Development Officer

At the University of Southampton, our aim is to change the world for the better, bringing together realms of academic research, creativity and knowledge to have a truly collaborative, immersive and ground-breaking impact. We care about the challenges that humanity is facing, and work to support others on a local and global scale.

About the role

This engaging, interesting role is responsible for raising philanthropic income to help advance the University. Building personal, creative and rewarding partnerships with individuals and organisations, this position is crucial in connecting donors with Southampton’s fantastic research and education. Working amongst world-leading researchers and managing a varied portfolio of interesting and generous alumni and supporters, you will get to see truly life-changing impact in action.

You will develop your skills and experience in fundraising by working within the Fundraising team, where you will work with colleagues who share years of experience but are equally eager to learn from others and are keen to offer guidance. Our current priorities cover an innovative student scholarship programme and a range of medical research projects. There are exciting times ahead as we plan for our new campaign, ensuring this is a varied, enjoyable and rewarding role.

About you

You will be a confident and enthusiastic fundraiser or have experience in helping bring about positive change through building strong relationships, motivated by seeing the impact of philanthropy and other work for the improvement of society and the world. You will have demonstrable experience of working face to face with donors or stakeholders, individually or as part of a team, and recognise the personal and creative approach required to engage with each person you work with to produce a positive outcome. You have a passion for delivering a high standard of customer, stakeholder, or donor experience. You will be an excellent writer who enjoys writing persuasive communications to convince others into taking action. You will have a desire to learn how to enable interesting opportunities to connect with, cultivate and steward your donors and you will be tenacious and creative in attracting new contacts, ensuring a positive future of philanthropic support for Southampton.

About us

We are planning our first University-wide fundraising and engagement campaign, involving more alumni and supporters with Southampton so that we can change the world. With the full support and investment of University leadership, we are excited to be growing our team considerably.

We need people with intellectual curiosity and different ideas. We need people with direct experience or transferable skills and the interest and drive to take on a new challenge. We are actively determined to welcome a diverse group of colleagues into our inclusive team. Every day will be different, you will meet incredible people and the rewards will be huge.

Thank you for your interest in joining our team

This could be a career-defining opportunity and we want to hear from you. See Join ODAR to learn about our team and current opportunities. If you’d like to have an informal chat about this role, please contact Sebastian Reichel, Development Manager, on 02380595723 or sebastian.reichel@soton.ac.uk. Please do contact us if you feel you don’t meet all of the selection criteria and want to discuss the role further – we would love to hear from you.

Further details:

• Job Description and Person Specification