Individual Giving Manager

Job title: Individual Giving Manager

Reporting to: Director of Income Generation

Salary: £42,000 per annum

Hours: Permanent, 37  hours per week, flexible working requests will be considered

Location: Hybrid within commutable distance to our Head Office in Leeds

Interviews to take place in our central Leeds Office on Thursday 27 August 2026.

About Heart Research UK

We are Heart Research UK. 

Every 5 minutes, someone dies from heart diseases in the UK. It’s likely that heart diseases will impact all of our lives one day, if they haven’t already done so. 

We need to tackle this problem head on, and we need to start today. 

Donations from the public fund lifesaving medical research to find new treatments and cures, and support people across the UK to keep their hearts healthy. 

But people are still dying. 

Together, we will prevent, treat and cure heart diseases through research, education and community support. 

Until there are no more deaths from heart diseases. 

Our values

Our values reflect who we are as a charity. We are dedicated to fundraising ethically, and to ensuring that the money our supporters donate is spent in the best way possible.

Trustworthy – We do what we say we will and explain why if we can’t. When people choose to give us their money, we ensure we spend it wisely on projects that are most important to those affected by heart diseases. We are clear about what we expect from our people, and we support them in work and life.

Ambitious – We want to bring an end to all heart diseases and on our journey, we want to help as many people as possible to live healthier and longer lives. We want to raise more so we can do more. We know that as a smaller organisation some people will stay with us for the ride while others will move on – we support the development of our teams so they can achieve their goals. We encourage new ways of doing things and know that we won’t always get it right, but we will learn from everything we do.

Passionate – We believe in what we are doing, no one should die from heart diseases. We are doing everything we can to help save lives. We embrace emotion! We want to support everyone – to have innovative ideas that bring change and promote growth. Our people can be confident that we have their back, and they can enjoy their time with us.

Our people:

We are currently a team of 44 people and growing. Since the pandemic, we have moved to a hybrid working model, with some of our team members working remotely, with occasional trips to our Leeds office, and travel to events around the UK. 

We look after our team and have developed a number of wellbeing initiatives to help support our staff. This includes regular wellbeing sessions which cover various themes such as sleeping well, nutrition and goal setting, as well as a range of other staff benefits.  

This is an exciting time to join the charity as we are now in the second year of our five-year strategy, building on our ambitions to make an even bigger difference to the lives of people developing or dying from heart diseases.  We are clear that to achieve our mission, we need to invest in long-term, sustainable income growth.

We are looking for an ambitious and experienced Individual Giving Manager to lead the development of our Individual Giving programme; someone to join our energetic, collaborative, and dedicated team. Someone who will contribute to our culture and have the drive and passion to help us achieve our ambitious goals. 

Job Description

The Individual Giving Manager will build a programme with enormous growth potential. Working closely with the Director of Fundraising and colleagues across the charity, you will develop the Individual Giving strategy for Heart Research UK, establishing a robust programme of donor acquisition and supporter development, while focusing equally on supporter experience and retention to inspire long-term giving. 

The Individual Giving Manager will be comfortable balancing strategic thinking and planning with hands-on delivery. They will have experience in using audience insight, data and continuous testing to identify the channels and products that deliver the greatest long-term value. They will focus on establishing a test, learn, tweak, test again culture that is driven by evidence, insight and return on investment. 

Given the nature of the role, it will require the postholder to be able to manage their time and workload effectively across a variety of tasks, while actively contributing to our work to generate income and achieve our targets. 

Key Responsibilities

• Work with the Director of Income Generation to develop and deliver an ambitious Individual Giving strategy that supports Heart Research UK’s fundraising and organisational growth objectives
• Develop and deliver acquisition activities already identified for the coming year, and identify opportunities for developing new products and propositions in the medium to long-term, focussing on meeting supporter needs and delivering sustainable income
• Develop an acquisition programme using a mix of digital and offline channels including:
  
  • Paid social, search and other google platforms, email
  • Direct mail – both warm and cold
  • DRTV
  • Lottery
  • Face to face
  • Telemarketing
• Utilise modelling tools to secure investment for test, learn and optimisation activities, and then to forecast and reforecast returns on those activities as they progress. Using this insight, recommend future investment. 
• Work with the CRM Manager to develop supporter journeys that maximise engagement, retention and lifetime value, and deliver the highest standards of supporter experience across channels
• Identify opportunities to deepen supporter relationships through cross-sell, upgrade and reactivation activity
• Lead relationships with third party agencies, following procurement procedures and managing agencies to ensure Heart Research UK gets the most value for our investment and that agencies behave in line with our values and policies
• Work with the Director of Income Generation to create and monitor budgets and forecasts, monitoring financial performance and contributing to annual budget cycles as well as longer-term forecasting
• Work collaboratively with colleagues across fundraising, communications and data to deliver activities, utilising project management tools and the CRM to ensure clear
• Share knowledge and champion best practice in Individual Giving and supporter insight across the organisation, for example identifying opportunities from within the Individual Giving programme to promote legacy giving, and contributing to the ongoing strategic development of the fundraising team
• Ensure all fundraising activity complies with relevant legislation such as GDPR, and adheres to the Fundraising Code of Practice as well as Heart Research UK’s fundraising policies

ATTRIBUTES

Knowledge, experience and skills

ESSENTIAL

• Significant experience of managing and growing Individual Giving programmes 
• Proven success delivering donor acquisition campaigns across multiple channels
• Experience in establishing and reviewing retention programmes that focus on supporter experience and lifetime value
• Experience of managing fundraising agencies and external suppliers
• Experience of using data, insight and analysis to shape strategy and investment decisions
• Excellent understanding of Individual Giving best practice across acquisition and retention, and a clear understanding of metrics including ROI, CPA, CPL, attrition and lifetime value. 
• Knowledge of fundraising legislation and regulatory requirements, including GDPR and the Code of Fundraising Practice

DESIRABLE

• Experience of designing and evaluating test and learn programmes
• Excellent project and campaign management skills
• Ability to both work closely with colleagues and independently

Skills + Attitude

ESSENTIAL

• Outstanding communication and relationship-building skills
• Strong influencing and stakeholder management abilities
• Comfortable managing multiple projects and priorities 
• Passionate about building meaningful, long-lasting relationships with supporters
• Motivated by continuous improvement 
• Collaborative, supportive and committed to achieving ambitious growth