Vacancy - Fundraising and Bid Writer

Salary: £18,000 to £22,000 FTE per annum, plus contributory pension scheme

Location: Cedarwood Centre, Avon Avenue, Meadow Well, North Shields NE297QT

Working hours: Full-time, 37.5 hours per week, usual hours are 09:00-17:00 Monday to Friday. Occasionally weekend and evening work will be required, for which TOIL will be given.

Holidays: 28 days, Bank Holidays (includes Christmas closure days) FTE

Term of contract: 12-month fixed term


The Cedarwood Trust is a regional charity supporting communities of high deprivation through innovative practice, pastoral care, education, training, and research. Our vision is a world in which children, young people and their families are effectively supported to build on their own strengths to achieve their goals in life. We care in three main ways:

1. Researching the systemic underlying causes of Poverty.
2. Developing, piloting, and evaluating new, cost-effective interventions for individuals and families facing complex difficulties.
3. Supporting the local authority and combined authority to improve their practice, through the collection and evaluation of outcomes data.

Community is at the heart of everything we do; we are committed to discovering and understanding the best way to help residents, families, and professionals. We believe our impact comes from partnership and collaboration. Cedarwood Trust works in close partnership with a wide range of service providers, voluntary sector partners and local authorities. Demonstrating “best practice” in creating the best and safest conditions for community work. We aim to achieve this in ways that could be emulated by any organisation seeking to do right by communities, residents, individuals, and families. This means that all staff need to be appropriately trained in ensuring children and vulnerable adults are safe (Safeguarding), our staff are safe (Health and Safety), our information about people is safe (Information Governance) and that we include everyone equally irrespective of their identity and background (Equality and Diversity).
The Centre values diversity and aims to have a workforce that reflects this. We encourage applications from all sections of the community.

Overview of the post
Under the leadership of our CEO Wayne Dobson Cedarwood Trust has rapidly expanded its service provisions and is one of the fastest growing small charity in the region at this time. With a strategic emphasis on raising income from a variety of sources, including statutory funds, trusts and foundations, corporates, major donors, and community fundraising.
Including tendered contracts, in last 2 years the CEO has secured over £1.2 million.
 
The focus of this post is to support revenue funding, particularly from statutory funders, tendering for contracts and applications to Trusts and Foundations. The post-holder will be involved in supporting some areas of fundraising from corporates, major donors, and community fundraising. The role combines generating new voluntary income and maintaining our relationships with current funders (approximately 70% of time to be spent on generating new income from trusts and statutory sources, and 30% of time on overseeing current grants and communicating with current funders).

Purpose of the post
Working closely with the CEO and the Senior Management Team the post- holder will support with meeting income targets and developing and maintaining relationships with Trust and statutory donors and prospects.

Duties and responsibilities

Statutory grants and tenders for commissioned services

• Lead on the Department of Health’s and Department of Education’s annual grant
• rounds and any other government grant rounds which are eligible to apply for (including but not limited to National Lottery Community Fund)
• Effectively oversee the bid writing process to ensure that all required documentation is collated and submitted to deadline.
• Developing and writing proposals to foundations and statutory bodies.
• Coordination of statutory bid responses, at both PQQ and ITT stages.
• Supporting project and research teams on complex bids.
• Keep abreast of new rounds being announced, communicate with the wider team about timelines and oversee the bid identification process.
• Attend information events and feed back to staff team.
• Work closely with management to find the best project matches for each round.
• Liaise with project managers to complete application forms, including budgets.
• Oversee the process of reporting to funders.
• Attend grant negotiation and review meetings and oversee the process of grant and contract set up.
• Effectively manage multiple funding deadlines to ensure no key opportunities are missed.
• Oversee a timetable of progress reports for all grants and oversee the preparation of financial reports and budgets in collaboration with the Finance Team.

Trusts and foundations

• Take a lead on writing key grant proposals for trusts and foundations including liaising with the Finance department to create budgets for applications.
• Effectively manage multiple funding deadlines to ensure no key opportunities are missed.
• Forge and maintain successful relationships with Trust funders through regular contact with grant managers.
• Oversee and manage the reporting process to ensure that all funders receive regular updates as per their requirements.

Other income

• Build other non-statutory income streams such as corporate, community and major donor giving.
• Write proposals for other income streams and attending meetings as required.

Planning and reporting

• Support the Finance team in the preparation of Annual Accounts and ensure that all funder information is correct.
• Maintain an overview of and monitor the Centre's revenue income.
• Support on producing quarterly performance dashboards for the Board of Trustees.
• Organise and chair regular Finance and Fundraising meetings to ensure ongoing liaison and monitoring of current grants and to agree timescales and work plans for budgets of new grants and funder reports.

Line management

• Recruit volunteers and interns, where appropriate.

Information management

• Ensure all activities adhere to Data Protection standards.
• Develop and maintain oversight of systems to support all fundraising activities, including managing and reporting grant income.
• Maintain oversight of filing systems for all grants and donations, design new systems as required to improve efficiency.

Other duties

• Build strong and collaborative relationships across the Cedarwood Trust to ensure excellent understanding of our work to our funders and supporters.
• Gain support for all fundraising activities from trustees and staff.
• Continued Professional Development

The post-holder will be required to take part in the Cedarwoods annual review and will be supported to continued professional development to support the post holder in this role.

Meetings

The post-holder will be required to attend and participate in the staff meetings and to work at events which may take place outside office hours.
 

Other

• To maintain an awareness of and actively follow and promote the Cedarwood policies, including Equal Opportunities, Health and Safety, Safeguarding and Information Governance.
• To complete all mandatory training, including but not limited to Safeguarding, Health and Safety, Equal Opportunities, and Information Governance, within the required timescales.

To be noted

This is not an exhaustive list of tasks; the post-holder will be asked to undertake any other ad hoc tasks commensurate with the scope and purpose of this post.
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This job description reflects the present requirements of the post, and as duties and responsibilities change/develop, the job description will be reviewed and be subject to amendment in consultation with the post-holder.

The post-holder will be required to have a DBS disclosure which the Cedarwood Trust will apply for. The Cedarwood Trust is a member of the Fundraising Regulator. As a member we are committed to the highest standards in fundraising. As part of your role, you will need to follow the Fundraising Regulator’s Code of Fundraising Practice and standards.

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Please email louise@cedarwoodtrust.com for application pack and if you require assistance or experience difficulties in applying. Please note all our posts require candidates to have the Right to Work in the UK at the time of applying.

Contract duration
Fixed term 12 months

Closing date for applications
Midnight, Monday 22nd March 2021.

Notification of interview
Shortlisted applicants will be notified no later than 2nd April 2021.

Please note due to volume of applications expected, we will be unable to notify unsuccessful candidates.

Interviews
Interviews will be held in April 2021 subject to COVID-19 restrictions.

How to apply
Please email louise@cedarwoodtrust.com for application pack and if you require assistance or experience difficulties in applying. 

We are unable to accept CVs and kindly request no contact from agencies.