About the Role

We seek an articulate, driven and persuasive person to spearhead Saajha's fundraising efforts. The person will work with the founding team. They will leverage established networks to build relationships and identify creative funding opportunities from grants, crowdfunding campaigns.

Core Responsibilities:

Outreach: Tap into personal and professional networks to uncover new fundraising prospects. Expand connections to pipeline future opportunities continuously.
Engagement: Steward partnerships by coordinating touchpoints and managing key donor relationships. Work cross-functionally to understand showcase impact to be communicatedcommunciated externally.
Building Cross Functional Capacity (from a fundraising lens): Providing a lens to the leadership team on the fundraising capacity and equip them to align operations with funding availability. Enhance reporting processes and infrastructure to attract and retain more donor support.

The candidate should have a passion for the social sector with an ability to understand philanthropic motivations. They need to have a self-starter orientation to turn opportunities into funded partnerships and be a savvy relationship builder who brings creative ideas to the table.

Roles and Responsibilities

We envision a 2-3 year trajectory to develop a strong fundraising capacity in the organisation.

Year 1 - Building Fundamentals

Months 1-3: Immerse in Saajha's work through site visits and stakeholder meetings. Receive mentorship to ease into non-profit sector best practices.
Months 4-6: Shadow current fundraising efforts and begin making personal outreach into networks. Maintain small funding targets for practice while founders continue to lead efforts.
Months 7-12: Gain exposure to organizational planning, budgets and aligning fundraising to broader goals. Start independently managing select donor relationships from cultivation through stewardship.

Year 2 - Driving Strategy

Lead parts of the annual fundraising planning based on capacity gained in Year 1.
Take on larger shares of making appeals, writing proposals, especially from new prospects surfaced through your expanded outreach. Receive support as needed.
End of Year 2 Goal: Be able to independently raise and steward a portion of the operating budget from new funding sources.

Beyond Year 2 : Fundraising Team Leadership & Ownership

Position yourself as the leader of Saajha's overall fundraising vision and effort. Manage and mentor team members supporting specific campaigns or initiatives.
Provide thought leadership internally on how funding aligns to mission and social impact.
Meet annual fundraising goals largely through relationships and sources you independently secure. Leverage founders and board as strategic advisors but drive process.

Requirements

The person should have 10+ years of (corporate and noncorporate) experience in sales/fundraising/managing relationships.

Alignment with the Saajha’s mission –The person should be able to align with the mission and the vision of the organisation. Being convinced about Saajha’s mission and vision would enhance Saajha’s ability to convince an external stakeholder. Also Saajha is an agile organisation and has been testing various models for impact. This would often translate into phases where there is ambiguity operationally and strategically. The person should be able to navigate this phase.
Communication – Two types of communication skills would be essential for thriving in the role – i) interpersonal – ability to explain Saajha’s work, goals and asks, and ii) written – through proposals, e-mails etc. The Person should be able to write a compelling proposal explaining the model and asks. This would include preparing pitch decks, partnership proposals and funder updates during the year.
Numbers/ Quantitative – The fundraising reporting requirements currently include reports on numbers and impact figures. The resource should be comfortable working with numbers for reporting and planning purposes.
Strategic planning – The fundraising cycle is a 15-month-old cycle which includes the first three months of planning. The new resource to be onboarded should be able to proactively plan fundraising efforts, budget, and timelines for reporting etc.
Team collaboration – The fundraising efforts, particularly for donor engagement, require working in close collaboration with operations and other teams. This, to meet the requirements for the role, the person should be able to collaboratively work with the other team members.

Benefits

Flexibile Working hours and Leave Benefits

Medical Insurance

Saajha

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Director, Fundraising