Sight Scotland is Scotland’s leading charity providing specialist care, education and research for people with vision impairment. The charity has been in existence for over 230 years, and offer a variety of services in the community as well as education, transcription into alternative formats and residential care for adults and children. Their vision is of an inclusive Scotland where people of all visual abilities have the opportunity to thrive. To achieve their mission they are looking for a Supporter Fundraiser who will proactively engage with supporters, community groups and volunteers in the community.

The Fundraising Manager – Corporates and Philanthropy is responsible for developing and implementing plans to maximise income from corporate partners and individuals with the propensity to donate significant sums. There is huge scope to develop both income streams at Sight Scotland, as this is the first dedicated position covering these income streams.

The primairy focus initially will be on developing corporate partnership income, as there is huge potential for partnerships ranging from transactional right up to transformational. The role supports the organisation’s purpose to make a significant impact on the lives of people living with visual impairment in Scotland by maximising fundraising income to deliver brilliant services and create a positive impact on our ability to deliver for the long term.

This specialist manager role would suit someone who is already operating at a senior fundraiser level, or someone who can demonstrate experience of developing a corporate and/or major donor pipeline, creating operational plans and delivering income.

About the Natural Capital Partnerships team

Community Land Scotland is recruiting a Manager to set up and manage our Natural Capital Partnerships project.

Our Natural Capital Partnerships team is part of a new project created to work across Scotland’s community, private and public sectors, supporting the transition to net zero. As investment increases in nature-based solutions to address the climate and biodiversity crises, it is important that the opportunity to engage communities appropriately is embraced, to secure greater community benefits from natural capital developments, support community wealth building objectives and reduce the risk of communities being marginalised.

The Scottish Government’s recently published Natural Capital Market Framework sets out its ambition to attract greater responsible private investment into values-led, high-integrity natural capital projects, by promoting its Principles for Responsible Investment in Natural Capital. These principles highlight the need for shared public, private, and community benefits.

However, challenges like language, power dynamics, and expertise can hinder collaboration between communities, investors and developers. This new team will bridge these gaps, developing partnerships that will support delivery of the SG Natural Capital Market Framework and ensure meaningful community involvement and alignment with the Just Transition Commission’s 2021 report, which advocates for fair land management and wider benefit distribution in the shift to net zero.

The posts and the project are funded with the support of Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Foundation Scotland, Scottish Forestry, South of Scotland Enterprise and others.

Other project supporters include the Scottish Land Commission, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Cairngorm National Park Authority and Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park.

The team will be supported by a Partnership Board comprising a range of organisations but will sit within Community Land Scotland.

About Community Land Scotland

Community Land Scotland (CLS) was established in 2010 to provide a collective national voice for community landowners in Scotland. We have over 130 member organisations across Scotland, ranging from large crofting estates in the Western Isles to inner city community hubs. Collectively, members own and manage over 550,000 acres of land and a wide range of buildings in rural and urban areas.

Community Land Scotland is a small organisation with a big impact. It works to: be a collective voice for community owners; encourage more community ownership of land and buildings; facilitate mutual support and knowledge exchange between community landowners and collaborate with other organisations to ensure community landowners get the support they need.

Community ownership has shaped Scottish land reform and played a key role in the Community Empowerment Act. Over 500 community organisations now own land or buildings across rural and urban Scotland. Further information about Community Land Scotland and community ownership can be found at: communitylandscotland.org.uk

Natural Capital Partnerships

The Scottish Government has emphasised that natural capital investment should be “values-led” and “high-integrity,” as outlined in its Principles for Responsible Investment in Natural Capital. These principles highlight the need for shared public, private, and community benefits.

However, there are a range of challenges that can hinder collaboration between communities, landowners, investors, and developers. This new team will bridge these gaps, supporting partnerships to develop that will ensure meaningful community involvement and alignment with the Just Transition Commission’s 2021 report, which advocates for fair land management and wider benefit distribution in the shift to net zero.

