Giving & Partnerships Manager

• Compensation: A$120,000 – $135,000 @ 1.0 FTE + superannuation, salary packaging available 
• Location: Remote within Australia. Melbourne or Sydney preferred. 
• Reports to: Grace Adams, CEO 
• Scope: Own fundraising at EAA and build relationships that grow what we raise 
• Hours: Full-time, ongoing. Open to 0.8 FTE 
• Applications reviewed on a rolling basis

About us

Effective Altruism Australia (EAA) exists to support Australians to tackle the world’s most pressing problems. We do this by facilitating tax-deductible donations to high-impact, rigorously vetted charities in poverty alleviation and climate action, while providing community events, support, and career opportunities.

We decide which charities to recommend based on effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. For EAA, we rely on GiveWell, whose analysts spend thousands of hours a year working out which charities save or improve the most lives per dollar, and on Giving Green for the EAA Environment Fund. EAA donors have given over $40 million since 2015.

We also run programs and events for the effective altruism community in Australia, including people working on causes we don’t fundraise for, like AI safety, biosecurity and animal welfare. Our annual conference, EAGxAustralasia is 27-29 November in Melbourne.

We’re a small team, with most of our staff independently running programs or functions. Our team works flexibly and remotely, with high autonomy and desire to achieve big outcomes.

The role

We’re looking for someone to grow EAA’s fundraising. We don’t expect this to be a traditional fundraising role. Instead, you’ll be refining target segments to try and reach, designing strategies to get in front of them, and showing them the impact cost-effective giving can have. This could look like supporting workplace groups to fundraise internally, running events, working with financial advisors who talk to clients about giving, supporting businesses to give a portion of their profits, or finding the right people in their communities, conferences or events. You’ll double down on strategies that are working, and drop what’s not.

You’ll also be responsible for supporting our current donor base, and own relationships with donors and stakeholders. The CEO will only keep the most important relationships, while handing the majority off to you. 

Fundraising here isn’t like most charity fundraising. Our donors give through us rather than to us, and people choose to give through us because our recommendations rely on research and cost-effectiveness. Donors will ask which charities we recommend and why, and they’ll expect you to know the evidence behind the answer. 

One consequence of this is that our donors are generally less interested in a relationship with us than donors elsewhere. Many donors are content to give for years without contact, provided the reasoning holds up. Working out where personal contact actually adds value will be key.

What you will do

• New donor development: Build a pipeline of donors and partners, all the way from a first conversation to ongoing giving. Ask people directly for major donations. 
• Fundraising strategy: Work with the CEO on the strategy, then decide how and when to adapt based on the results.
• Find what works: Test paths to increasing giving. It might be workplace giving, advisers, professional networks, communities, events, possibly corporate partnerships. 
• Manage donor relationships: Figure out how to deliver value to our donor base, help them stay engaged over time, demonstrate the impact of their giving, while acknowledging many of them won’t want to get coffee.
• Contribute to fundraising campaigns: Work closely with our Communications and Fundraising Specialist on our EOFY and Christmas campaigns, owning the strategy, and how best to engage major donors.
• Represent EAA: Proudly represent EAA with donors, stakeholders and events around the country. Expect to travel domestically.

Role requirements

We’re more interested in aptitude than perfectly aligned experience.

Some of the people we’d be glad to hear from have spent their careers in fundraising. Others will come from consulting or professional services, partnerships or sales roles, or have a strong generalist background. What they have in common is that people trust them quickly and they’re comfortable working on projects end-to-end.

• You’ve built trusted relationships with senior people over long periods, and you can confidently ask directly for a significant commitment
• You’ve owned something from strategy through to execution
• You’re excited to try new things, look honestly at how they went, and drop what isn’t working
• You’re comfortable with data and research. You can read a cost-effectiveness analysis or a randomised control trial, see what it does and doesn’t show, and explain it in an accessible way to donors
• You have good judgement about the ethics of fundraising: donor privacy, honest claims, and what’s at stake if we get either wrong
• You can organise your own work and set your own priorities in a small remote team
• You are willing to learn about, and be an advocate for effective altruism, and the partner charities we direct funds to
• You take our values seriously

Bonus points

• Existing relationships with Australian trusts, foundations or high-net-worth donors
• A network in Australian tech or finance
• Experience with corporate partnerships or workplace giving
• Familiarity with effective altruism, global health and development, climate change or evidence-based philanthropy
• Familiarity with AI tools, and automating workflows

Your first six months

Month 1: Build context

• Understand our charity partners, funds and the research behind them
• Dive into our donor data and understand more about our donor base
• Figure out where EAA sits in the wider picture. Who are we reaching, who else is in the market, and what do we offer that no one else does? 

 

Months 2-3: Start to design tests

• Work with the CEO on the fundraising side of our 2027 strategy: which growth paths are worth trying, what we’ll say no to, and how we’ll know if it’s working
• A few small tests designed and ready to run

 

Month 4-6: Run those tests

• Running the tests. For example: a workplace pilot, an approach to a handful of advisers, an event, whatever the strategy points to. 
• Refining what we do to support our major donors, testing the value we can bring.

 

We don’t expect income to move much in this time. This kind of fundraising usually takes 12 to 18 months to show up in the numbers, and we’ve planned the role on that basis. Early on we’ll be paying more attention to what you’re learning and how well-designed your tests are than to what they’ve raised.

Compensation & benefits

Base Salary: A$120,000 – $135,000 at 1.0 FTE plus superannuation + Not-For-Profit Salary Packaging (up to $18,550 of your salary tax-free).

Flexibility: The role is available at 0.8 or 1.0 FTE.

Other benefits:

• Remote work within Australia, with a Melbourne space available if you’d like somewhere to work from. We prefer candidates in Melbourne or Sydney.
• Flexible hours, work when suits you, with reasonable overlap for donor and team meetings.
• Additional paid leave between Christmas and New Year’s
• The opportunity for your work to have large, measurable impact saving and improving lives, and mitigating climate change

 Requirements:

• Applicants must be based in Australia, with the right to work.

Hiring process

1. Application
2. Screening call, 20 minutes, with the CEO
3. Take home task of 60 mins submitted in advance of an interview, answering questions on it, and diving deeper into your experience for 60 mins.
4. Culture fit interview, 30 minutes, with another staff member
5. Two reference calls, one of them a recent manager
6. Offer

 

We will aim to get back to candidates within 2 weeks at each step, so you know where you stand.

How to apply

Submit the application form, attaching:

1. Your CV
2. A 2-5 minute video on why you’re interested in this role, and why you’d be interested to represent EAA and our partner charities.You could use a service like Loom, or record a video and upload it.

 

We’ll be reviewing applications on a rolling basis from October 5th, so please apply when you can. We’re more focused on finding the right hire, than hiring fast, so we’ll keep applications open as long as we need to.

Effective Altruism Australia welcomes applications from people of all backgrounds. If you’re interested but not sure you meet every criterion, we’d still like to hear from you. Please let us know via info@eaa.org.au if you need any accommodations in the recruitment process.