Fundraising and Communications Administrator

Title: Fundraising and Communications Administrator

Department: Development and Communications

Location: This position can be based in the following locations: Washington DC, London (or homebased in US/ UK), or RI country of operation (applicants must a have the right to work in Country where they are based and national terms and conditions apply)

Reporting to: Senior Director, Development and Communications

Direct reports: None

Budget responsibility: Not Applicable

Classification: Standard

ABOUT Relief International.

Relief International (RI) is a leading non-profit organization working in 16 countries to relieve poverty, ensure well-being and advance dignity. We specialize in fragile settings, responding to natural disasters, humanitarian crises and chronic poverty.

Relief International combines humanitarian and development approaches to provide immediate services while laying the groundwork for long-term impact. Our signature approach — which we call the RI Way—emphasizes local participation, an integration of services, strategic partnerships and a focus on civic skills. In this way, we empower communities to find, design and implement the solutions that work best for them.

RI includes the four corporate members of the RI Alliance: RI-US, RI-UK, MRCA/RI-France and RI-Europe. Under our alliance agreement, we operate as a single, shared management structure.

RI is active in 16 countries around the world, including some of the most fragile: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen. Often, RI is the only organization providing assistance to highly vulnerable communities.

RI employs 7,000+ staff and auxiliary workers

97% of staff are local nationals

We only have some 90 ex-pat staff out of 7,000+

RI spent $150 million in 2019 on our programs

Often, RI is the only organization providing assistance to highly vulnerable communities.

RI invests in four broad program sectors: Economic Opportunity, Education, Health, and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. We design our programs to incorporate The RI Way: local participation, integrated programming, the development of civic skills, and complementary partnerships including with local NGOs, governments, and the private sector. RI supports solutions that reinforce and improve upon existing in-country systems. Where such systems do not exist or are chronically underperforming, RI’s crisis response lays the foundation for long-term, sustainable change.

Position Summary.

The Fundraising & Communications Administrator will work closely with and support Relief International’s Development (Fundraising) & Communications team, to support the growth of income for the organization in the USA, Europe and globally. They will join a growing team based remotely from the UK, USA and Kenya.

They will be responsible for delivering excellent customer service, administrative support, managing all financial reporting, database management, and other administrative functions of the Development and Communications team.

The Fundraising & Communications Administrator will benefit from the support of all team members and at the same time, will be encouraged to develop their own ideas and to manage their own work. Working in a fast-paced, challenging, and stimulating professional environment, the Fundraising & Development Administrator will play an important role in acting as the first point of contact for donor enquiries, information, and donor care, and in supporting Relief International’s existing fundraising efforts in the US, UK and EU donor markets.

They will bring a genuine passion for delivering outstanding administrative support and leading on their area of work.

We are offering this role on a full-time or part-time basis and can offer flexible hours in order to secure the best talent for this crucial role.

Key Responsibilities and Duties.

Donor Relationships

• To provide excellent donor care such as writing gift acknowledgement letters, sending information packs, responding to queries, and speaking and meeting with donors when they have questions related to their gift processing.
• Draft tailored acknowledgement and solicitation letters for individual, foundation and Board donors in coordination with frontline fundraising staff and the CEO.

Donation Coordination

• Oversee the creation of weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports to support fundraising staff, finance department, executive leadership, and the board of directors. This includes reports demonstrating progress toward goals as well as forecasting philanthropic support in future years and reconciling with the finance department.

• Work with Finance and other teams to accurately record, process, and reconcile all incoming donations received by post, online, wire and stock transfer, and telephone.

• Accurately process standing orders and direct debits plus respond to direct debit cancellation requests, update supporter records, etc.

• Execute on data entry, data hygiene and data maintenance projects to further the efficiency and accuracy of our donor database (Netsuite).

• Manage and respond to supporter queries, record and update non-financial supporter information such as Gift Aid declarations, data protection opt outs, legacy pledges and other personal information in line with the Data Protection policy and GDPR.