The new team will:

• Develop relationships and productive collaboration between local communities, landowners, developers and nature finance investors to deliver socially just natural capital investments across Scotland. It is expected this will lead to individual agreements between landowners, developers and communities to share the benefits of Scotland’s natural capital more equitably.
• Strengthen relationships among funders, stakeholders, community intermediaries, government bodies, landowners, and the nature finance sector to support project development.
• Develop, test and share learning from case studies that seek to increase community benefits and community wealth building outcomes from natural capital developments and nature finance, guided by Scottish Government’s Natural Capital Market Framework and the Scottish Land Commission’s good practice protocol and Guidance on Delivering Community Benefits from Land.
• Cover all forms of natural capital projects, be they land or marine based, be they focused on climate change mitigation, climate change adaption or biodiversity, they will be within the scope of the project. We are looking to appoint team members with an understanding of land and marine natural capital developments, nature finance and community engagement and empowerment

About the role

The role of the Manager will be to lead a small, distributed team across Scotland to support the delivery of the strategy and objectives of the Natural Capital Partnerships Project. The role will require travel around Scotland and some evening and weekend work.

• Lead and support the Natural Capital Partnership team to achieve the agreed strategic and operational objectives
• Line manage and provide guidance and support to team members to deliver their specific objectives
• Lead the delivery of a programme of awareness-raising opportunities and good practice in delivering community benefits from natural capital projects
• Support and guide team members in their collaborative activities and agreements between communities, landowners and those involved in nature finance to deliver meaningful community benefits and support community wealth building through natural capital developments
• Support and guide team members to promote the use of shared governance and asset ownership arrangements where appropriate, to increase community agency in decision making over land use change arising from natural capital developments
• Act as part of the senior management team in Community Land Scotland
• Work with the Community Land Scotland Policy Manager to help inform the development of national policy on community benefits from nature finance and other natural capital policy developmen
• Develop effective relationships with stakeholders to support the delivery of the team’s objectives and increase the impact of the project
• Represent Community Land Scotland and the project at national level meetings and public facing events
• Look for communication opportunities to increase the impact of and reach of the project and representing the project and Community Land Scotland in the media
• Any other tasks as required by Community Land Scotland

RSPB Scotland is a leading nature conservation charity dedicated to protecting Scotland's wildlife and natural habitats.

We are looking for a Fundraising Officer to join our Fundraising Team in Scotland to help generate and maximise income from external funding sources (mainly charitable trusts and grants). This role is based in Scotland but flexible - The ideal candidate will be home-based unless there is a need for a reasonable adjustment.

Role involves:

• Researching and identifying potential funding opportunities and matching these with agreed priority work
• Writing compelling fundraising applications, as well as detailed and accurate evaluation reports and grant claims
• Collating relevant financial information for both funding applications and grant claims
• Communicating with project partners and other charities to share knowledge and experiences
• Accurately recording income and donor communications on a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system

The ideal candidate would have excellent writing skills as well as an attention to detail and the ability to manage multiple tasks. Fundraising is a dynamic area of work and an ability to re-prioritise workloads to meet tight deadlines is essential. The successful candidate must also be confident in building and developing strong relationships, both externally with funders and internally with RSPB staff from other departments and nature reserves, whom you will work with to draft applications and updates to funders.

This role is primarily responsible for fundraising to enable work undertaken by RSPB Scotland, and as such the successful candidate will ideally be based in Scotland. This role will be home-based; but will involve some infrequent travel to offices and reserves across Scotland.

Essential skills, knowledge and experience:

• Excellent writing skills in multiple formats and writing styles – experience in writing persuasive and compelling fundraising applications is desirable
• Ability to communicate confidently and professionally over email and phone, and develop good working relationships with both internal teams and external funders and partners
• Meticulous attention to detail
• Excellent organisational and time management skills with the ability to prioritise work and meet tight deadlines
• Flexibility to adapt to changing priorities, often at short notice
• Capability to work both within a team environment and independently
• Strong numeracy skills – experience working with budgets is desirable
• Excellent data management skills are a necessity for this role, as you’ll be recording data on Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM’s)
• Competent user of the full suite of Microsoft Office programmes
• Awareness of, and interest in, the challenges facing the natural world