Fundraising and Development Manager

FUNDRAISING AND DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Recruitment Pack

August 2023

CONTENTS

3. Welcome
4. About Us
5. The team
6. Job Description
7. Person Specification
8. Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Policy Statement
9. How to apply and Timeline

WELCOME

Dear Candidate,

Thank you very much for reading this pack and showing an interest in this position. At Action Village India we are very excited to welcome a new member of staff.

Since it was founded in 1988, over thirty years ago, Action Village India has been run by people who are inspired by India. We are united in our belief that every woman, man, and child in rural India has the right to take control of their own life and livelihoods and prosper in fair and equal communities.

India continues to be a country of stark contrasts. Presented as one of the world’s fast-growing economies, India is also dramatically unequal. Although poverty has been declining, inequality has been rising since 1991. It is growing nationally, between states, between castes and, sharply, between women and men.

We believe the ways forward for people-centred change should come from India itself. We can achieve this through our support of grassroots organisations working directly within communities, taking forward a range of initiatives in areas of health; girls’ education; economic empowerment of women; disability rights; women’s rights; campaigning for land and water rights; farmers’ education; women’s and children’s health. Our support is founded on the two principles that are at the core of everything AVI stands for: Partnership and Solidarity.

We have enabled over thirty years of partnership, community and solidarity, creating a web of humanity that has contributed to change and making a difference in the lives of the most marginalised children, women and men in rural India.

We are now looking forwards to our next thirty years of partnership and solidarity. How this expresses itself will keep changing, as it has in the past. We will continue to build on our partners’ work and their achievements in prioritising work with all marginalised people in rural India and we welcome you, your solidarity and your support to Action Village India. We welcome you to be a part of making a lasting difference in rural India.

It is a very exciting time to be joining the organisation. After a few tumultuous years during the Covid Pandemic, which impacted India, and mainly communities in rural India, immensely, Action Village India is looking to grow its team and build stronger connections and have a bigger impact while staying flexible, agile, and adaptive.

Your role will be vital in strengthening the organisation. Action Village India is working hard to diversity its funding and build a stronger financial foundation. As Fundraising and Development Manager you will take a leading role in raising funds from Trusts and Foundations, which contribute to most of our income, and ensure a good working relationship with donors, including reporting back to them on progress. You will also work with the team to plan, manage and run different fundraising events and raise funds through our trading. You will take on board the relationships with our fair-trade suppliers and source appropriate, ethical and fairly produced products for our online shop.

Besides fundraising, you will also play a big role in supporting the Executive Director with organisational development and management. You will assist in liaising with partners’ monitoring and reporting. It is vital to communicate progress made in an engaging way to supporters in which you will be taking a leading role.

We are a small organisation, with a core team of two, but are very effective and dedicated to the work. We are very much looking forward to welcoming you to be part of contributing to creating change for women, men and children in rural India.

Kavita Pandey

Executive Director

ABOUT US

Action Village India (AVI) is a small UK based organisation that since 1989, has been supporting Indian partner organisations who work alongside villagers in some of the most remote parts of rural India so they can improve their lives, livelihoods and resilience. We work towards an India which is just, fair and inclusive, where all people regardless of sex, gender identity, ethnicity, caste, religion can benefit from the country’s economic development and lift themselves out of poverty.

At the heart of our work, are our partnerships; many of which have spanned decades.  Our partner organisations are led by Indians and whether these are large or small organisations, or social movements, all work directly at the grassroots level across rural India – from Bihar and Jharkhand in the North, in Odisha and down to Tamil Nadu in the South. The communities they work with, are some of the poorest in India. They are experts in their fields and work hand in hand with local people to design and inform projects to best serve their local communities and secure rights and social justice for women, men and children.

We accompany our partners for the long term, solidarity with our partners and their communities is at the core of how we work. This means we have developed relationships over the years, based on mutual respect, reciprocity and transparency. We are not governed by donor funding cycles and agendas but are led by our partners and the needs they identify and are committed to shared learning and collaboration. We keep our UK costs to a minimum with core staff and rely on an active and engaged set of Trustees, volunteers and supporters.  Both staff and Trustees of Action Village India have relationships with staff from our partner organisations, created through ongoing dialogue, partner and community visits and participation in learning forums.

THE TEAM

The day-to-day work of the charity is carried out during the year by one full time member of staff and one part-time member of staff: The Executive Director (Kavita Pandey) and the Communications, Fundraising and Operations Manager (Aneeta Patel). The office is also supported by our Board of Trustees, our Founder Advisor (Ivan Nutbrown), our Founder and Director of Sensetrade/Madras Café (Bryan Osbon) and interns throughout the year; volunteers support numerous Action Village India events including the front of house at Madras Café, part of the WOMAD Festival.

