Major Donor Fundraising Consultancy

Job Summary Streetwise Opera is looking for a consultant with significant experience working with major donors. Job Description Streetwise Opera is looking for a consultant with significant experience working with major donors to undertake a short consultancy project, helping us analyse our progress so far, identify areas of strength and weakness, and shape our fundraising workplan for the next three years. This is an advert for a contract for services, not employment, i.e. we are advertising for consultants to tender for the work. Contract,…

Job Summary

Streetwise Opera is looking for a consultant with significant experience working with major donors.

Job Description

Streetwise Opera is looking for a consultant with significant experience working with major donors to undertake a short consultancy project, helping us analyse our progress so far, identify areas of strength and weakness, and shape our fundraising workplan for the next three years.

This is an advert for a contract for services, not employment, i.e. we are advertising for consultants to tender for the work. Contract, fee and timing: £6,500 total fee (inclusive of VAT).

We are at an exciting moment in our history. As we approach our 25th anniversary, we are planning a major production and a heritage and archival project, funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, to celebrate this milestone. We also have ambitious plans for the years beyond, growing new programmes that will allow us to diversify and expand our impact across different parts of the homelessness sector.

Over the past few years, we have made significant inroads into growing income from individuals. Within this, we have placed an increasing focus on major gifts and have been working closely with our Fundraising Committee to grow our donor pool.

We are now at a point where further growth will require greater investment. We will shortly be recruiting a part-time Senior Philanthropy Manager to take responsibility for this income stream. Ahead of this appointment, we are seeking an experienced consultant to help inform our approach.

Job Requirements

We are looking for a consultant with significant experience in working with major donors who is able to bring their knowledge and insights into Streetwise Opera’s unique context. We would like to see: – Experience of major donor cultivation and stewardship as an in-house fundraiser or as a consultant, ideally working in / supporting both venues and non-venue based organisations. – Understanding and knowledge of the opera sector. – Experience of prospect research. – Ability to identify relevant peer organisations and benchmark Streetwise against them. – Experience of creating strategy and recommendation papers, giving organisations the understanding and tools to progress their major donor work alone.

Job Responsibilities

We imagine there will be four phases to this work: 1. Internal audit. Assess current major donor fundraising, including systems and processes for identifying new prospects, cultivating, making an ask and stewardship. 2. Prospect research. Network mapping, database screening and a review of current contacts and connections to identify new prospects. 3. Benchmarking. Comparing Streetwise Opera to a number of relevant peer organisations, identifying strengths and weaknesses and enabling learning from others’ approaches. 4. Strategy and recommendations. Producing a set of multi-year recommendations to act as a roadmap for our major gift work over the coming years (which will be taken forward by a new post, the Senior Philanthropy Manager, who will be recruited shortly).