Head of Business Development

About The Advocacy Project

We help people speak up and make decisions about their health, wellbeing and social care. We’re here to make sure people who are vulnerable because of their circumstance can understand their rights, make effective choices about their lives and voice their concerns. Some of the ways we do this include:

• Advocacy services that make sure people can express their wishes when decisions are being made about their care or wellbeing
• User involvement projects that help organisations improve what they offer by listening to people who use their services
• Local Healthwatch services, which act as health and social care champions for the areas they serve and give people a direct channel to share their feedback

Our services are independent, confidential, and free to those receiving them. Together, our teams are standing up for essential rights and supporting people to have a say on the issues that matter to them.

About the role

The Advocacy Project vision is clear: everyone should have a voice. We work tirelessly to ensure that those who are often unheard or whose wishes are dismissed are heard and their rights upheld. We believe passionately that everyone should have equal outcomes when accessing health and social care services, and we all live our values every day showing up with kindness, strength, honesty and belief in the work we do. Our work makes a difference, but we need to reach more people and change more lives; can you be part of our journey?

You will be joining The Advocacy Project at a critical time as we enter the second year of our new strategy. Key to the success of the new strategy is developing a sustainable business model that moves us from a reliance on statutory income to a mixed portfolio of funding including trusts and foundations and paid for services. Focusing on growth we are looking to secure at least £250,000 new income annually while maintaining our current income levels; we aim to double our income by the end of our strategy in 2030.

As part of our senior leadership team, you will be agile and collaborative, a fundraising professional who has developed and delivered an income generation strategy and achieved income growth across multiple income streams, including developing commercial income streams, grants and statutory income. You will be hands-on, getting stuck into applications, prospecting, communicating, and developing new income opportunities. Building strong relationships with staff, volunteers and service users, you will also have the ability to engage with stakeholders and build relationships externally. You will develop evidence-based and impact-led cases for support for various projects and must be able to unlock growth, develop new approaches and help communicate our impact. You will build and lead a small, effective and positive fundraising team.

Key responsibilities

• Developing our income strategy to ensure we reach our financial and strategic goals.
• Chairing the Business development and fundraising committee.
• Further developing trust and foundations pipeline, growing income and identifying new opportunities.
• Further develop our commercial income opportunities including training, consultancy and paid for services.
• Overseeing all tender submissions including building the pipeline and writing or commissioning tender writers.
• Working with the CEO and our comms officer to ensure our Comms and Income generation strategy are aligned.
• Recruiting and managing bid writers as required.
• Working with our Finance team to ensure all donations are collected and recorded correctly, holding budget responsibility for fundraising and comms.
• Building our case for support, working closely with staff and service users to understand their lived experience.
• Representing The Advocacy Project with funders, commissioners and external partners.
• Ensure the Board of Trustees are regularly updated on the progress of income generation and our comms engagement, using a transparent and consistent reporting framework.
• Embed a fundraising culture within The Advocacy Project.

About you

We’re looking for someone with significant success and experience of impactful charitable fundraising across diverse income streams especially from trust and foundations. You must be passionate about our work, the role of advocacy and involving service users in design.

Essential

• Effective line management skills and ability to deliver alongside and through a small team.
• Experience of developing trust and foundations pipelines, bid writing and evidenced success of winning significant funding.
• Experience of statutory services and tender submissions.
• Experience of developing new income streams.
• Experience of delivering to targets, including a strong understanding of risk and how best to manage it.
• Knowledge of fundraising regulations, GDPR, and best practices.

Desirable

• Experience of working as a senior leader within a third sector, public sector, or voluntary organisation, including setting strategy and managing change.
• Experience of designing and delivering commercial income streams including business to business and direct to consumer products.
• Previous experience in an Advocacy/user voice organisation.
• Previous experience of co-production.

Skills

• Strong leadership and management skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively and lead change effectively.
• Be highly organised and self-motivated with a proven ability to work to tight deadlines.
• Positive, creative, entrepreneurial, and solutions focused.
• Proactive, dynamic, able to work effectively independently.
• Ability to problem solve and think creatively.
• Confident networker, with strong communication skills.
• Strong understanding of EDI principles and how to apply them in your work.

Benefits of working for us

We’re committed to providing an empowering, flexible and supportive working environment for all our staff. Our employee benefits include 30 days annual leave (including up to 3 days between Christmas and New Year), participation in a pension scheme with 6% employer contribution, access to a free confidential counselling service, and an interest-free travel/bike loan. All our staff are supported to learn and develop in a variety of ways, including a monthly lecture series where we invite sector experts to talk to our staff on topical issues. We are a Disability Confident and Mindful Employer.