Senior Philanthropy Lead
- Salary
- £32K–£39K
- Hiring from
- United Kingdom
- Work type
- Hybrid
- Posted
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About Bloomsbury Football Foundation
In 2018, Bloomsbury Football Foundation started with four kids and a bag of footballs on a housing estate in Camden. Today, we reach over 7,000 children and young people every week across London and we're just getting started.
We exist because not every child grows up with the same opportunities to play, belong, and progress. Too many young people are locked out of the game by cost, circumstance, or geography. We're changing that and using football, the world's most popular sport, as a powerful vehicle for health, wellbeing, and social change. It's not about producing stars. It's about shaping better futures.
In just a few years, our income has grown from £1m to over £5m. We're now expanding beyond London into areas of deprivation across the country, with ambitions to reach over 40,000 young people every week by 2031. No other sport-for-good charity in the UK has achieved scale at this level. We intend to be the first.
To get there, we need people who believe what we believe that football has the unique power to change lives. Forward, together.
Our commitment to inclusion
At Bloomsbury, belonging isn't just something we create for the young people we serve it's something we live as an organisation and is embedded into core values. We are committed to building a team that reflects the communities we work in, and we actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, and identities.
We particularly welcome applications from women and people from underrepresented groups, who remain underrepresented in both the sport and charity sectors. We know that the best idea wins regardless of who it comes from, and we are proud to be building an organisation where everyone has a place to play, belong, and progress.
About the role
This is a highly influential and strategic role. You will take ownership of our high-net-worth supporters and prospects end to end: who is on the list, what the plan is for each of them, when they were last spoken to and when they are next being asked. You will run meetings, make the decisions that sit in your remit, and bring strategic recommendations. You will sit alongside a counterpart who owns corporate partnerships at the same level, both of you reporting to the Senior Head of Philanthropy & Partnerships.
As well as expertly stewarding our existing HNW supporters, a key part of the job is at the top of the funnel. Our supporters know other people like themselves, and a key focus is converting those networks into initial meetings.
If you are passionate about events that is a significant plus. We run receptions, private dinners, round tables, panel events and corporate football tournaments, and we take supporters to see the work in person at our sessions. You will lead the planning and delivery of the events in your portfolio, decide who should be in the room, and own what happens next. Some are hosted and funded by supporters themselves, with Bloomsbury providing a supporting role.
You will also be the person who turns a relationship into a proposal. Preparing pitches, proposals, presentations and the briefing materials that sit behind them is a core part of the work, both for your own portfolio and in support of the meetings the CEO and Director of Fundraising take.
About you, what we are looking for
We are looking for someone with experience in a sales, fundraising, client relationship management or account management role, or in another stakeholder-facing position, or someone with more experience who is changing career, who will thrive in a dynamic, entrepreneurial culture. Bloomsbury is growing fast and we need people who are comfortable with pace and a steep trajectory. As a portfolio owner, you need to be hungry to achieve outcomes and creative in how you pursue opportunities. Above all you need to be willing to take responsibility for your portfolio.
A lot of this will be familiar if you have come from outside the sector, even if we call it something different. You will have held senior relationships over years rather than weeks, run the events where those relationships get made, written the pitch and built the deck behind it, and stayed on an opportunity until it closed. We care whether you can do that, not where you learned it.
You will likely thrive meeting a range of senior and influential stakeholders. That does not mean matching them for experience; it means being curious, well prepared, and articulate about what we do. We will prioritise mindset and raw smarts over sector experience. We are also looking for someone who is structured, organised and methodical. Relationships at this level can move slowly and involve a lot of relationship and trust building. Knowing where every person in your portfolio stands is a core part of the job.
Key Responsibilities
Direct fundraising and supporter care
- Own and grow a portfolio of high-net-worth supporters and prospects, acting as a credible and passionate ambassador for Bloomsbury Football Foundation.
- Secure new gifts and renewals against an agreed annual target, taking opportunities from first meeting through to ask and close.
- Own relationships. Attend and lead your own meetings, including the harder conversations about money, expectations and renewal.
- Work with the Senior Head of Philanthropy & Partnerships, the Director of Fundraising and the CEO on the relationships where their presence adds something, briefing them properly so their time converts.
- Build and deliver stewardship plans for existing supporters.
Prospecting and network
- Fill the top of the funnel. Identify, research and qualify new high-net-worth prospects, and convert research into first meetings.
