AGENCY BACKGROUND
This is a senior level appointment, ultimately aiming for the agency board, to provide leadership in all our activities for fundraising/NFP clients.
WPNC is an independent sector-leading fundraising agency based in central London and also using a hybrid model. We currently work with major fundraising clients in the UK, such as Age UK, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, Macmillan Cancer Support, NSPCC, Scope, The Salvation Army, Sense, VSO International and many others. We produce DRTV, direct mail and other offline comms to execute the strategy we co-design with client partners. We also create digital marketing comms and campaigns to sit alongside the offline work in our integrated campaigns. Our strategic work in the sector covers insights through the bespoke research projects, NPD, supporter journeys and increasingly legacy work. The appointed FSD will play a key role in aspects of agency delivery. We have a strong reputation and regularly rank mid-way in the Campaign Top 100 Agencies. Within WPNC Group we also operate a digital fundraising business called goDonate. This company operates in the SaaS arena, developing and operating fundraising donation websites. The team is made up of 22 people in the direct agency business and a further 16 in goDonate.
ROLE
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
A primary role is to lead agency activity when invited to pitch for fundraising business. The FSD will take personal ownership of the whole process, with support from agency colleagues across on and off-line activity. The FSD will take the ‘client view’ throughout and ensure that agency proposals reflect professional and credible answers to the client brief. The role will therefore involve initial face-to-face contact with the prospective client to establish the requirement, and will also involve continuing contact, up to and including the pitch itself.
COLLABORATING WITH CLIENTS
The FSD will take a lead role in working with fundraising clients and will, usually, supervise the team, fully supported by on and off-line teams to provide the day-to-day delivery. The main task will be to ensure that proposals made to clients reflect best practice and ensure the success of the activity, and as with the business development activity, taking the ‘client view’. Responsibility for internal financials – such as billing and client
profitability – will be a general part of the remit but will not be the primary focus: making the activity a success for the client will always take priority, as it is from this success that the agency will succeed.
A key element of the role will be keeping the WPNC offer at the leading edge of fundraising practice, and so a blend of innovation with the ‘tried and tested’ will always be important. It would be expected that the individual would be speaking at webinars and conferences – both internal and external – with a focus on new thinking in fundraising. You would work with the WPNC team to inspire and fuel innovation.
As an agency, we tackle both donor acquisition as well as donor development and supporter engagement. We recognise that whilst clients may have in-house skills in donor development, it is in the field of donor acquisition and supporter engagement through on and off-line media channels where we can have the greatest impact. The individual should therefore see both acquisition and supporter engagement as the main focus.
Creative execution of the strategy is core to the WPNC offering, compelling and exciting communications that delivers results is our key task. In this role the FSD will be expected to turn insights to proposition and work closely with the creative teams to bring these to life. We are looking for someone with the talent, experience and tools to inspire our award winning fundraising creatives teams.
THE PERSON
We are looking for an individual with significant experience in fundraising, either on the client side or with agency experience (or ideally a combination of both). The probable roles the right person currently occupies would be, for example, Head of IG, Fundraising Director or similar, in a major charity. Or a Planning Director in a cross-sector Agency looking for dedicated third sector challenges.
We are an agile agency, and therefore the right individual would need to be comfortable in an informal, non-hierarchical environment where working with the team is an important part of the process.
While this is a senior appointment, we would consider a part-time contract, and we have flexible working arrangements to suit the right person.
Salary level will be competitive and based on seniority and experience.
Please contact John Eversley for more information