Special Events Manager

This role requires someone who loves organising, developing and delivering unique and memorable events. Do you have a strong track record in building a portfolio of sector-leading events that appeal to, engage with and retain, high value supporters? Do you enjoy meeting and bringing people together? Someone who is realistic, but ambitious.

We are looking for a creative, hardworking and entrepreneurial individual who has experience of planning, developing and implementing a varied portfolio of high-quality donor-focused events and activities to join us in the newly created position of Special Events Manager. In this exciting role, you will lead on the development and delivery of an annual events portfolio ranging from our wonderful yearly flagship fundraising event, Who’s Cooking Dinner? working with the UK’s top chefs and restaurants, to cultivation lunches through to beneficiary events. You will identify potential venues, source and oversee a range of third-party suppliers/freelancers that make these exciting events a possibility. You will also work with other members of the Philanthropy and wider charity teams to steward existing donors, as well as identifying/approaching new supporters to maximise fundraising opportunities.

Reporting to the Head of Philanthropy, the post holder will at times be required to work both at a planning level and hands on delivery, autonomously and collaboratively and as a critical member of the wider Fundraising Team. We are halfway through year two of an evolving plan to grow income to £5m over five years. The plan requires investment at strategic points over the five years triggered as milestones are achieved.

If, once you’ve read the pack, you feel you have the passion for our work and the right mix of skills, energy, and flair to embrace this broad and challenging role and enable our strategy to fly, then we would love you to apply.

• To deliver the charities programme of Special Events
• To be responsible and accountable for delivering income targets for Special Events
• To be responsible and accountable for managing expenditure budgets for Special Events
• To innovate, grow and develop our programme of Special Events
• To hold key relationships with some of the charities’ most important funders, supporters and advocates

• To manage and service the Special Events Committee
• Prioritise Who’s Cooking Dinner as the charity’s most important fundraising activity and continue to innovate and develop the event so that it remains one of the most prestigious dining events in the London Calendar.
• Maximise the Mini Masters golf event. Play a leading role in the management of the celebrity and high-profile participants. Ensure the organisers and venue are appreciated and stewarded appropriately.
• Deliver the Table Top Talk event, ensure it is on schedule, budget and maximizing the investment in a sustainable and planned way. Lead on relationships with celebrity and high-profile guests.
• Create an appropriate Christmas event that is bold, curious and collaborative.
• Ensure to maximise our Special Events as opportunities across the organisation to introduce funders, influencers, celebrities, etc to our cause.
• Support PR and media opportunities to raise the profile of our events on media releases and supporting queries from journalists.
• Manage the budgeting and forecasting of Special Events income and expenditure.
• Appropriately monitor KPI’s and ensure financial targets are met.
• Ensure monthly and quarterly reporting is carried out in a timely way.
• Flag any issues with the Head of Philanthropy as soon as they become apparent.

Essential Experience

• Experience in delivering Special Events
• Experience in working with an event committee
• Experience in managing external agencies, suppliers, and freelancers
• Expertise in using CRM packages such as Salesforce
• Experience of managing key relationships

Highly Desirable Experience

• Experience of being a Special Events Manager
• Experience of delivering high-end, high-profile events
• Experience of raising money for research
• Contacts in the hospitality industry

Knowledge

• End to end fundraising event management
• Risk assessments and health and safety
• Budgeting and forecasting
• Fundraising best practice
• GDPR best practice
• Fundraising and the law

Skills and Abilities

• Strong organisational skills with the ability to multi-task and juggle multiple priorities while keeping a cool demeanor
• Great people skills with a real talent for connecting and influencing people at all levels
• Numerate and disciplined thinker who has the ability to think through complex issues make good judgments
• Highly organized, with a disciplined and exacting attention to detail

Styles and Behaviours

• Highly personable – a genuine ʻpeople personʼ – who can secure the confidence of others quickly
• True team player who can thrive in a highly collegiate environment where matrix working is the norm
• A grown up with a solutions focused mentality
• Results orientated with high standards and a strong can-do attitude and a sense of personal
• Tenacious and resilient, with a positive and enthusiastic mind-set
• A strong empathy and understanding of the work that the Charity does
• Enjoys rolling up their sleeves and dealing with day-to-day issues as and when required

Despite progress in recent decades, someone in the UK is diagnosed with a blood cancer every 16 minutes and survival rates are among some of the worst of any cancer. And the physical and psychological impact can be lifelong.

Over the next 5 years we plan to increase our investment into ground-breaking world class research, advocacy and awareness focused on improving diagnosis, kinder, more effective treatment, and care for leukaemia and other blood cancers. To do this, we are embarking on a period of significant growth, investing strategically to grow our income, profile, influence, and engagement and impact.

Critical to this is an ambitious strategy and leadership, which will drive our world-class research and advocacy to ensure it translates into tangible progress for all those affected by leukaemia. Underpinning this strategy is the development of robust income streams. This role will lead on delivering income from Special Events, and critical to this is the jewel in our fundraising crown, our annual Who’s Cooking Dinner? event at the Dorchester.  This role is an exciting opportunity to make a huge impact with, and on, the lives of people diagnosed with leukaemia and other blood cancers over the coming years, by working as part of a professional, highly motivated Income Team that works hard to achieve our goals and bring our values to life in every aspect of our work.

We want to ensure that there is a diversity of perspectives across our staff team, which are truly representative of the communities and individuals we serve. We particularly encourage applications from under-represented groups with the relevant skills and experience, including those from ethnically diverse backgrounds and people living with disabilities across a broad age- range.

We are a close-knit team, who are all passionate about Leukaemia UK and putting those affected by the disease at the heart of everything we do.   We are all focused on “keeping it real” with pragmatic, practical solutions, as well as ensuring that our charity gets the funding it needs to continue to help those diagnosed with leukaemia and other blood cancers.

From us you can expect all the laughter you can handle, as well as great challenge and support. We may not be about the corporate life here, but we are all about the delivering of exceptional expertise and making a real change to people’s lives.

The closing date is Friday 25th August 2023. We will be interviewing week commencing 28th August 2023.

Find out more about the role by downloading the full role profile.