Kavita Pandey

Executive Director

Kavita is the Executive Director of Action Village India. She has over 16 years of rich experience working with Civil Societies and Research and Academic Institutions in India and the global south.

Kavita is a seasoned development practitioner with substantial experience in empowering communities especially underprivileged women, to lead the transformation.

She has a strong background in conceptualising development-based interventions, managing various social development programs, efficient resource mobilisation, stitching collaboration, and developing partnerships mostly towards women’s economic empowerment and issues impacting women’s access to basic human rights. Her work is the amalgamation of implementation at the grassroots level and strategic planning at the leadership positions specially focused on designing and implementing livelihood generation and poverty reduction approaches.

Her decade long association with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) India, her work on social development programs with multi-lateral, bilateral, Government Institutions, and Corporates, and her research work with Academic institutions of prestige from the global north have added to her vast experience. She demonstrates the capacity to develop evidence-based strategies on various issues that deal with development challenges in some of the most challenging contexts. She is a social impact enthusiast and wants to bring lasting changes in the lives of the less privileged.

Aneeta Patel

Communications, Fundraising and Operations Manager

Aneeta started working with Action Village India in 2018. Aneeta is a great believer in making a difference on a personal level and that’s one of the things that most attracted her to Action Village India’s work. She has over 20 years’ experience in reception/office administration/secretarial roles and has run her own business for nearly 20 years as a knitting teacher and author. Her enthusiasm, commitment and random life experiences have become invaluable for the Action Village India extended family.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Job Title:                     Fundraising and Development Manager

Job Purpose:                To develop fundraising proposals and raise project funds from trusts and foundations. To raise funds for Action Village India through our trading activities and events. To support Action Village India in the effective and supportive working relationships with Action Village India’s project partners in India, in accordance with Action Village India’s strategic objectives.

Reports to:                  Executive Director and Trustees

Salary:                         £30,000 pro rata

Hours:                         14 hours per week (equivalent to 2 working days) – ideally Wednesday and Thursday.

Location:                     London Office (5 Balls Pond Road, N1 4AX)

Contract:                     Permanent, after a successful 6-month probationary period

Annual Leave:             25 days (pro rata)

Pension scheme:         Action Village India provides access to an auto-enrolment pension plan through the Pensions Trust for all staff who have completed 6 months of satisfactory service with 3% employer contribution.

In line with legal requirements this post is subject to a Right to Work check.

Accessibility: We would like to offer our sincere regrets that due to the location of our office this position isn’t suitable for anyone with additional accessibility needs. The Action Village India office is on the second floor with a narrow staircase and no lift. If this situation changes in the future, we will update the information for any future vacancies.

FUNDRAISING

1.1        Fundraising Management and Donor Liaison:

• In line with Action Village India’s project funding priorities, research, develop fundraising proposals for new and ongoing Action Village India’s projects to be submitted to major donors, trusts and foundations.
• Keep up to date spreadsheets and databases tracking donor deadlines, the status of applications and reporting deadlines.
• Ensure that material from partners for monitoring reports is developed as needed and work to ensure that reports are submitted as required and to agreed deadlines.

1.2       Events

• Plan and manage, in collaboration with the Action Village India team, the events for the year,
• Attend Action Village India fundraising events (evenings and weekends as agreed with the team)
• Attend WOMAD festival and support the Action Village India team with the successful running of the Action Village India stall at the festival.

1.3       Individual Giving

• Planning and delivering our regular appeals and engagement communications.
• Develop new ways to engage our supporters base and grow income from Individual Giving products.
• Build engaging journeys to retain existing supporters and develop more supporters.

1.4        Communications and Development Management

• Create communications that inspire supporter engagement and promote loyalty.
• Oversee the partners and project pages on Action Village India’s website.
• Contribute relevant material to Action Village India newsletters.
• Supply project information to support appeals to individual donors, and at public events including WOMAD and the co-organised exhibition at WOMAD.
• Work with partners to generate engaging communications and marketing materials about the progress of their work, including visual content.
• Work with partners to generate material on which to base awareness-raising, educational and campaign work in the UK, where appropriate.
• Manage the creation of organisation’s content, for example, leaflets, webpages and annual reports.
• Work closely with the Communications, Fundraising and Operations manager to support the creation of social media content and other CRM material, ensuring this feeds directly into the Communications Strategy.
• Supporting the Executive Director with monitoring and assisting with formal progress reports to funders, and any other work based on the organisation’s requirements.

