The Donkey Sanctuary is an international animal welfare organisation, offering care and protection to donkeys worldwide. Our vision is a world where every donkey has a good quality of life, and our mission is to improve the lives of donkeys every day. We will achieve this by transforming the lives of donkeys in need worldwide by fostering greater understanding, collaboration and support, and by promoting lasting, mutually life-enhancing relationships. 

These are ambitious times for the Charity as we have recently launched a new strategy that sees us growing our impact across the world exponentially, and we now have an exciting opportunity for a proactive team player with outstanding decision-making skills and a strong customer service ethic to join our dedicated Fundraising Department. As Major Gifts Officer, you will support delivery of agreed activity within the Major Gifts Team, successfully cultivating and stewarding a portfolio of mid-value individuals and trusts and delivering a range of agreed projects. Working closely with the Major Gifts Managers, you will evolve and continuously improve our supporter stewardship and cultivation activity in line with their capacity and propensity to donate, continuously evaluating performance.

About you:

• Demonstrable experience of strong administrative and organisational support within a busy, fast paced environment.
• Strong project management skills, with the ability to plan, organise, and prioritise workloads effectively and to coordinate and manage inputs from multiple stakeholders through to completion.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to draft clear, engaging, and professional communications.
• A confident verbal communicator, able to build positive relationships and engage with a range of internal and external stakeholders.
• Strong data management skills, and experience of working with databases or CRM systems.
• Experience of managing multiple priorities and meeting deadlines, often across competing demands, whilst maintaining a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail.
• Able to support the planning and delivery of activities or events, including administrative and logistical coordination.

About the role:

Your principal duties and responsibilities will include –

• Supporting the delivery of the Major Gifts Strategy, improving Major Gifts performance.
• Supporting the Major Gifts cultivation/stewardship programme to grow the number of supporters financially contributing mid value and major gifts.
• Managing, supporting and attending Major Gifts stewardship and cultivation meetings and events, including supplier liaison, supporter invite lists, follow ups and budgets.
• Securing, managing and stewarding a portfolio of active mid-value donors and charitable trusts, delivering compelling bids and donor reports, forging and maintaining strong and enduring relationships.
• Researching current and potential major and mid-value donors to enable a donor-centric approach.
• Delivering and reporting on agreed development and stewardship projects, fundraising targets and KPIs.
• Maintaining accurate and up-to-date donor information on our CRM system.

What we offer in return:

This is a full-time, permanent contract starting as soon as possible, working 35 hours per week, 08.30-16.30, Monday-Friday.

This role is nominally based at our site based in Sidmouth, Devon – an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. We offer hybrid working, with the current requirement for site attendance estimated to be one day per week. We are keen to make the role work for you, and will consider flexibility if necessary (by agreement with the line manager).

Benefits:  

• Competitive pension.
• 31 days holiday (including Bank holidays), rising to 34 will each full year of service.
• Wellbeing team.
• Recorded Pilates and Yoga classes.
• Long service awards.
• Healthshield plan, including reimbursement of some medical expenses up to the specified limits per membership, offers, discounts and cashback on shopping, travel and entertainment from participating outlets, access to a 24/7 GP and counselling service.
• Free parking.
• Subsidised restaurant and shop.

Closing date for completed applications: Sunday 5 July 2026.

PLEASE NOTE: We reserve the right to close this vacancy before the advertised date and therefore encourage early applications.

The Donkey Sanctuary is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of vulnerable people (children and adults), and expects all staff and volunteers to undertake this commitment. Applicants will be subject to safer recruitment processes, including an application for a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check where required for the post.

The Donkey Sanctuary also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme and, for relevant posts, may request information from applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment.

Please note: The Guaranteed interview scheme is only applicable to candidates who consider themselves to have a disability applying for roles based within the United Kingdom.

NOTE TO APPLICANTS: We look forward to receiving your application, but we do ask you to complete this in your own words, and not to employ an Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing tool or assistant. Applications that are considered not to be an applicant’s own work may not be shortlisted for interview.

Before submitting your application, please ensure you read our candidate journey page, in particular our FAQs section – https://jobs.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/jobs/candidate-journey/