Sightsavers
Head of Major Donor Fundraising
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Overview
Sightsavers is looking for an experienced and strategic Head of Major Donor Fundraising to lead the next phase of growth for our high value individuals fundraising programme. This is a senior role within our Fundraising and Marketing directorate, responsible for developing and delivering a long-term major donor strategy, leading a specialist team and personally managing a focused portfolio of high value donors and prospects.
Location: UK based, with regular travel to the Haywards Heath office in West Sussex.
Contract: Permanent / full time (or minimum of four days per week with pro-rated salary)
Salary: £61,065 to £71,841 per annum (FTE, pro-rated for part-time)
The role will focus on supporters giving £10,000 or more per year, alongside the development of nurture and loyalty programmes that help build a strong future pipeline. You will set a clear growth strategy, oversee income and expenditure planning, strengthen portfolio management and ensure exceptional cultivation and stewardship across the programme.
You will build strong relationships across different areas and levels of the organisation to ensure the team has the information, input and internal support needed to succeed. Working closely with colleagues across fundraising, technical leadership, programme delivery, finance, planning and senior leadership, you will identify compelling funding opportunities, build strong cases for support and ensure a smooth donor experience across different teams. You will also represent Sightsavers externally with donors, prospects, philanthropy advisers, wealth advisers and sector networks.
Responsibilities
Key areas of responsibility include:
- Developing and implementing a long-term major donor growth strategy, operational plan, objectives and key results.
- Leading income and expenditure planning, forecasting and performance monitoring for the major donor programme.
- Managing, motivating and developing the major donor team to deliver sector-leading cultivation and stewardship.
- Overseeing portfolio management, allocation processes, pipeline reviews and prospect triage.
- Personally managing a focused portfolio of high value donors and prospects.
- Building strong internal relationships to identify funding opportunities, develop compelling cases for support and ensure joined up donor experiences.
- Representing Sightsavers externally with donors, prospects, advisers and relevant networks.
- Ensuring the programme operates in line with fundraising regulation, governance and best practice.
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This is an involved role and full responsibilities and further details can be found in the job description.
Skills and Experience
About you
We are looking for a confident and collaborative senior fundraiser with significant experience of leading or managing a high value fundraising programme. You will bring a strong track record of securing, cultivating and stewarding significant gifts, including six-figure prospects, the ability to develop practical strategies that convert ambition into sustainable income growth, and strong sector insight.
You will be an excellent relationship-builder, able to work with senior stakeholders, trustees, high net worth individuals and internal teams with diplomacy, credibility and purpose. You will be comfortable critically evaluating established processes to identify improvements, and using data and insight to manage pipelines, forecast income and support decision-making, while also bringing a strong commitment to equality of opportunity for people with disabilities.
Please read the full job description for further requirements.
Accessibility and inclusion
Sightsavers is a Disability Confident employer. We are committed to offering an interview to all candidates who share that they have a disability and meet the essential requirements for the role. We welcome applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds and experiences and are committed to making reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.
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Benefits
Sightsavers offers some fantastic benefits. Our comprehensive benefits package includes generous annual leave allowance, pension, season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme, discounted gym memberships and wellness discounts. If you choose to work in or are visiting our collaborative, modern office space, you will find it an easy 20-minute train journey from Brighton or 45 minutes from London.
Next Steps
To apply for this exciting opportunity, please complete an application via our recruitment portal by uploading an up to date CV and answering the job-specific questions. We are particularly interested in learning of your motivations for applying.
We anticipate that there will be a two-stage interview process with interviews from w/c 12 October and second round interviews anticipated w/c 19 or 26 October 2026. The process will include a role-specific presentation task at first interview stage and one of the interviews will be held in-person at our offices in Haywards Heath, West Sussex. We would like the successful candidate to start by the end of January 2027.
Sightsavers is an employer that does not tolerate any form of harassment and has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse. All potential candidates will be subjected to rigorous background checks and controls.
In line with its commitment to safe programming and recruitment, Sightsavers participates in the inter-agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme (MDS) administered by the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response. Through collaboration with other MDS members, Sightsavers aims to ensure that there are no sexual exploitation, abuse or harassment issues relating to potential new hires and that we can respond systematically to checks from fellow MDS members. This ensures our work is accountable, delivered to a high standard and supports safeguarding across the development and humanitarian fields.
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