• Work with colleagues across the organisation to deliver a positive and effective donor experience.

• Oversee established team processes aimed at mitigating risk and preventing fraudulent activity in online donations such as card testing, illegitimate refunds, and other risks, working with RI’s risk management team when suspicious activities occur and require investigation.

Communications

• Update and maintain process documents, communicating relevant information to the team.

• Respond to queries from the general public about fundraising activities, work closely with other teams to ensure enquiries are dealt with quickly and effectively maximize fundraising opportunities.

• Support maintenance of the website; posting content, editing and updating existing pages.

• Design and formatting of external emails and other communications to supporters, using our donor database and other design software.

• Support the measurement, analysis and performance reporting of all digital marketing initiatives, with a focus on audience engagement, conversions and site traffic.

• Researching statistics around trends and communications performance in fundraising.

• Outreach and relationship management of certain external agencies and freelance staff such as liaising with designers for quotes or working with database consultants.

Development and Communications Team support

• To support the administrative coordination and delivery of fundraising appeals, campaigns and events.

• Occasional prospect research into new donors.

• Receive and screen emails from the philanthropy inbox. Handle or appropriately refer all requests for information.

• Provide additional administrative support to members of the development and communications team as needed.

• Participate in regular team meetings, reporting and liaising on ongoing projects.

• Support with grant management from private donors and occasional reporting where required.

• Co-ordinate and attend internal and external fundraising led meetings including room booking, rota and agenda.

Other related tasks that may from time to time

Safeguarding

• Uphold and promote RI’s commitment to ensuring the safeguarding and safety of the vulnerable communities we serve.
• Consistent with RI’s safeguarding and protection policies, ensure your job-related activity and practice is compliant with safeguarding standards.
• Ensure that your behaviour inside and outside of work promotes the values outlined with RI’s code of conduct and safeguarding policies.
• Remain alert and responsive to any child and adult safeguarding risks, acquire relevant knowledge and skills which will enable you to promote strong safeguarding practices, understand the child and adult safeguarding policy and procedures.

Experience and skills required for the role.

Qualification and Experience

• Progressive experience working in an administrative role.

• Experience of writing acknowledgement letters and solicitation letters for donors or clients.

• Experience of using & maintaining a database, doing data entry and pulling data queries.

• An awareness of Data Protection issues and the ability to work with confidential sensitive information.

• Experience of building excellent relationships with external stakeholders.

• Experience of positive collaborative working with internal stakeholders.

Skills

• Excellent verbal and written skills with a talent for expressing complex ideas in simple and effective language.

• Creative and able to produce engaging written and visual communications.

• Excellent interpersonal skills and confidence engaging with people.

• Excellent organizational skills and the ability to assess, prioritize and manage a varied and demanding workload.

• Numerate with a basic understanding of financial accounts and ability to do financial reconciliations.

Personal Qualities

• Collaborative, inclusive, and team-driven
• Patient listener, likable, diplomatic, and engaging
• Awareness of the needs of others and flexible to respond
• A passion for the work of Relief International and a desire to continually broaden and deepen the organization’s impact

RI Values.

Guided by the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, as well as “Do No Harm,” Relief International Values:

We value:

• Integrity

• Adaptability

• Collaboration

• Inclusivity

• Sustainability

How to apply.

• To apply for this post, click on the “Apply” button in the job advert page
• You will be asked to upload a CV and Cover Letter. The cover letter should be no more than 2 pages long and explain why you are interested in this post with Relief International and how your skills and experience make you a good fit.

Please apply by uploading your cover letter and up-to-date CV on our website.

Due to limited resources, only short-listed candidates will be contacted

Relief International has a zero-tolerance policy for unlawful harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse. Relief International is committed to protecting our staff and the communities we work with from abuse and harm including sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and sexual harassment.

All staff are expected to abide by our Code of Conduct.

Recruitment to all roles in Relief International include a criminal records self-declaration, references and other pre-employment checks, which may include police and qualifications checks.