Relationship Manager

Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) is a Christian organisation that uses light aircraft to deliver practical help, physical healing and spiritual hope to some of the world’s most remote and inaccessible communities. For 80 years, MAF has been working in partnership with hundreds of other organisations to enable access to medical care, education, livelihood training and long-term support in over 24 low-income countries. We believe that every community, however remote, should have access to the essentials of life – that’s why MAF’s flights are a lifeline, not a luxury. –

You will have an essential role in developing and maintaining successful long-term relationships with high-value trusts/foundations and individual major donors.  Your focus will be to secure both major gifts from new donors and build on the commitment of long-standing supporters to further their partnership in MAF’s work and mission.

This is a fantastic opportunity to join a friendly and high performing team and make a significant contribution to our global mission.

There is an occupational requirement for the job holder of these positions to be a committed Christian. Additional information is available on request.

In this role you will have 6 key responsibilities

Financial: Managing a portfolio of high-value relationships and to deliver income at the agreed annual target of >£500,000 in the first year with an expectation this will rise year on year.

Management:  You will be one of the first points of contact internally for trusts/foundations and individual major donors (IMD) related queries and will work in accordance with the major giving team strategic plan and existing procedures, practices and standards.

Relationship:  You will seek to actively develop and manage excellent relationships with an agreed portfolio of trusts/foundations and IMD capable of donating a minimum of £25,000 or more as a single gift each year. In addition, you will need to:

• Develop and implement professionally written action plans which will engage, inform and nurture prospects and donors to deliver gifts at the agreed level. 
• Undertake timely administration to capture and record knowledge of supporters within the customer relationship management database. Work with the organisation’s systems team to utilise this information to enhance applications and giving levels.
• Pro-actively develop relationships with key stakeholders within the MAF organisation(s).
• Present MAF proposals alone or with others, (member of the operational field team, CEO etc), to prospects and donors.
• Participate in events to develop relationships with donors, inviting individuals from portfolios where appropriate and co-ordinate visits to MAF overseas operations where appropriate to introduce these donors directly to the work of MAF.

Information: Information management and analytical thinking is essential as you will present detailed, accurate and high-quality fundraising proposals to prospects and donors, ensuring any specific deadlines or funding windows are complied with.   In addition, you will need to:

• Ensure that donors are thanked appropriately for their gifts with timely and appropriate reports, letters and phone call.
• Provide timely ‘report backs’ that are appropriate/agreed with each donor, to evidence effective use of funding and to encourage the opportunity to make further applications based on good stewardship and achievement of agreed outcomes.
• Maintain a thorough knowledge, and the funding priority, of projects available for funding by trusts/foundations supporters and prospects.
• Actively seeking to grow the trusts/foundations portfolio and income through the use of research
• Attending regular appropriate training courses, external forums and networks to ensure continuous personal development

Major Donor team (practice/ procedures/training):  As a key member of the team, you will need to ensure procedures and standards are developed/maintained to ensure we are effective and compliant with any legislation/regulation.

CRM Database: To provide support to the Partnership Executive, who will be the team’s CRM database lead and maintain a thorough working understanding of MAF UK’s CRM system in order to answer specific team queries.  You will need to support the teams day-to-day CRM activities including producing reports, importing data, adding activities, amending details and any other relevant tasks.

In line with all staff in MAF UK you will be required to:

1. Be a Role model of organisational values and beliefs – contributing to the shared spiritual life of the MAF UK team as a unique Christian charity. This will include attendance and participation in corporate times of biblical reflection and corporate prayer meetings.
2. Participate in appropriate matrix programme and project teams, contributing skills and expertise to required timescales from the appropriate programme leader.
3. Keep your line manager informed of all relevant and timely information.
4. At all times comply with statutory requirements for handling personal and sensitive data in a confidential manner
5. To abide by Safeguarding and Conduct Policies, and all other MAF UK policies provided on the Intranet.

Christian values, beliefs and ethos of MAF UK:

As a Christian mission, MAF UK is seeking those who share in the Christian values and beliefs of the organisation, as described in the mission, purpose, values and beliefs statements. All staff will be required to support and actively demonstrate the Christian values of the organisation and to take part in organisation activities such as staff meetings, prayer meetings, away days, where the values and beliefs of the organisation will be obvious.

Essential Requirements

• Educated to degree level.
• Experience of working with donors or in a relationship management environment
• Experience of utilising knowledge of audiences to develop donor involvement
• Your personal skills and attributes will need to include.
  • Excellent writing skills with the ability to successfully present project proposals to trusts and foundations.
  • Proficient skills in Microsoft applications
  • Able to communicate positively, persuasively, and sensitively across functions and organisations.
  • Building strong partnerships across the organisation and maintaining a positive and friendly approach even under pressure
  • The ability to positively influence non-direct reports in order to obtain information, or drive activity.
  • High levels of efficiency and quality – Excellent attention to detail
  • Financially literate and able to interpret business plans.
  • Able to manage multiple deadlines and priorities.
  • Committed and mature Christian, able to demonstrate understanding and acceptance of the Statement of Faith and willing to proactively take part in MAF events and meetings e.g. prayer meetings, away days etc. Able to describe these beliefs and values to others so as to represent MAF as a Christian mission organisation.
  • Emotional resourcefulness
  • Flexibility towards others and circumstances
  • Service orientation

Highly Desirable requirements

• Major donor/trusts & foundations or other transferable fundraising training
• Experience of working in a Christian organisation or charity/fundraising environment
• Successful work experience within a fundraising environment

For the full person specification requirements for these roles please download our full job description: Relationship Manager JD December 2024

 Benefits:

• Salary:   £42,000 per annum depending upon experience 
• Hours:    Both these roles are full time, 36 hours per week
• Pension: MAF UK provides a non-contributory pension scheme for staff of 10% salary on joining
• Annual leave entitlement: 22 days per year plus 8 statutory paid public holidays per year (including those falling at Christmas and New Year).
• Location: Folkestone Office, Kent
• Home working: This role is home based during current restrictions but as these ease it will be based in our office in Folkestone.  Further homeworking may be available subject to agreement.

Closing date:      1st February 2025

Interview dates from:  10th February.

How to apply:

Please apply on-line by clicking the ‘Apply for this job online’ link.  Upload your CV and a full covering letter telling us which key skills you think you can undertake and why.  

There is no need to complete the overseas ‘Status’ questions (these are for overseas based roles only.  Please note, you will need to type ‘not applicable’ into the fields marked with an * in this section).