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES  

• Represent Action Village India as required.
• Abide by organisational policies, codes of conduct and practices.
• Support and promote diversity and equality of opportunity in the workplace.
• Keep confidential any personal, private or sensitive information.
• Cover for colleagues or undertake other duties commensurate with the accountabilities of the post as necessary.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

EXPERIENCE           

• Ideal minimum 3 years proven experience in fundraising from trust and foundations, events and individual giving.
• Proven experience in writing project proposals and reports for funders.
• Success in raising funds from trusts and foundations in the UK, working alone or perhaps as part of a larger fundraising team.
• Experience of working in partnership and solidarity with national and local NGOs.
• Ideally experience of working in international development with a specific focus on Asia and India.
• Experience co-organising events and fundraising activities

KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS

• Knowledge of Trusts and Foundations and institutional fundraisers particularly in the UK.
• Knowledge of the international solidarity and development landscape and/or familiar with funder processes, databases and requirements.
• Knowledge of Charity Law, Data Protection, Fundraising Code of Practice and other relevant marketing or fundraising standards in the UK.
• Ability to produce high quality written project proposals, narrative and financial reports and communications materials for a range of audiences.
• Ability to absorb, filter and re-present information for new audiences.

PERSONAL QUALITIES

• A passion to support humanitarian services that benefit the most vulnerable.
• Excellent communication skills: presenting complex information clearly, concisely and persuasively.
• Proficiency in using Excel.
• Ability to stay focused and efficient in the face of changing priorities.
• Ability to self-manage your workload and be suited to working in very small team, being flexible and able to take initiative.
• Excellent organisational skills, including ability to work systematically to deadlines.
• Demonstrable interpersonal and relationship building skills, including building cross-cultural relationships and working remotely with organisations in other parts of the world.

DESIRABLE

• Clean driving license
• IT skills
• Photoshop and Indesign

OTHER REQUIREMENTS  

• Able to work some evenings and weekends and stay overnight where necessary (in particular, WOMAD festival which falls on the last weekend of July).
• Able to travel to rural India
• Commitment to equal opportunities, anti-racism and anti-discriminatory practices.
• Ability to apply awareness of equality, diversity and inclusion issues to all areas of work.
• Commitment to the values, vision and ethos of Action Village India.

 EQUALITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION POLICY STATEMENT

Action Village India recognises that discrimination and victimisation is unacceptable and that it is in the interests of the Charity and its Employees (which includes all staff, trustees, volunteers and interns) to utilise the skills of the total workforce. It is the aim of the Charity to ensure that no Employee or job applicant receives less favourable facilities or treatment (either directly or indirectly) in recruitment or employment on grounds of age, disability, gender/gender reassignment, marriage/civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation (the protected characteristics).

Our Policy Principles

• We are committed to being an inclusive and diverse organisation which celebrates difference and creates relationships of mutual respect. We know that we must act positively to ensure we work well together and increase our representation of diversity.
• We will not tolerate behaviour that is discriminatory, intimidating, humiliating or causes harm to others. This includes (but is not limited to) abuse, bullying or harassment of any kind.
• Everyone has a duty to uphold these principles and speak out about negative behaviour and practice (either directly through informal discussion or by reporting them).
• Anyone reporting unacceptable behaviours will be taken seriously, offered confidentiality and protected from victimisation as a result of their disclosure.
• We will investigate concerns raised, promptly, taking into account the wishes of the person making the disclosure
• Deliberately false and malicious claims may constitute bullying or harassment and will not be tolerated.
• Managers and Trustees have a specific responsibility and a duty to;
  • Promote positive action and challenge people to act in accordance with expectations.
  • Support people to develop their knowledge and skills in these areas, ensuring that their team members attend the appropriate awareness sessions as required.
  • Act quickly to investigate and act when they are made aware of breaches of our standards.

HOW TO APPLY AND TIMELINE

Application is by way of CV with a Supporting Statement that should set out your motivations for applying and how your work experience to date meets the scope of the responsibilities. As a general guide, your Supporting Statement should be around two sides of A4 and no more than three sides of A4.

Apply by emailing [email protected]

If you would like an informal conversation about the role before deciding whether or not to formally apply, please contact our Executive Director Kavita Pandey on [email protected]

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: 17:00 Monday 18^th September

Selection Process and timescales:

1. 9am Monday 18th September
   Deadline for applications
2. Wednesday 20^th September
   You will receive an email from us whether or not you have been selected for an interview.
3. Wednesday 27^th September
   Interviews in London

4. Thursday 28^th or Friday 29^th September
   You will be informed of our decision on your application and interview

5. ASAP

Starting date (negotiable)