- Work our network of introducers and recommenders, who we call our Catalysts: meet them regularly, use their networks for warm introductions, and bring new Catalysts into the fold.
- Use our prospecting and AI research tools to map networks and find routes in, verifying everything before it reaches a briefing or a colleague.
Events and supporter engagement
- Lead the planning and delivery of supporter events across the year: receptions, private dinners, round tables, panel events, corporate football tournaments and programme visits.
- Own the guest journey for your events. Invitations, RSVPs, guest lists, briefings, the experience on the day and the follow-up afterwards.
- Use events deliberately as a pipeline tool. Decide who should be in the room, make sure the right conversations happen, and turn attendance into next steps.
- Run programme visits that let supporters see the work in person, working with Programmes colleagues on sessions, coaches and safeguarding.
- Work with supporters who host and fund their own events, where our contribution is the guest list, the briefing and the follow-up.
Proposals, pitches and presentations
- Prepare proposals, pitches and presentations for supporters and prospects, and the briefing materials that go with them.
- Support the CEO and Director of Fundraising with briefs and materials for the meetings they take, giving them what they need to decide whether a meeting is worth their time.
- Stand behind every figure in what you produce, including anything AI-assisted, and be able to show where it came from.
Pipeline, process and data
- Keep your portfolio accurate in Salesforce at all times: stage, value, relationship health, last engaged and next action, graded on evidence.
- Report on your pipeline and progress against target
- Work with the central fundraising engine on research, meeting briefs and reporting, and give them the feedback that makes those outputs better.
Cross-team working
- Work with Marketing and Programmes to find and tell the stories that move supporters, and to build proposals grounded in what we deliver.
- Contribute to a small, fast-moving team where ideas are welcome from anyone and standards are set by everyone.
Skills, Knowledge and Expertise
Essential
- Experience in a role where you built relationships and delivered against a target, whether in fundraising or in a commercial, client-facing or sales environment.
- Evidence of securing income, deals or commitments yourself, at whatever scale your career has allowed so far. We care more about how you went about it than about the number.
- A structured and results-driven approach to taking an opportunity through to commitment, including the follow-up that gets it over the line.
- Experience organising or running events, or a clear eye for what makes an occasion work and what makes it worth the money.
- Experience preparing pitches, proposals or presentations for senior audiences.
- Confidence and credibility with very senior and successful people.
- Genuine enjoyment of networking and making things happen, matched by an affable, professional manner.
- Personal organisation and self-direction. You hold your own portfolio in your head and in the system, and you do not need chasing.
- The self-starter mentality and adaptability to be proactive and add value to a small entrepreneurial team.
- Ability to inspire and motivate others to support a cause through brilliant storytelling.
- Clear written and verbal communication, including work that goes to senior external audiences with little revision.
- Effective at delivering constructive challenge and welcoming receipt of it.
- A commitment to rigorous, systematic processes and to the effective use of CRM systems, data and AI tools, including verifying AI-assisted work before it leaves your desk.
- A positive and constructive personality, supportive of colleagues at all levels.
- Eligible to work in the UK.
Desirable
- Experience in major donor fundraising, or in a comparable relationship-led commercial role.
- Familiarity with Salesforce or an equivalent CRM.
- Knowledge of fundraising regulations, governance and compliance requirements.
- An existing network, or a demonstrable history of building one from nothing.
What success looks like in the first year
We would rather be clear now than vague at your first appraisal. In broad terms:
- First three months. You know every name in the portfolio, and you have a written plan for the people who matter most.
- By six months. You are running your own meetings, the pipeline has visibly more in it than when you arrived, you have delivered an event people remember, and you have closed something.
- By a year. You are one of the key names our supporters associate with Bloomsbury, you are delivering against an agreed income target, and the CEO is meeting people because you asked him to rather than the other way round.
We measure the leading indicators as well as the income. In practice that means the number of prospects reaching a first meeting, how the relationship health of your portfolio moves over the year, introductions converted from our Catalyst network, and whether events generate follow-up rather than just attendance.
Benefits
- Modern office in Camden Market with free gym membership and local market discounts.
- Regular staff socials and a monthly Team Talk with pop-up catering.
- Opportunities to attend Premier League, WSL, FA Cup, League Cup and Champions League football matches.
- Cycle to work scheme.
- Salary sacrifice workplace pension scheme.
- 24 days holiday allowance, increasing by one day per year after two years of service.
- Funding toward training and five days of fully paid study leave.
- The chance to grow within a mission-driven organisation doing work that genuinely matters.
