ABOUT US

Palmera (www.palmera.org) is an Australian-based international agency dedicated to promoting the economic inclusion of vulnerable communities. Our work in Sri Lanka focuses on supporting vulnerable families to participate in economic activities, earn sustainable incomes, and find a sustainable pathway out of poverty.

Operating across various villages in Sri Lanka, we currently support over 20,000 individuals and continue to grow. Our mission is to build strong families and communities by addressing income poverty through a "hand up" approach. This includes connecting rural farmers to markets, empowering women through financial literacy and amplifying their voices, addressing multi-dimensional vulnerability among the hardest-to-reach populations, and providing emergency relief during times of crisis.

We are a dynamic team with a predominantly Sri Lanka-based staff, and we are currently seeking a virtual team member based in Australia to join us. If you want to learn more about Palmera and our impactful work, please visit our website at https://palmera.org.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are looking for a Donor Engagement and Development Director to work closely with the CEO in managing our relationships and driving revenue opportunities to scale our work. As a grassroots agency, storytelling is at the core of what we do, and digital platforms play a crucial role in sharing our story. We are seeking someone who is digitally literate and embraces various digital platforms to communicate our work in an emotive and compelling manner. The ideal candidate should be comfortable with content creation and engaging with both the Sri Lankan Diaspora and non-Diaspora audiences in Australia and globally.

In addition, we require strong written and verbal skills, as preparing proposals and presentations is essential for engaging with trusts and foundations. The successful candidate should be able to leverage their writing skills to support our work and feel confident delivering speeches and engaging with various stakeholders to share our impact.

As a country-focused agency, our fundraising efforts primarily target the Sri Lankan Diaspora and increasingly, the wider Australian community. Therefore, the successful candidate should have experience in developing fundraising strategies to meet our funding targets.

We primarily raise funds through longer-term giving streams and by deepening donor engagement. Therefore, we seek someone with a proven track record in relationship building, leveraging engagement platforms, and the ability to deliver value for our donors in an agile manner.

KEY ELEMENTS OF THE ROLE

Develop and grow monthly giving revenue stream:

Monthly giving is a key funding stream that Palmera pursues to ensure longer term giving by our grassroots supporter base.

• Responsible for the achievement of the monthly giving targets as established in the fundraising strategy including upgrading one off givers from our database to regular fundraising streams
• Develop and implement campaigns and appeals to increase the monthly giving targets
• Managing the Donor Engagement strategy for monthly givers, including digital content and online/face to face events

Supporting and nurturing Do It Yourself (DIY) events:

DIY events support Palmera’s fundraising targets, but most importantly, our awareness and reach.

• Responsible for the achievement of the DIY targets as per the fundraising strategy
• Nurturing and supporting DIY events so they can effectively communicate Palmera’s message and achieve their objectives of fundraising and awareness
• Develop and implement campaigns to drive DIY events
• Managing the Donor Engagement strategy for monthly givers, including digital content and online/face to face events
• Donor Engagement of High Net Giving Streams and growing high value relationships and funding
• Responsible for the creation of updates for our High Net Givers and foundations, including the development of digital content, online/face to face engagement events.
• Working with the CEO to nurture foundations, trusts, and high net worth supporters to secure regular donation
• Supporting the development of grants and proposals and in the development of international networks and platforms for fundraising

Community education and brand:

• Manage social media and other communication for community education such as monthly newsletters
• Working with social media influencers and other opportunities to increase our reach
• Responsible for branding assets and the continued development of marketing assets to effectively share our work
• Supporting in the development of marketing materials that clearly shares our work and impact

Reporting and data:

• Ensure compliance with policies & procedures, and external compliance requirements
• Manage Salesforce with the support of the database administrator to ensure data currency, integrity and insightful reporting and analytics used to inform strategy. Responsible for required improvements and working operation of Salesforce with the support of the Outsource provider.
• Development of reporting for Board and Government to show progress against our fundraising strategy
• Manage the Operational Guides for our business as usual in the Fundraising and Donor Engagement space to ensure processes and ways of working are accurately reflected in our business documentation.

EXPERIENCE AND COMPETENCIES

• Passionate about working in the international development sector
• High digital literacy and creative skills
• Highly developed interpersonal skills including the ability to liaise with a diverse range of stakeholders and organisations, make decisions, problem solve and negotiate.
• Advanced written and oral communication skills, including the ability to write quality cases/pitches for support and excellent presentation skills.
• Strong organisational skills including time management, attention to detail and the ability to manage multiple tasks
• Experience in the application of digital literacy and communications for fundraising appeals and campaigns, including experience working with experts in the above-mentioned disciplines.
• A Bachelor’s Degree in a business, marketing or other related field, with at least 3 years of relevant experience

A position description is attached.