About this role
About Saturday Art Class (SArC):
At Saturday Art Class (SArC), we believe that every child deserves the tools to imagine, express, and grow. Saturday Art Class is a non-profit organization that provides visual arts and social-emotional learning (SEL) education to children from low-income communities in India. By creating safe spaces for students to express themselves, we help them build essential skills to thrive during their formative years. Since 2016, our programs have directly impacted 190000+ students to date. SArC’s journey has been powered by educators, artists, learners, and changemakers who believe in the transformative power of art. Join us as we continue to make creativity a right, not a privilege, for every child, everywhere.
About Senior Manager, Fundraising: The Senior Manager – Fundraising will lead the organization’s fundraising and strategic partnership efforts to ensure sustainable growth. This role requires a results-driven professional who can drive high-value partnerships, donor relationships, and grant opportunities to secure funding in alignment with the organization's strategic goals.
Roles and Responsibilities:
1 Fundraising Strategy and Execution
- Develop and execute an annual fundraising strategy with clear targets, timelines, and plans for acquiring, retaining, and deepening donor relationships.
- Build and manage a robust fundraising pipeline across corporates, CSR foundations, institutional funders, HNIs and other relevant funding sources.
- Identify, research and prioritise prospective funders based on their funding priorities, potential alignment with SArC and partnership opportunities.
- Lead the development of compelling proposals, concept notes, presentations and budgets in collaboration with relevant internal teams.
- Maintain fundraising forecasts and regularly assess progress against targets, identifying funding gaps and actions required to address them.
2 Partnership Development:
- Develop partnerships that align with SArC’s organisational priorities and create opportunities for sustained funding and impact.
- Identify opportunities linked to government partnerships, CSR initiatives, institutional grants and co-funding arrangements.
- Represent SArC in relevant meetings, fundraising and networking events to build relationships, strengthen visibility and generate funding opportunities.
- Monitor funding landscape trends, donor priorities and emerging opportunities to inform fundraising strategy.
3 Leadership Support and Donor Engagement
- Equip the leadership team for fundraising meetings through prospect research, donor briefs, meeting agendas, talking points, relevant organisational data and tailored presentations.
- Provide insights on funder priorities, potential areas of alignment and partnership approaches to strengthen leadership conversations.
- Ensure timely follow-ups after meetings, including sharing requested information, documenting commitments, coordinating next steps and tracking opportunities through to closure.
- Build and manage long-term relationships with funders, ensuring consistent communication, thoughtful stewardship and opportunities for renewed or increased support.
- Develop and lead donor engagement plans that strengthen trust, demonstrate the value of funders’ contributions and encourage referrals to potential new supporters.
4 Donor Reporting and Internal Collaboration
- Ensure timely, accurate and compelling narrative and financial reports that demonstrate progress against commitments and communicate SArC’s work and impact.
- Work with Programme, Research and Impact, Finance and Communications teams to gather evidence, develop funding narratives and meet donor requirements.
- Ensure proposals, reports and presentations communicate a consistent and evidence-based account of SArC’s work, outcomes and future priorities.
5 Fundraising Systems and Team Leadership
- Maintain reliable fundraising systems, including a CRM or donor database, to track relationships, proposals, commitments, funding cycles and follow-ups.
- Establish regular reviews of pipeline health, conversion rates, donor retention, revenue forecasts and fundraising performance to support timely decision-making.
- Lead and mentor the fundraising and partnerships team, where applicable, setting clear priorities, accountability and opportunities for development.
- Ensure fundraising activities comply with applicable regulations, including relevant CSR and FCRA requirements.
Qualifications and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree required; master’s preferred in Management, Finance, Development Studies or a related field.
- At least 7 years of progressive experience in fundraising, partnerships or business development, preferably in the development sector, including 2 years in a leadership role.
- Proven track record of securing and sustaining partnerships with HNIs, corporates, CSR teams and institutional funders.
- Working knowledge of Indian and international fundraising regulations. Familiarity with FCRA, CSR-2 compliance, and Schedule VII.
Skills and Mindset:
- Strong understanding of the funding landscape in India (CSR, foundations, international funders).
- Deep interest in the arts, social-emotional learning and mental health is a plus.
- Excellent proposal writing, storytelling and presentation skills.
- Proactive and entrepreneurial, with strong research, prospect identification and lead-generation skills.
- Strong relationship-building and networking skills, with the confidence to lead conversations with corporate and non-profit leaders and help them envision success.
- Strategic thinking and negotiation skills.
- Proficiency in MS Office and CRM tools, with comfort in data, forecasting and pipeline management.
Other Details
Location: Must be based in one of these cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore
Compensation: 10-12 LPA
Reporting Manager: Chief Impact Officer
Hiring Process: The selection process will consist of four rounds:
- HR Interview
- Role-specific Pre-work Assignment
- Manager’s Interview
- Founder’s Interview