Fundraising and Communications Officer

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

We are seeking to recruit a creative and ambitious Fundraising and Communications Officer.

As our reach and impact has increased significantly in recent years, so has our income, and this new role has been created in response to that demand.  This is an exciting opportunity for a fundraiser who wants to widen, or consolidate, their knowledge and experience of fundraising, in an international context, as well as gain communications experience.

We are a very small team so the role will cover a breadth of funding streams, with a particular focus on Trusts and Foundations, High Value Donors, and Events, both special and community.  It is therefore important that you have excellent writing and interpersonal skills, and solid experience of crafting successful funding applications.  You will also need excellent planning and organisational skills.

The role can, to some extent, be shaped by the skills and experience of the successful candidate, but it is likely to include the following responsibilities.

 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. Alongside the Director of Fundraising and Communications, the post holder will be responsible for managing these relationships, including bespoke reporting for trusts and major donors and taking responsibility for their own portfolio of donors.
• 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: working alongside the Director of Fundraising and Communications, assisting in the creation of our quarterly e-newsletter and the Annual Report, managing our social media channels, in addition to other ad hoc external communications.
• Events: supporting our community and events fundraisers and assisting with the organisation of occasional special events, alongside Board members.
• Fundraising innovation: assisting in the development of creative campaigns to increase donations/recruit lapsed donors, developing products and offerings.
• Financial management and admin: maintaining our donor database and contributing to fundraising budgets and forecasts. 

Person Specification

Experience of working in a smaller charity and team is beneficial as this is a very hands-on role, covering a wide range of responsibilities.

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

• A proven, demonstrable track record of submitting successful funding applications.
• Experience in successfully fundraising from one or more of trusts, foundations, high value donors and corporates.
• Experience of community and events fundraising, including promoting events and supporting participants.
• Excellent communication writing skills.
• Personal or professional experience of a range of social media channels.
• Good IT Skills (Microsoft Office, Mailchimp, CRM systems (we use Donorfy))
• Self-motivated and able to work autonomously with a largely virtual team