Regular Giving Officer

The Queen’s College

Founded in 1341 by Robert Eglesfield, Rector of Burgh and Chaplain to Queen Philippa, The Queen’s College has a strong commitment to academic values, whilst preserving an informal and friendly atmosphere. The College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford and, with Dr Claire Craig as its Provost, it comprises around 100 Fellows and lecturers, 160 graduates and 330 undergraduates. There are about 100 support staff working in roles such as administration, housekeeping, catering and maintenance.

The College’s historic site is in the centre of Oxford. Four other sites, all within one mile of the main site, provide additional undergraduate and graduate accommodation. Information about the College is available on the website: www.queens.ox.ac.uk. The College is a lively multi-disciplinary and international community.

The Department

Since 2005 the Old Members’ Office has been at the forefront of Queen's desires and efforts to build its relationship with its 7,000 Old Members located in the UK and around the world. Over the past two years we have increased our focus and professionalism in major gifts and legacy/planned giving and in 2022 we began creating a new, multi-channel regular giving programme.

Queen’s is building on a solid track record of securing substantial and sustained philanthropic support from alumni and friends of the College. In the past five years, for example, we have completed a multi-million pound capital campaign to build the New Library to complement our historic Upper and Lower Libraries; have permanently endowed a significant proportion of our Tutorial Fellowships, scholarships and bursaries; have received a number of six- and seven-figure legacy bequests to support key academic and student support priorities; and we continue to steward and work closely with other donors to provide annual funding for key areas such as access and outreach, student support, and academic fellowships and programmes.

Our potential to achieve even more with our regular giving fundraising is clear, however, and we want to hear from development professionals who are keen to apply their motivation, creativity and initiative to help us reach out to current and potential donors throughout the year.

The Successful Candidate and the Role

The Regular Giving Officer sits in the Old Members’ Office and the role will be well suited for a development professional looking to channel their creativity, love of data and analytical skills into a programme that consistently connects our Old Members around the world with the College and its fundraising priorities.

Over the past two years our regular giving programme has started to include a blend of print mailings, digital appeals and an highly successful Giving Day. Soon we will re-activate our Telethon as another means by which to highlight the importance of regular giving (via the Queen’s Society) and communicate to donors the impact their gifts are having on the College.

The Regular Giving Officer will be the key point of contact for Queen’s Society members and prospects, and to help grow the identity and membership of the Society you will have responsibility (and support) for delivering Queen’s Society-specific events that steward existing members and attract new ones.

• As the successful candidate you will most likely have experience in educational/small charity fundraising or marketing and will able to develop and articulate a clear vision and regular giving strategy that will communicate, ask and steward donors.
• You will be comfortable taking responsibility for all fundraising and stewardship literature relating to Regular Giving, working with external partners on content production and delivery when necessary.
• You will understand the important role data plays in helping drive donor acquisition and retention and will use it to inform a regular giving programme that integrates as seamlessly as possible into our existing and emerging areas of alumni engagement. You will also use data to identify new methods and opportunities for giving to the College.
• You will have experience and confidence to be able to communicate clearly, confidently and effectively in your work promoting the Queen’s Society to Old Members, and to use these skills to increase the visibility and success of the regular giving programme. This will include ad-hoc stewardship events, the annual Development Report to Old Members and overseeing the coordination of College thanking for donations.
• You’ll be able to work closely the JCR and MCR, finding meaningful ways for them to become advocates for College fundraising and alumni relations activity and work with them to become engaged and active ambassadors to our Old Members.
• You will be able to think creatively and work closely with the Old Members’ Officer to best engage with more recent leavers’ to raise the profile of the office and better promote the Queen’s Society, including through organizing ad hoc events and communications.
• Be professionally plugged in so that you are able to keep up to date on the changes and best practices occurring in regular giving fundraising – this will include attending University Regulations and Legislation meetings where required and staying up to date on UK data protection legislation, GDPR and PECR.

Succeeding in the Role

Personal confidence and integrity are key attributes and we are looking for someone who will help us promote them in our team. We also place a high value on camaraderie and celebrating each other’s successes; we recognise the integral part each team member plays in helping all of us move forward as an office.

• You will help us promote responsibility within the team by establishing mutually agreed targets across a number of regular giving-specific areas – e.g. number of new donors acquired or current donors retained, membership levels of the Queen’s Society, donor giving levels across a particular age group or demographic – and track progress against them over the course of the financial year.
• After a year in post, you will be confident enough to start managing a pipeline of Queen’s Society prospects and meet with them in person. You will build cultivation strategies to encourage them to move to increased levels of giving and in support of College initiatives, up to £10,000. This work will be critical as part of your continual personal engagement with Queen’s Society Members and asking for their philanthropic support for a number of key areas, including access & outreach, the tutorial system and potential future capital projects.
• You will be able to confidently use the development database (DARS) to retrieve and manipulate data, to perform analysis for regular giving and segmentation for regular giving activity as well as other development-related areas, including development committees, annual benchmarking and Development Report; this includes using statistics and other tools to evaluate the current programme and make clear recommendations for changes where required.
• You will also oversee the necessary weekly, monthly and quarterly reconciliation and gift aid administration, working closely with the Bursary, and Gift Registry. You will work with the Old Members’ Assistant to prepare appropriate and customised thank you letters for each donation for signature by the designated individual. As a result of your successful management of, and personal engagement with, the membership of the Queen’s Society, the College will be able to recognise clearly your role in growing the number of new, upgraded and retained members each and every year.
• The above duties are not shown in order of priority or frequency, nor is the list exhaustive, but rather an indication of the type and level of duties expected of the post-holder.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

The duties can be found by clicking the apply button above, they are not shown in order of priority or frequency, nor is the list exhaustive, but rather an indication of the type and level of duties expected of the post-holder.

The appointment will be subject to proof of the right to work in the UK, acceptable references, proof of qualifications, and the satisfactory completion of a medical questionnaire.

Any enquiries about the application process should be emailed to HR@queens.ox.ac.uk

The closing date for the receipt of applications is Tuesday, 16th July 2024

Late or incomplete applications will not be accepted. We aim to hold interviews in the week commencing Monday, 29th July 2024