Job Description

Fundraising across Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals is ambitious and high achieving but there is so much more still to do. As part of a multi-faceted and busy fundraising team, this individual will take a significant role in strategically planning and delivering a portfolio of fundraising products to raise funds for Guy’s and St Thomas’, including Evelina London Children’s Hospital & Guy’s Cancer Charity.  

In this role you'll identify opportunities that align with our strategic vision for innovation and lead the way in insight gathering, ideation, prototyping and testing to ultimately develop fundraising propositions which will raise funds to improve the lives of those we support.   

In this role you will be leading on the creation, development and delivery of supporter fundraising products aimed at increasing income and diversifying our funding base. You’ll liaise with stakeholders across our three charities, from front-line staff within the NHS to directors and the senior leadership team, to socialise innovation principles and gain support for innovation workstreams, and you’ll collaborate with teams from all corners of the partnership to identify, test and scale the best ideas.  

Innovation culture

Fundraising Innovation is part of the wider strategy across GSTT Charity. Whilst we are in the early stages of embedding innovation across the organisation, you will be part of a growing culture that will help shape, adapt and develop the organisation in the ever changing, fast paced world we live in. 

About You

As Product Development Lead, you will have a minimum of three years of experience in a fundraising, marketing or innovation role with experience of being solely responsible for events or product creation, production, and execution. You will be a strong communicator with a creative, pro-active, and energetic attitude, and possess the ability to motivate and inspire fundraisers. You will be able to balance various objectives from different stakeholders and identify opportunities that could increase income and enhance team effectiveness. You will work closely with the Community, Events & Supporter Experience team supporting them with bespoke events and products as well as digital fundraising via virtual events.

To succeed in the role of Product Development Lead your key skills will include:

•       Experienced innovator who puts the supporter at the heart of what they do.

•       A strategic thinker who successfully translates ideas into action, with a proven track record of delivering income growth.

•       An engaging individual who builds strong connections and drives internal collaboration across the organisation.

•       An energetic individual who influences and drives through new strategic initiatives.

•       Highly numerate with experience in commissioning, synthesising, and applying data insight to continuously optimise activity and meet ambitious targets.

•       Excellent project management, marketing and relationship building skills. 

Directorate overview

The role of Product Development Lead sits within the Community, Events & Supporter Experience Team and in the wider Fundraising and Supporter Development directorate. 

Purpose of the role

You will sit within a specialist team of four (1 x Event Fundraising Manager,1 x Event Fundraising Lead, 1 x Event Fundraising Co-ordinator and 1 x Product Development Lead with one shared mission: 

To use audience insight to build, test and launch products that generate new sources of income and create valuable audience relationships.

With three areas of focus: 

1. Developing existing products in our fundraising portfolio (incremental innovation) 

2. Creating new products that fit a strategic need (new product development) 

3. Taking new products to pilot across the Community, Events & Supporter Experience team. 

In Fundraising & Supporter Development we are committed to building a truly diverse workforce that reflects the communities served by our partners, recognising the range of benefits that we derive when colleagues bring experiences and perspectives from a range of backgrounds. As part of this work we have developed a race equality plan and we particularly welcome applications from candidates from Black, Minority Ethnic and Asian backgrounds. 

This post will be offered on an indefinite contract. This is a full-time post.

Key responsibilities

Lead on the creation and development of new fundraising products within the events team.

Collaborate with the Events Fundraising Manager to provide thorough analysis of products and events, ensuring that the relevant teams are regularly updated on all activity (coordinating information, reporting cross-team, etc.) and providing a clear strategy for the year ahead.

Lead on new product development & continuous improvement sprints across public fundraising, including taking viable propositions through to pilot.

To work closely with Managers and Leads within the department to ensure all opportunities for collaboration are maximised.

To contribute to the wider fundraising team, taking a proactive approach to working in a high performing & collaborative team

To manage budgets, milestones and KPIs to monitor and respond to performance.

Provide clear innovation and project management to drive forward each stage of the project lifecycle.

To establish, maintain and develop relationships with key stakeholders across our organisation and beyond, including agencies and contractors.

To seek out innovative and agile approaches to working, adopting lean process and using supporter data to drive performance and supporter experience.

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Skills, knowledge, and experience

Essential Criteria

1. Experience of driving projects and/or teams to deliver agreed outcomes to a deadline
2. Understanding of the principles, theory and practice of new product development and experience of taking a product from idea to market.
3. Experience of using innovation frameworks for product development & continuous improvement.
4. Experience of setting KPI’s, objectives and budgets. Tracking and monitoring targets, income and expenditure against budget.
5. Experience of leading change and working in an agile environment.
6. Relationship building expertise & ability to influence stakeholders across the organisation.
7. Proven understanding of how best to use data insight and analysis to make decisions and inform actionable plans.
8. Collaborative and constructive working style with the ability to work well across teams.
9. Proven ability to time manage effectively and meet deadlines.
10. Ability to interpret complex requirements and user needs and make recommendations of implementable solutions.

