Associate Director Strategic Partnerships

Job Title: Associate Director Strategic Partnerships
Team: Strategic Partnerships

Contract: Open-ended

Level: Alchemist
Please refer to our Capability Framework
Location: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, UK

Apply by: We're interviewing on a rolling basis until we close the role. We advise you to apply early as we may close the role early if we have a sufficient pool of candidates. 

ABOUT US

At Climate-KIC, we are wholeheartedly committed to building a diverse and representative team and an inclusive workplace that values different life experiences and perspectives, and we encourage personal development, learning and growth.

When recruiting, we look to achieve diversity in the candidate pool. We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups and are happy to consider reasonable adjustments that will foster success in potential employees from diverse backgrounds and life situations. And because our team has differing needs and personal circumstances, we offer a high degree of flexibility to accommodate all working patterns. We’re happy to discuss your situation during the interview and see how best we can support you.

Don’t let Imposter Syndrome stop you from applying!

Climate-KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Community) is Europe’s foremost climate innovation initiative, entrusted by the European Commission to catalyse transformation through innovation. Headquartered in Amsterdam, with circa 160 people distributed all over the EU, Climate-KIC leads and orchestrates innovation with a community of more than 400. Together we conduct activities in 39 countries. We partner with cities, regions, governments and communities with the highest climate action ambition; providing the framework and expert support to holistically manage the complexity of climate change and deliver accelerated climate action.

Climate-KIC operates as a not-for-profit platform working through public-private partnership, wielding both public and private funding. We consist of 3 Legal entities: a Dutch BV Holding company (for profit) with 14 branches in European jurisdictions, providing grant management, innovation orchestration services, and impact investment advisory owned by a Dutch-based foundation with charity status – Climate-KIC International Foundation. Historically, we have been funded by our founder and core funder, the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT), but we are currently transitioning to a multi-funder model.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Climate-KIC is seeking applications from experienced senior fundraising leaders with deep experience and expertise in working with philanthropic foundations, high net-worth individuals and family offices, and with a range of other public and private funding sources, such as multi-lateral funders, institutional funders, foundations, endowments, trusts, and corporates. Your remit will be to lead on the development and implementation of fundraising strategies and to help deliver ambitious growth targets and diversification of our funder mix.

As Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships, you will play a key leadership role in securing core funding and programmatic funding for Climate-KIC-led initiatives to enable large scale systems change through urban transformation, regenerative agriculture and food, landscapes and bioregions, industrial transformation and circular economy, oceans and water, climate education, culture and narratives and leadership development. This includes high profile global initiatives such as the

Systemic Climate Action Collaborative, which brings together leading foundations, philanthropists, corporations, public institutions, and other donors to commit significant funding to climate action and system transformation.

The role will include setting and delivering fundraising strategies, proactively developing relationships with funders and generating new leads, leading major bids and proposal development, negotiating contracts and managing major funding relationships. You will also play a leading role in building fundraising capability across the organisation.

Responsibilities:

• Executing fundraising strategies globally and driving best practices for the fundraising team

• Contribute to the fundraising goals for the Strategic Partnership Team.

• Contributing to strategic fundraising planning and development of fundraising campaigns and tools in close cooperation with the Strategic Partnership Team.

• Manage a portfolio of foundation, corporate, and individual donors and prospects.

• Identify and cultivate prospective new donors, sponsors and investors taking into account market developments, building both top of funnel and converting funding relationships.

• Drive diversification of funding sources and core funding by expanding partnerships with corporate donors, trusts, endowments, and other private sector entities.

• Develop strategic partnerships that align with the organisational goals and funding needs.

• Track donor funding data, create income projections and set goals.

• Manage donor communications, grant reports, meeting briefings, and proposals, including quality control and ensuring timelines.

