Trusts & foundations manager

Closing date: 7 May 2025 at 10am

Salary: £35,000 - £36,750

First Conversations are likely to take place w/c 12 May 2025.

Department/Team: Development

Responsible to: Associate Director, Trusts and Foundations

Contract: Permanent

Location: Mix of home working and from The Old Vic, 103 The Cut, London, SE1 8NB (min 3 office days)

Hours: Full-Time - 40 hours per week, Monday-Friday

The Old Vic offers the ability to work these flexibly under the guidelines in our Hybrid Working policy. Additional hours may be necessary in order to fulfil the requirements of the post

In this vital fundraising role, you’ll craft compelling cases for support, steward meaningful donor relationships, and play a key part in securing the funding that keeps our independent, iconic theatre thriving.

The Trusts and Foundations Manager is responsible for securing income from trusts, foundations and grant-making organisations across both revenue and capital targets, managing a portfolio as well as developing new relationships, and supporting the Associate Director, Trusts and Foundations by taking a lead role in the stewardship and cultivation of trusts and foundations in line with The Old Vic's fundraising strategy.

The Trusts and Foundations Manager works alongside the Associate Director, Trusts and Foundations and Senior Proposal Writer, within the Development team, which fundraises for The Old Vic Theatre Trust 2000 (a registered charity). Its remit is to raise voluntary funds for the theatre from individuals, companies and charitable trusts and foundations.

The team comprises Development Director, Associate Director, Trusts and Foundations, Senior Proposal Writer, Trusts and Foundations Manager, Head of Corporate Development, Corporate Development Manager, Corporate Development Officer, Head of Events, Events Manager, Head of Individual Giving, Senior Philanthropy Manager, Individual Giving Manager, Individual Giving Officer and Senior Development Operations Manager.

The Old Vic Trust receives no government subsidy and is reliant on fundraising and ticket sales for its annual income.

Areas of responsibility

The Trust and Foundations Manager will be responsible for:

Raising Income

• Working with the Associate Director, Trusts and Foundations to develop strategy and deliver annual revenue and capital targets, and to assist with more complex, large-scale applications.
• Building relationships with Trustees and key contacts at charitable trusts through strategic cultivation (creating invitations, liaising with the Events team and other event admin) and information sharing (organising mailings and reporting).
• Researching and developing compelling funding applications to existing donors, and new prospects, giving at the 4 and 5 figure level.

Strategy & Development

• Working with the Associate Director, Trusts and Foundations to identify and develop new income streams and build the funding pipeline.
• Managing an annual schedule of applications, developing cultivation plans and tracking progress.
• Coordinating across departments at The Old Vic to collate information for dynamic funding proposals and reports.
• Maintaining detailed and accurate database (Tessitura) and digital records to ensure actions are recorded and followed up.
• Overseeing the content of the Trusts and Foundations webpage, ensuring it is updated regularly.

Stewardship and Relationship Building

• Managing the stewardship of a portfolio of donors, using a wide range of mechanisms to retain and develop their involvement with the Theatre, including tailored reports, phone calls, regular mailings, ticket bookings and meetings.
• Understanding and communicating projects and programmes, creating dynamic funding reports for trusts, foundations and other grant-making organisations.
• Providing excellent customer care by responding to queries swiftly and effectively, being a friendly and professional point of contact and maintaining good relationships with all contacts.
• Working collaboratively with colleagues across The Old Vic and building effective internal relationships.
• Working with the Development Events team to deliver a range of events for trust and foundation contacts.
• Supporting Development colleagues by working at occasional evening and weekend events.

Administration, budgeting and compliance

• Assisting the Associate Director, Trusts and Foundations to meet an agreed annual revenue target and monitoring and reporting on income and expenditure.
• Co-ordinating the administration needs of the Trusts and Foundations team with support from the Senior Development Operations Manager, including updating the sub-team’s tracking systems and organising mailings, events and meetings.
• Processing donations accurately and acknowledging receipt of all grants promptly.
• Maintaining excellent donor and prospect history records by updating the team’s tracking systems, including Tessitura.
• Ensure activities are compliant with the Fundraising Code of Practice and GDPR.

This is not an exhaustive list of duties and the Theatre's management may, at any time, allocate other tasks which are of a similar nature or level.

Knowledge, skills and experience

Essential

• Substantial and proven track record in managing a portfolio of funders, meeting income targets and an awareness of fundraising best practice
• Ability to write a compelling case for support and communicate this effectively through both face-to-face presentations and written copy
• Knowledge of the T&F landscape and of the wider arts or fundraising sectors
• Experience of using venue software Tessitura or other fundraising software
• Excellent track record of stewardship and building relationships with donors
• Experience working to – and achieving – financial targets and KPIs
• Natural organisational skills, demonstrable from previous experience
• Ability to prioritise, meet deadlines with competing demands.
• Able to liaise confidently and diplomatically both externally and internally at all levels

We welcome and encourage applications from candidates who are under-represented in the creative industries.

Please make sure that you state in your application that you found this role via Creative Access.