This is a golden opportunity to join the largest voluntary nature conservation charity in Europe, which consistently delivers successful conservation at scale, forges powerful new partnerships, and empowers people to save nature. We are looking for an influential and transformational leader in fundraising and engagement to join our Country Leadership Team in RSPB England. You will also work with counterparts in NI, Wales and Scotland and our team at RSPB Headquarters to bring in significant income to enable us to save more nature and empower people to save nature themselves across England

About the Role

• you will be responsible for leading fundraising in England including Grants and Trusts, Community Fundraising, Corporate donations, and legacies.
• you will be accountable for engagement in England including community engagement, volunteering, RSPB Local Groups and Education, Families and Youth
• you will contribute to shaping the RSPB’s strategic programme for fundraising and engagement, contributing your enthusiasm, knowledge and understanding of the country context and audiences in England
• you will be accountable for the prioritisation of fundraising and engagement in England
• you will be accountable for embedding relevant professional standards and expectations across RSPB England, as set corporately particularly around Institute of Fundraising Code of Conduct and Safeguarding
• as a member of the RSPB England Country Leadership Team, you will play a key role in developing and leading your own area of work and team while also working collaboratively and taking collective responsibility for pan-England leadership and influence, always striving to maintain high performance and a positive team culture
• you will be responsible for leading a team of c.50 employees, plus a fantastic team of volunteers. This includes a Head of Funding Development and a Head of Engagement reporting directly to you
• you will be accountable for ensuring your functional teams deliver against RSPB Strategic outcomes, namely delivering against the RSPB England Delivery Plan priorities, managing workload and pressures ensuring that we are ready to deliver in a fast paced, ever changing landscape of needs.
• as an influential advocate, you will develop strong working relationships that benefit nature with key audiences in partnership organisations and other charities where working together we can deliver more. Relationships with others such as sub-national government, statutory agencies, Funders, and corporate partnerships will also be key in enabling RSPB to have greater impact for our mission, through working with and through others
• you will work closely with your peers in our UK HQ teams (who deliver global and UK level fundraising and engagement and set the standards and approach against which we deliver), as well as in the other three countries of the UK, to effectively align priorities, delivery and ways of working.
• you will be responsible for ensuring functional support is provided effectively and efficiently to operational Areas and other functions so that they can deliver outstanding conservation
• you will be responsible for building a culture of, and enabling, flexibility across resource in order to deliver our priorities
• you will effectively monitor and report on fundraising and engagement activities to ensure continuous improvement and better delivery.
• your estimated split of time will be: 50% leadership of team and across England; 25% corporate role; 25% external advocacy.

You can be based anywhere in England, including in one of our RSPB England offices across the country or partly from home, but regular travel will be a key part of the role visiting teams and sites based across the whole country, and meeting stakeholders. 

What we need from you:

As RSPB England’s Head of Fundraising and Engagement you will lead our Fundraising and Engagement team in England. You will be someone who enjoys creating strategies but then also ensuring they are implemented, developing people, teams and partnerships, a real team player who is unfazed by working in a busy team, across and with all parts of the organisation, and who wants to build support for nature’s recovery and the RSPB.

You will be an experienced leader with a strong track record of inspiring dispersed teams who can work collaboratively to help shape RSPB's strategic direction. You will be able to motivate colleagues to meet ambitious income and engagement targets representing a renowned brand that is trusted by our members and supporters.

You will have:

• proven experience of operating at senior management level including leading, managing, and developing teams of staff
• demonstrable experience in developing, implementing, monitoring and reporting against business plans, and budgets
• proven experience in meeting ambitious fundraising targets and delivering people engagement at scale.
• excellent written and verbal communication skills and ability to present, influence and represent the organisation to a wide variety of audiences including experience of advocacy and influencing to a senior level
• experience in engaging with diverse audience
• the following skills: collaboration, working across teams and experience/understanding of working in a matrix organisation

This is a Permanent Part-Time role for 22.5 hours per week, across 3 days, including Thursdays. 

We are looking to conduct interviews for this position from the 10th June 2022. For further information please contact Heather.Parr@RSPB.org.uk (PA to Director, RSPB England, Emma Marsh)

As part of this application process, you will be asked to complete an application form including evidence on how you meet the skills, knowledge, and experience listed above.

The RSPB is an equal opportunities employer.

Before applying for this role, we recommend reading through the candidate guidance notes attached to the top of this advert.