in writing winning applications.
• Experience of fundraising within a federated, membership or franchise-style organisation, or of supporting independent local organisations to fundraise.
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to gather evidence on what works and use it to shape decisions.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, and comfort with ambiguity and building from scratch.

You are committed to equality, value diversity and can respect the Christian heritage of YMCA

Closing Date: 30th November

Our recruitment process is anonymised and candidates' names are hidden. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds. Safer recruitment is important to us and the successful applicant will be asked to provide two references. They will also be required to complete a safeguarding self-declaration, safeguarding training and undertake a DBS check.

For further information on YMCA, visit www.ymca.org.uk/about.