Director of Fundraising and Communications

About Us

Founded in 2007, KHULA Education is an award-winning South African NGO working in partnership with rural schools and underserved communities in deep rural South Africa to ensure children and youth can access a quality education and economic opportunity.

Over the past 17 years, KHULA has transformed schools that were previously failing into schools that compete at the national level; supported hundreds of young people to access tertiary education opportunities; and helped hundreds more on the path to employment. Each year, we support over 6,500 children, youth and more than 300 teachers. 

About the Role

KHULA Education is seeking an experienced and dynamic fundraising leader to lead KHULA’s fundraising and communication efforts in the UK and South Africa. The postholder will join us at an exciting time and help us to continue our growth trajectory which has seen our annual budget increase from £250,000 to £1 million in the past several years. Supported by the South Africa based CEO, and working closely with the UK Board of Trustees, the postholder will be joined by a new Fundraising Officer who you will line manage.

We’re looking for an entrepreneurial individual with strategic vision who will play an active part in developing KHULA’s future fundraising strategy. 70% of the role is focused on fundraising directly for our work, 30% on managing KHULA’s communications including donor newsletters and social media content (this may evolve with the recruitment of an Officer).

Key Responsibilities

• Steward, retain and grow the support of our existing donor portfolio: KHULA has an existing portfolio of donors including trusts, foundations, corporates, major donors, individual and regular givers, the majority of whom are based in the UK or South Africa. The post holder is responsible for managing these relationships, including bespoke reporting for trusts and major donors, leading donor meetings and involving our Board and CEO as appropriate.
• Donor prospecting and new business: researching and generating new donor leads as well as acting on opportunities provided by our Board and others, converting prospects into supporters of our programmes.
• ​​External communications: creating our quarterly e-newsletter to a database of ~2,000 supporters, managing our social media channels and the Annual Report, in addition to other ad hoc external communications.
• Fundraising innovation: leading on innovation in our fundraising approach, including creative campaigns to increase donations/recruit lapsed donors, developing products and offerings whilst considering cost effectiveness and ROI. Of particular interest is how to harness the giving potential of guests who are exposed to KHULA Education’s work when they visit Fugitives’ Drift Lodge in Rorke’s Drift.
• Financial management and admin: maintaining our donor database, working with the CEO to prepare our annual budget and fundraising forecasts.

Person Specification

Ideally you’ll have held a role with a similar scope of responsibilities around fundraising and communications, however you don’t need to have held a director level role before. Experience in a smaller charity and team is beneficial as you’ll need to be comfortable with both the strategic development side and inputting into wider planning, as well as being a leader who is willing to role up your sleeves and ‘do’.

We are particularly interested to hear from candidates who demonstrate most/all of the following attributes:

• A proven track record of personally delivering income of at least £1 million per year, including new business
• Experience in a fundraising leadership role and confidence in working alongside and advising at board level
• Experience in successfully fundraising from trusts, foundations, major donors and corporates, with experience in other areas (events, legacies etc.) also welcome
• Excellent proposal and donor communication writing skills (written samples of previous work will be requested)
• Self-motivated and able to work autonomously with a largely virtual team
• Comfortable acting in the capacity of charity ambassador, establishing new relationships and identifying new funding opportunities
• Ability to travel to occasional donor and board meetings (x3 per year), in/around London and annual trip to South Africa for 1-2 weeks.

Application Process

Please submit the following documents by email no later than 23.59pm British Summertime on Sunday 21 July:

1. Your CV
2. A cover letter explaining your suitability for the role
3. Up to 3 writing samples (preferably examples of fundraising communications e.g. donor proposals, reports etc.)

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to the first stage Zoom interview on a rolling basis.