Director of Development & Fundraising

Overview

Goldsmiths is one of the world’s most creative and progressive institutions. Located on a vibrant and eclectic campus, it is known for its academic strengths in creative arts, humanities and social sciences; for its outstanding alumni from every generation of students; and for its strong voice on current politics and higher education policy.

Goldsmiths is home to a lively community of almost 10,000 undergraduate, postgraduate, full-time and part-time students, drawn from across the globe to form a diverse and multi-cultural population, learning together on a single site campus in South East London.

We are seeking an experienced advancement professional to lead the development office as the Director of Development and Fundraising.  Reporting to the Vice-Chancellor, this role leads Goldsmiths’ philanthropic fundraising programmes by identifying and championing the university’s priority projects, securing major gifts and donations from individuals, trusts, companies, potential legators and public funding partners, and stewarding and mentoring these relationships.

The post holder will be a development professional with significant experience in a major gift fundraising environment and have a proven track record of success. They will have experience in delivering results, confidence in facilitating high level giving, and developing relationships between the university and potential major donors. In addition, the role holder will drive our global alumni fundraising programme, and draw our most successful alumni into the major gift programme and the overall campaign. They will be able to demonstrate an understanding of, and empathy for the needs of embedding new ways of working at the university to address the planned growth of development and alumni relations activity

Strong candidates will have the ability to work at a senior level and will have regular contact with the Vice Chancellor and Goldsmiths’ key stakeholders. In addition to being able to communicate and negotiate effectively face-to-face with major donors, the post holder must also be able to speak and inspire an audience, and demonstrate excellent written skills in developing proposals, preparing applications to individuals, charitable trusts and companies. Experience of successfully securing gifts for a broad range of activities –including capital projects, endowment, research projects  – would be ideal.

This is an exciting time to join us; we have just launched our new institutional strategy, which will take the best of Goldsmiths and combine it with new ways of thinking and working to give us renewed purpose, improve of quality and standards, and help us move forward sustainably.

Candidate Pack

Applications, which should be in the form of a CV and cover letter, should be sent to goldsmiths@minervasearch.com no later than 2 March 2026.

The interview date is to be confirmed.

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