Development Assistant (permanent) Closing date: 09 April

Closing date: 10:00 on Thursday 09 April 2026

Interview dates: Monday 20 and Thursday 23 April

Start date: As soon as possible

Location: Office based / hybrid, central Edinburgh

Hours: Full time (35 hours per week)

Salary: £25,000 per annum

The idea at the heart of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is simple: anyone with a desire to perform and a venue willing to host them is welcome. No individual or committee determines who can or cannot perform at the Fringe.

It all began in 1947 with eight companies – six of them from Scotland – taking a risk, turning up uninvited and performing on the ‘fringe’ of the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival. Over 75 years later, the Fringe has grown to become one of the greatest platforms for creative freedom in the world, second only to the Olympics in terms of global ticketed events. In 2025, 3893 shows took place in 306 venues across Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society was founded by artists to nurture and uphold the Fringe's values of inclusivity, experimentation and imagination. We exist to support, advise and encourage everyone who wants to participate in the Fringe, provide information and assistance to audiences, and celebrate the Fringe and what it stands for all over the world.

As a registered charity, the Fringe Society relies on the financial support from a diverse range of income streams, including our Fringe Friends scheme, Corporates, Trusts, and individuals. Based within the Fundraising and Development team and reporting to the Development Manager, the Development Assistant will provide the administrative function of this work, ensuring that deadlines are met, and accurate customer records are maintained.

Role and responsibilities

• Administration of the Fringe Friends Scheme including selling and upgrading membership, managing payments and programme delivery, and supporting the Development Manager with relationship management, coordinating comms, and budget monitoring.
• Being the first point of contact for Friends phone and email enquiries, including troubleshooting membership enquiries and customer services issues.
• Supporting events throughout the year, such as Friends receptions in August and coordinating other Fringe event guest lists.
• Maintaining accurate and up to date records of all Friends, donors and other key stakeholders – and helping interrogate the database to identify opportunities to increase support.
• Supporting the Development Manager by researching fundraising opportunities, for new and existing funding streams and delivering key fundraising activities related to corporate donors, major donors, trusts and foundations, including monitoring and tracking fundraising activity.
• Supporting the Development Manager to keep track of upcoming deadlines, and collating information required for reports and applications.
• Supporting the administration of the Fringe Society’s Gift Aid return.
• First point of contact for all Development queries, processing donations, updating spreadsheets and information logs and general administration.
• Taking ownership of the Development Team’s shared inboxes, coordinating responses from the relevant member of the team where appropriate.
• Booking meetings and supporting internal organisation-wide events when needed, including taking minutes.

Person specification

• Excellent customer service skills, both written and verbal.
• Strong administration and organisation skills, with excellent attention to detail.
• Experience of writing high quality copy for applications and external communications.
• Experience in organising and delivering events.
• Proven ability to communicate effectively both internally and externally and at all levels.
• Ability to use initiative, find solutions and respond to customers in a helpful, efficient and calm manner.
• Advanced IT skills, specifically Word (mail merges), Outlook and Excel.
• Ability to work collaboratively, across departments.
• Experience of administrating a membership or fundraising scheme.
• Experience of working within a festivals, box office, event management or charity environment.
• Experience of writing copy and producing promotional materials for key audiences.
• Knowledge of UK Gift Aid, data protection and other legislation concerning membership and fundraising.
• Understanding and interest in arts management, the arts or festivals.
• Database experience/willingness to learn.

Salary and benefits

• £25,000 per annum
• 34 days holiday (inclusive of six bank holidays)
• Employee assistance programme

Hours of work

Normal working hours are 35 hours worked between 10:00 and 18:00, Monday to Friday. Some additional evening and weekend work may be required. During the festival you may be required to work six days a week (42 hours). There is no overtime entitlement, but the Society does maintain a Time Off In Lieu policy. We are a flexible working employer and therefore are happy to discuss flexible working at any stage of the application process.

We use positive action under section 159 of the Equality Act in relation to disability or race. This means that we have two candidates of equal merit in our process, we will seek to take forward the D/deaf, disabled, Black, Asian or ethnically diverse candidate in order to diversify our staff team.

The Fringe are active members of the Festivals Edinburgh Sustainability Working group and include climate action as one of the headline targets in the Fringe development goals. As part of the commitments of this work, all Fringe staff members are expected to assist with the Fringe Society’s environmental goals and consider these in all elements of your work.

We are also committed to maintaining the open-access policy of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from all sectors of the community. We are also proud to be a Disability Confident Employer and aim to successfully employ and retain disabled people and those with health conditions. We expect employees to support these commitments and to assist in their realisation.