Philanthropy Advisor, Europe

World Vision International

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian, development and advocacy organisation devoted to improving the lives of children, families and their communities around the world. Our over 34,000 staff members working in nearly 100 countries are united in helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith.

Through our work, every 60 seconds … a family gets water … a hungry child is fed … a family receives the tools to overcome poverty.

Here’s where you come in:

As the Philanthropy Advisor, Europe, you will support and continually build the capacity of European High Net Worth (HNW) Donor engagement teams to initiate and nurture strong, trusting relationships with HNW donors with the goal of engaging them in meaningful service with the poor. This includes supporting offices to contextualise and scale HNW donor fundraising best practices, acting as a liaison global level teams and initiatives, providing mentorship and capacity building, and facilitating ongoing, mutually supportive peer engagement across Europe region fundraising teams.

Key Responsibilities:

Build expertise in middle and major donor engagement across Euro Fundraising Offices. Act as a resource for the fundraisers in those offices to effectively scale HNW donor fundraising best practices

• Advise and build capability in the development of in-country major and mega donor strategies (HNW and Ultra-HNW)
• Develop subject matter expertise and act as global level technical expert ‘go-to source’ on HNW donor engagement best practice.
• Develop and execute strategies to increase regional penetration and brand awareness, leading to revenue growth by integrating and leveraging all available World Vision resources.
• Collaborate with Europe region fundraising staff to contextualise best practices for their unique stakeholders and context.
• Collaborate with individual fundraisers to pilot practices as needed to ensure confidence.
• Provide one-to-one mentorship, guidance and support in increasing donor engagement and major gift raising across their portfolios.

Develop resources and provide capacity building to fundraising and HNW donor engagement on programmes and projects in the HNW products / marketing material.

• Collaborate with Europe region fundraising staff to identify capacity and mentorship needs and best means of providing support.

• Develop, lead and manage a HNW donor focused education, training and mentoring strategy that produces ‘best in class’ performance in European fundraising staff and teams.

• Ensure understanding of World Vision Philanthropy strategic goals, objectives, organisational announcements, and activities.

• Facilitate development of resources as needed:

  • Develop and maintain a catalogue of short, highly consumable foundational narratives, fact sheets, etc. about projects and programmes.
  • Develop and maintain a catalogue of guidance on current impact stories and statistics, how to prepare internal meeting speakers for donor questions, effective means of communicating on sensitive topics, financial questions, etc.

• Develop and provide direct and resource-based mentorship and training as needed to meet capacity needs.

• Facilitate individual and group engagements – meetings, trainings, webinars, etc.

• Monitor and adapt strategy as needed to better align with stakeholder goals and needs / meet changing needs.

• Identify and document good practices to scale and/or share with other regions

Facilitate mutually beneficial peer support and engagement throughout Europe region fundraising offices

• Collaborate with Europe region fundraising staff to identify support needs and best means of providing support.
• Develop strategy and practices to empower teams throughout the region to support, collaborate with, and benefit from each other’s knowledge, experiences and shared problem solving.
• Facilitate joint meetings, events, creation of resources, etc.
• Monitor and adapt strategy as needed to better align with stakeholder goals and needs / meet changing needs

Lead cross-border engagement for HNW donors and their networks, including with donors from outside the Euro region (e.g. NLC level donors from the USA)

• With the regional prospect research function and global WV Philanthropy Alliance partners, identify and engage potential cross-border donors to grow donor networks and portfolios.
• Pioneer and lead engagement of major cross-border HNW partnerships on behalf of the Philanthropy Alliance, e.g. with investment banks such as UBS Optimus Foundation. Partner with WV office CEOs as necessary.
• Support donor strategy at an individual level for all Ultra-HNW donors in the region.
• Lead relationship management of a small number of cross-border Ultra HNW donors, who live across a number of territories.

Requirements include:

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, fundraising, training, or a highly related field. NOTE: Highly relevant professional experience may substitute for education; this will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
• 5+ years of experience in fundraising in a large, complex organisation.
• 5+ years of work experience in High Net Worth donor relations roles.
• 5+ years training and mentoring effective teams.
• Demonstrated effectiveness training and mentoring fundraising teams.
• Strong understanding of the unique requirements for High Net Worth Individual (as distinguished from mass-market fundraising) marketing and engagement.
• Experience facilitating change processes.
• Demonstrated success building trust across cultures and developing strong, supportive, relationships.
• Significant proven success mentoring and engaging stakeholders in new processes and practices.
• Fluent English speaking and writing capacity.
• Requires international and domestic Travel up to 25% of the time. (As safety and travel regulations permit)

Preferred:

• 7+ years of experience in fundraising in a large, complex organisation.
• 7+ years of work experience in High Net Worth donor relations roles.
• 5+ years of experience mentoring fundraising teams.
• Leadership through influence and demonstrable capability to work across the organization to influence change without direct authority
• Cross cultural understanding. Strong interpersonal and cross cultural communication skills.
• Self starter and ability to work effectively in a remote/virtual environment
• Personal relationship skills are of a high standard
• Work the details and not just the big picture