Job Description

The Business Development Manager sits in the Development Team, which is responsible for delivering income to sustain and grow The Reader’s work and developing relationships that can help make that work happen. The Business Development Manager will be responsible for all commissioned income secured from NHS bodies, the criminal justice sector and from Local Authorities. These commissions may be to deliver Shared Reading in mental health settings or services, to read with those living in prison or probation settings or to deliver our Reading Heroes programme enabling us to read 1-2-1 with care experienced children. The post holder will hold a strategic overview within this area, ensuring a coherent and joined up approach to fundraising from within the public sector.  Partnership working will be instrumental in the role, progressing key relationships, seeking potential new fruitful partnership opportunities, and working collaboratively across teams.

Key Responsibilities

Knowledge and Skills

• To maintain a dynamic understanding of the public sector funding environment, identifying and keeping up to date with sector and market trends and new developments.
• To work collaboratively with the Partnerships team to research and identify new business opportunities – keeping abreast of commissioning growth areas and priorities, potential partnerships, products and services.
• To advise how key contacts could be reached and together with the Partnerships team, to devise, lead and manage a subsequent engagement approach.
• To shape, design and write high quality and compelling bids and well-informed funder reports or updates, using information drawn from across the organisation, including both qualitative and quantitative data.
• To put together draft product or project-specific budgets for sign off where appropriate or required, working together with our Finance team.

Project Management and Leadership

• To proactively engage and manage the senior leadership team and board of trustees in building relationships across the sector.

Communication

• To proactively map out and engage contacts from across the public sector working collaboratively with the Associate Director of Programme Delivery and the Associate Director of Communications and Marketing.
• To approach and meet new leads or prospective commissioners, providing accurate representation of The Reader’s work and offer in a compelling way, whilst reflecting The Reader’s ethos and values .
• To conduct meetings with funders, commissioners or partners, pitch new ideas, respond to queries or requests, and clarify needs or requirements or terms of agreement where changes may occur.
• To maintain and develop strong relationships with partners and commissioners through excellent stewardship. This includes timely updates, maintaining ongoing communication tailored to their preferences and seeking opportunities for relationship building and providing insight into the funded work.
• To maintain excellent working relationships across teams to ensure cases of funding support accurately reflect activity and to ensure all funder reporting requirements are met, regularly liaising with relevant departments to ensure key outcomes and objectives remain front of mind during the delivery of funded areas of activity.
• To work closely with the PR Manager to identify and shape promotional opportunities related to funded areas of activity, briefing them based on market insights and where relevant, liaising with funding partners to ensure all permissions are secured.

Liaison and Networking

• To proactively identify and cultivate prospective commissioners and public sector partners and networks relevant to income priorities and to build strong relationships with stakeholders to sustain long term engagement and collaboration founded on mutual benefit.
• To attend relevant events, conferences and networking activities to build awareness of The Reader’s offer.

Decision Making and Freedom to Act

• To lead the strategic plan for raising funds through commissioned income, taking responsibility for meeting all income targets and for reporting against them regularly for internal and external purposes.

Planning and Organising

• To develop and deliver the long term strategy for fundraising from NHS commissioning bodies, the criminal justice sector and Local Authorities.
• Together with the Director of Development and Communications and the Associate Director of Programme Delivery, to set the annual target for public sector fundraising based on an accurate and informed income pipeline, ensuring these targets have been developed in consultation with and informed by the Director of Literature and the Head of Shared Reading Practice.
• To input into the wider development of the fundraising strategy, feeding in pipeline opportunities and projections and identifying sector trends and their potential impact on the achievement of fundraising targets.
• To develop and maintain a strong pipeline of prospective commissioners and public sector partners.
• To support the delivery of engagement and cultivation events for current and prospective funders and funding partners. This may include being an ambassador for the organisation at both internal, or external networking and engagement events.
• To ensure all activity and information is recorded on the organisation’s income tracking systems and CRM, in an accurate and timely manner.
• To relay progress against projected income within trustee board reports.

Initiative and Problem Solving

• To work with all teams across the organisation to identify, develop or build new products or funding opportunities, playing a role in the development of potentially commissionable projects or areas of activity.
• To work with wider teams to refine processes and mechanisms for effective cross-organisational working where required.

Collaboration and Team working

• To work with the Head of Evaluation to use external or internal insights, to highlight areas for attention or development, offering recommendations and potential ways forward.
• To maintain ongoing contact and liaise with teams to ensure proposed work is deliverable, within capacity and contract information is shared.
• To agree promotional strategy and activities with the Communications and Marketing department and work collaboratively alongside them on an ongoing basis.
• To identify needs of commissioning and public sector partners to ensure these are reflected in future planning and approach.
• To actively work with the rest of the Development team to share information and to develop asks or bids.
• To work with all teams across the organisation to obtain the necessary information for bids or proposals, coordinating the process.

Person specification:

• Experience working in either a business development or marketing/sales role, fundraising or account management.
• Excellent verbal, presentation and written communication skills with the ability to understand, interpret, and present complex information in a persuasive and accurate way for a range of audiences both internally and externally
• Excellent interpersonal skills in order to understand needs of partners and build relationships.
• A proven track record of delivering to income targets with the ability to work under pressure and manage conflicting priorities.
• The ability to identify trends, think and plan strategically, shape projects or products and deliver to agreed timelines.
• An effective influencer and negotiator with a demonstrable ability to sell concepts in a clear and engaging way.
• A self-motivated, proactive and collaborative individual with a proven ability of networking, using initiative and developing new partnerships from scratch.
• A team player with a positive and flexible attitude with a willingness and ability to work collaboratively with colleagues.
• Confident in dealing with budgets and costings in order to be able to present them accurately within proposals and negotiate where required.
• Familiarity with IT programmes including Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Be able to demonstrate an understanding of, and passion for, the mission and work of The Reader and its values.

How to Apply

Job Categories: Equal Opportunities. Job Types: Full-Time. Job Tags: bid, charity, development, Funding, Fundraising, and income. Salaries: 20,000 - 40,000.

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