Desirable Criteria

1. Experience of facilitating workshops both virtually and in person.
2. Experience of working on multiple brands at one time.
3. Knowledge of Fundraising Regulation, Database and Facebook Fundraising.

Further Information

All F&SD appointments involve a standard skills-based interview, followed (for up to two appointable candidates) by a Core Values interview.

About Fundraising & Supporter Development

Fundraising and Supporter Development (F&SD) is an integrated department that provides a single fundraising and supporter engagement function in support of King’s College London, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and for King’s Health Partners. In doing so, we work closely with and on behalf of the Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation, as well as the Maudsley Charity. Based at King’s College London, we work with colleagues across our partners to help them serve society through world-leading education, research and healthcare.

We operate a unique and powerful model, which brings together fundraising for all our partners across major and principal gifts; trusts & foundations; legacies; corporate engagement and public fundraising. We also promote King’s College London’s engagement with its worldwide alumni community, as well as engaging more broadly with supporters of all our partners. Our work is underpinned and enhanced by a range of dedicated professionals in areas such as donor relations, communications and marketing, prospect research, finance, data, supporter services, governance and general administration.

By pooling our passion and expertise, our potential and impact is maximised – to the benefit of our partners and their beneficiaries, supporters and donors. Our model also drives benefits for our staff, who get to work in a unique environment, engaging with several world-leading organisations and having opportunities to learn about and work across the many different component parts of our activity.

We have an impressive, well-established track record of success in securing support that allows our partners to deliver on their missions. This includes our global, award-winning World Questions: King’s Answers campaign for King’s College London, which set the standard in the sector and enabled us to raise substantial funds to help tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. Ambitious and innovative, the team has won awards across the higher education and charity sectors, including a CASE Platinum Award for Fundraising and a CASE Gold Award for Donor Relations and Stewardship.

We continue to set ourselves high standards and expectations in terms of supporting our partners, mapping out ambitious fundraising campaigns and appeals where we want to achieve ground-breaking milestones in areas such as children and young people’s mental health; sickle cell disease; cardiology; cancer; global women’s leadership; engineering; international relations and support for students who will go out and make a difference in the world. We are a strongly values-driven team, maximising the benefits of working across internationally-leading organisations and united in our ambition to support our partners in making a real and positive difference to their beneficiaries and the world we live in.

Our Partners

King’s Health Partners

King’s Health Partners (KHP) is an Academic Health Sciences Centre and a partnership between King’s College London and three NHS Foundation Trusts – Guys and St Thomas’, King’s College Hospital and South London and Maudsley. We bring together 40,000 NHS Staff with 30,000 students and researchers to join up world class research, education and pioneering clinical practice. Our partnership sees 4.8 million patient contacts each year. Academic Health Sciences Centres are engine rooms of high impact and innovation discovering new insights into disease, transforming diagnostics and unlocking new therapies. We speed up the time it takes to translate research and high impact innovations in physical and mental health into outstanding patient care. We do this by working in dedicated clinical academic groups and institutes and by involving more and more people in clinical trials and research. For more information, visit:  www.kingshealthpartners.org

King’s College London

King’s College London is an internationally renowned university delivering exceptional education and world-leading research. The university is dedicated to driving positive and sustainable change in society and realising our vision of making the world a better place.  Through its commitment to exceptional education, impactful research and genuine service to society, King’s College London is creating positive change in its communities, both in London and on the world stage. The Strategic Vision 2029 looks forward to King’s College London’s 200th anniversary in 2029 and sets out ambitious plans in five key areas:

• Educating the next generation of change-makers;
• Challenging ideas and driving change through research;
• Giving back to society through meaningful service;
• Working with our local communities in London;
• Fostering global citizens with an international perspective.

Guy’s and St Thomas’  Foundation and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust

We work closely with and on behalf of Guy’s and St Thomas’s Foundation to secure income and engage stakeholders in support of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. The Trust is among the UK's busiest and most successful foundation trusts, with a long history of clinical excellence and high-quality care.  The Trust is made up of two of London's best known teaching hospitals – St Thomas' Hospital and Guy's Hospital. It also includes Evelina London Children’s Hospital and both adult and children’s community services in Lambeth and Southwark.

Dedication to the communities it serves is at the heart of everything the Trust undertakes, providing high quality and personal care. The Trust is guided by its values: putting patients first, taking pride in what we do, respecting others, striving to be the best and acting with integrity. Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals became part of Guy's and St Thomas' in February 2021, bringing together world-leading expertise and research in heart and lung disease.

Further Information

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.