FREELANCE FUNDRAISER (P/T) REQUIRED

About Peace Direct

Peace Direct is an early stage peace charity, which launched to the public in March 2004 and won Best New Charity in 2005. Our core beliefs are:

· That wherever there is conflict, there are local people working towards peace, who need us to fund them and raise their profile.

· That there is a gap in the market for a significantly large, positively oriented peace charity raising funds from the public.

The brief

We want to develop a relationship with a freelance fundraiser covering the following areas:

· Initial review of Peace Direct’s presentation to funders, through the website, newsletters and proposals;

· Identification of prospects, which may include trusts and foundations, companies and high net worth individuals, public appeals

· Approaching prospects, writing and following up proposals

We envisage an initial stage of 10 days work to cover the first item and the development of a list of prospects for attention over the next three months. If both sides wish to continue the relationship, we would then contract for 2 days/week work for six months. Work beyond that would be dependent on the achievement of targets agreed at the end of the initial 10 day period.

This initiative will be funded by a 2-3 year loan. Therefore we will need to be confident that, as well as raising funding for Peace Direct’s projects in the UK and overseas, the fundraiser would be able to raise at least sufficient unrestricted income/project contribution to more than cover the fees charged..

The candidate

We are looking for someone:

· with an established track record in raising funds for work overseas

· who has worked successfully across a range of different sources of funding, specifically trusts and foundations but possibly also some of the following - public appeals/high net worth, corporates, statutory

· who can bring existing client relationships to bear as well as finding new prospects

· who is likely to be available for at least three years, if all goes well

To apply
Please email CV to carolyn@peacedirect.org with a covering letter explaining how you fit our specification. Deadline for applications 12 noon 11th October, interviews 16th October.

More about Peace Direct

What we do

We seek out the most effective local peacebuilders and fund their work, through individual giving, and raising funds from trusts and foundations, high net worth individuals and government. Our main funding programmes are:

· Champions – single projects each funded by up to 70 individuals with £10/month direct debit, who receive regular news from their projects. This is a completely transparent programme where at the moment the entire sum goes directly to the project.

· Collaborative projects – these bring organisations together to work in partnership. At present we have the Collaborative for Peace in Sudan, which unites peacebuilding organisations from South, North and Central Sudan, and Truce 2012, in which we are working with Leap and Newham Conflict and Change to develop peacebuilding skills among young people in Newham in the run up to the 2012 Olympics.

· Rapid Response Funds – a particular version of collaborative projects, where we put funds into the hands of local organisations so they can respond very quickly to deal with outbreaks of violent conflict.

· One off grants – although we prefer long term funding, sometimes we take opportunities to raise one off grants to support individual projects of organisations where we have a long term relationship.

We also promote local peacebuilding through old media (eg interviews on Newsnight and the Today programme), new media (eg YouTube, Facebook, MySpace), through direct contact with government and other key players, and through our monthly Practical Peace email which goes to over 2,000 people worldwide.

What makes us different?

We recently asked a cross section of supporters, staff and Trustees what they thought were the distinctive features of Peace Direct. Consistently the replies focused on:

· We trust local people to know what they are doing. We don’t impose our models or programmes, or deliver training or capacity building. Rather we believe that we can learn from them.

· We have a positive message about peace – realistically optimistic, courageously impassioned

· We mobilise both head and heart – intelligence and compassion

· We link the personal and the political

· We mirror in Peace Direct the qualities of local peacebuilders – resourceful, practical, imaginative and committed.

Our fundraising approach up to now

Our income has grown by about £100K per year up to a turnover of £402K in 2006. In 2007 it is likely to be slightly higher than 2006. We raise about one third from individual giving, one third from high net worth individuals, including through companies or trusts that they control, and one third from trusts and foundations, with a small amount from Government. We are currently through to the second round on two large DfID bids.

Fundraising to individuals is the responsibility of Susanna Bennett, working closely with Chris Jameson, our part time Head of Communications. Carolyn Hayman, Chief Executive, does the majority of the rest, with support from individual members of staff, interns and Trustees. We have had some success with trusts and foundations with a traditional interest in peace, and in some with an interest in overseas development though mainly where there is a personal connection with a Trustee.