• Liaise with all other teams to facilitate strong collaboration across the institution

• Represent the institution and attend academy events in a cultivation and stewardship

Key Working Relationships

• Chief Executive Officer

• Chief Financial Officer

• Climate-KIC Hub Lead

• Strategic Partnerships team

• Leadership Team

• Delivery teams

• Deal Desk and Programme Management Office

• Climate-KIC Foundation Board

• Multi-stakeholder engagement across the organisation

• Funders, including EU bodies, national and regional governments, philanthropies and private

funders, corporate partners

ABOUT YOU

To be successful in this role, you will have a track record of securing multi-million funding investment,

grants or partnerships from at least one of the following: multi-lateral funders, institutional funders,

foundations, trusts, corporates or HNWI’s.

Qualifications

• University degree or comparable education in relevant field, such as fundraising, marketing, communication, business management

• At least seven years of relevant experience working in foundation, corporate, and/or individual giving fundraising

• Experience in successfully cultivating and soliciting major gifts, core funding, sponsorships and/or investment from individuals, corporations and/or foundations, and/or managing an individual or corporate membership program

• Excellent understanding of multiple revenue streams for purpose-led charitable organisations and respective administration, including compliance and pledge management

• Excellent interpersonal skills and a professional and diplomatic manner

• Familiarity and facility with a donor contact resource management database as well as effective use of donor data metrics and prospect research

• Management experience and intercultural competence

• Structured way of working, strong attention to detail, and high degree of self-organisation and personal responsibility

• Excellent writing and presentation skills

• English language skills at a very high level, both written and spoken

• Demonstrated excellence in organisational and communication skills, working with multiple teams across an organisation

Experience

We are looking for candidates with demonstrable experience in the following:

• Securing significant funding for climate programmes, systemic change programmes, and/or unrestricted funding

• Developing deep strategic partnerships and relationships with institutional funders, foundations, trusts and endowments, corporates or HNWI’s

• Donor identification, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship

• Coordinating and writing of high value bids, funding applications and proposals

• Strategy and Strategic Fundraising

• Long-term Business Planning

• Communication and pitching

• Securing funds from multi-territories across Europe

Additional experience in the following would be a benefit:

• Value proposition and concept design

• Commercial and operational funding interactions for budgeting, operationalisation of grants and bids and transition to delivery

• Prospect research and development

• Translating technical content into donor friendly proposition

• Working in a holacratic or “team of teams” environment

• Securing funds from multi-territories globally

Skills

• Fluency in English, excellent written and verbal communication skills, and any additional European languages are a benefit.

• Sales and Business Development skills

• Experience or willingness to work with collaborative IT applications (we use Office365 and Microsoft Teams, as well as Miro, Zoom, Mentimeter etc.)

• Strong analytical skills with pronounced attention to detail

• Creatively-minded, good at thinking ‘outside the box’

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, including the ability to quickly build rapport with internal and external stakeholders

• Excellent selling, persuasion and negotiation skills

• Highly motivated and target-driven

• Able to work in an international, distributed, and multicultural team; strong awareness of other cultures and working practices

• Interest and commitment to tackling climate change and its socio-economic, environmental impacts

• Experience with fundraising databases (especially Salesforce) not required but good to have

• CFRE accreditation an asset

Qualities, Personal Style, and Approach

• You devise new ways of achieving results

• You create new opportunities for Climate-KIC to strive

• You mobilise resources and legitimacy from diverse sources to deliver change

• You manage multiple tasks simultaneously, producing strong results in each

• You are able to manage many different stakeholders

• You have strong fundraising and partnership building capabilities

• You persevere despite setbacks, adapting your approach

• You adapt your contribution with refined sense of changing needs.

• You take calculated risks

• You are at ease with complexity

• You will hold multiple identities and ideologies at once

• You are highly empathetic

• You explore the edges of what is known and what exists

Location

Candidates must have the right to work in the location they’re applying for (I.e. not require visa sponsorship) prior to applying for the position. Ideally, the successful candidate will be based close to one of the EIT Climate KIC offices, but we support fully remote or hybrid forms of working and offer a high degree of flexibility.

To ensure that we can respond to every single applicant, we will close the role once we receive a reasonable pool of candidates to assess.