The Head of Community & Events will lead the next stage of transformational growth in community and events across our Charities. The role will lead and develop a high performing team to develop our portfolio, ensuring it is sector leading, takes advantages of market opportunities and grows significantly year on year. As a key member of the Fundraising Heads group, the Head of Community & Events will be accountable for leading the team to develop, deliver and grow a multi-million-pound portfolio, including new product development to engage new and existing audiences, events fundraising, grateful patient programme delivery, volunteer engagement and more across our three charity brands.
Building relationships is key to everything we do – understanding supporter motivations allow us to develop and grow our engagement to create lifetime supporters engaged in all areas of our work.
2025/26 has been an exciting year of growth with a focus on growing flagship events, increasing participation in third-party challenges, delivering new virtual events and enhancing stewardship experiences. Across the programme the teams have delivered circa £2million in income delivery impact across our hospitals.
The head of community and events will lead the delivery of our portfolio of challenge events, mass participation products and community fundraising activities. The post holder will play a key role in the development and execution of our new 10 year fundraising strategy - working with colleagues to grow income, drive innovation and deliver integrated and personalised stewardship experiences.
You will have extensive experience of developing community and events fundraising programmes and business plans to recruit, engage, inspire, and retain supporters. With a proven track record of success in leading and managing a team of fundraisers to deliver high quality results to deadlines, you will be committed to motivating and developing your team.
Key responsibilities:
- Lead the Community and Events team to develop and deliver an ambitious and integrated fundraising programme in collaboration with the Director of Fundraising and key stakeholders.
- Devise and manage the annual operational plan, income targets and expenditure budget for community and events fundraising activity in line with annual planning schedules, setting ambitious objectives for the team with measurable metrics and KPIs and the necessary processes and systems to deliver the community and events fundraising programme.
- Play a leading role in the Heads of Fundraising Group, and work collaboratively with colleagues at all levels across Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation and the Trust.
- Play a key role in the public phase of a major appeal – optimising fundraising opportunities across Community and Events to maintain support and acquire new first time supporters
- Ensure a coordinated approach across all teams utilising teams’ resources effectively, to maximise income for our three charities.
- Develop and lead a high performing team culture which is informed by actionable insight, management information and KPIs.
- Embed a culture of innovation to drive continuous improvement and development of strategic community and events product portfolio, aligned to the priorities agreed by the hospitals and Foundation, testing new products and ideas with a fail-fast approach.
- Lead on the creation of insight-led, profitable, and engaging supporter journeys in order to improve fundraising activation rates, deepen engagement and increase lifetime value.
- Deliver effective evaluation of fundraising activity to ensure that opportunities are maximised and that our teams are continually leading and developing.
- Lead on developing new routes to acquisition of new supporters in the communities served by the hospitals, based on increasing the charity’s visibility in the hospitals and throughout the wider community (including grateful patients, community groups, volunteers and local businesses).
- Work with senior stakeholders to identify and overcome any challenges to fundraising across the hospital sites, building on our commitment to create culture of fundraising.
- Influence senior stakeholders across the Charities function, Foundation and the Hospital to drive delivery of plans and realise fundraising potential
Role responsibilities are not exhaustive, and you would be reasonably expected to take on wider tasks that are commensurate with the level of your role.
Skills, abilities, and attributes:
- Highly data literate with strong analytical skills.
- Ability to prioritise and manage a demanding workload and work on several priorities at once; ability and willingness to adapt to changing workloads and priorities.
- Excellent written, verbal and presentation skills with the ability to communicate detailed information and inspire confidence to a wide audience.
- Excellent IT skills including using Excel, Word, and Outlook.
- Excellent interpersonal, sales and negotiation skills.
Knowledge, experience, and qualifications:
- Proven track record in leadership of a successful fundraising programme, with an understanding of the methods involved in leading a high performing team, leading through change, and the ability to galvanise a team to achieve growth targets.
- Experience of successfully implementing strategy and budgets to ensure events and projects meet departmental, team and personal objectives and KPIs.
- Experience of developing fundraising products using data and insight, and innovation techniques to drive a supporter led programme.
- Experience in securing and developing charity partnerships.
- Experience in relationships fundraising, including management of high value and/or sensitive relationships, for example (but not limited to) in-memory supporters.
- A track record of successful project management including planning and delivering projects within budgets and on time.
- A track record in significantly increasing income through successful community, events and volunteer fundraising programmes or equivalent transferable experience from another sector.
- A strong understanding of trends and developments in the public fundraising marketplace.
- Strong working knowledge of fundraising regulation and standards, specifically in relation to public fundraising.
- Experience of administering and maintaining dedicated supporter CMS databases.
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Contributory Pension
- Annual personal development budget
- Annual health and wellbeing personal allowance
- Enhanced maternity, paternity, and parental leave pay accessible without length of service requirements.
- Health and wellbeing programme that offers optional free yearly health check-ups.
- Support for healthy eating via fruit bowls and onsite lunch facilities.
- Agile working, flexible hours, and supportive IT kit.
- Shower facilities and bike lock area.
- Generous annual leave (27 days + bank holidays)
- Subsidies for glasses
- Employee Assistance Programme
Please follow the link below to The Talent Set who are managing our applications and recruitment for this role - https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetalentset.co.uk%2Fvacancy%2Fhead-of-community-events&data=05%7C02%7Calexandra.lessing%40gsttfoundation.org.uk%7C1677ae62f7ce4e035d2808dedc1c4c11%7C7139dbb6d8bd4132a29ce0a24b37966d%7C0%7C0%7C639190211263335173%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ucJkOpeGx7%2BWml0Rc1PFUSj8et0oVAFkquQhGA8XKmo%3D&reserved=0
At Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation, our mission is clear – to build the foundations of a healthier society.
As part of our team, including Impact on Urban Health and three NHS charity brands, you will work alongside talented people from a mix of personal and professional backgrounds. We are a Living Wage employer and support flexible working, part-time roles and job shares. Though our ambitions are serious, this is a friendly place to work with lots of opportunities to meet and socialise with colleagues. We believe there is immense power in diversity and aim to recruit and nurture talent who think and act differently.
There is more information about working with us on our website, where you can read about:
- how we approach recruitment
- our team, culture and values
- the benefits of working with us and
- our approach to diversity, equity & inclusion; health & wellbeing; and learning & development.
