Job Description

Save the Children International has an exciting opportunity for a Global Legacy Fundraising Lead to join our global team.

Team and Role Purpose

The ‘Global Legacy Lead’ is part of Save the Children International’s (SCI) Global Fundraising Team. The purpose of this team is to catalyse growth of fundraising globally, with particular focus on individual giving and unrestricted income, and working to develop a strong and healthy global market portfolio. This team of global fundraising experts works closely with Save the Children member offices around the world, providing them with strategic and implementation support in priority areas and fostering a vibrant fundraising community. The team also ensures global leadership and coordination for our humanitarian fundraising strategies/campaigns, collects and reports global fundraising/marketing KPIs, coordinates international benchmarking initiatives and provides strategic fundraising analysis and actionable insights to members.

Role purpose

Save the Children is pursuing an ambitious global growth agenda, with long-term, sustainable, unrestricted income as a critical enabler of impact for children. Legacy fundraising represents a significant, yet underleveraged opportunity across our global movement.

The Global Legacy Lead will serve as Save the Children’s senior global expert on Gifts in Wills, leading the creation, evolution and global roll out of the organisation’s Legacy Strategy. This includes setting the strategic direction, elevating legacy fundraising as a core driver of long-term unrestricted income, and ensuring Members have the capability, tools and insight needed to maximise growth.

The role provides high-level strategic guidance, deep technical expertise, and cross-market leadership to strengthen pipelines, shape market strategies, build capacity and embed a culture that recognises legacy income as essential to financial sustainability and future impact for children.

• Job Title: Global Legacy Fundraising Lead
• Reports To: Global Head of Individual Giving and Market Development
• Work Pattern: Hybrid/Remote with flexible working options available
• Location: Any approved Save the Children International office location
• Required Time Zone: GMT +/- 6 Hours
• Contract Length: Permanent
• Right to Work: The successful candidate must have the right to work in the country where the role is based, for the duration of employment.
• Language Requirements: English – Fluent, other languages a bonus
• International Travel: up to 10%
• Budget Responsibility: Approx $20 - $50K depending on projects needed, though influence over global legacy budgets of $millions
• Remit: Global

Principal Accountabilities

• Strategic Global Leadership
• Lead the design, implementation and ongoing evolution of Save the Children’s Global Legacy Strategy, ensuring alignment with long‑term organisational growth plans.
• Establish an Executive‑level Legacy Acceleration group to drive legacy engagement, prioritisation and investment from the top of the organisation and champion legacy fundraising across the organisation, communicating its strategic value and supporting a culture shift toward long‑term income generation.
• Provide global guidance on pipeline forecasting, ROI analysis, investment planning and long‑term growth modelling.

• Market Support, Capability Building, Tools & Knowledge Management
• Identify high‑potential markets and provide targeted strategic support to build strong national legacy strategies and deliver deep 1‑to‑1 support to key practitioners, strengthening skills, capacity and confidence.
• Lead the global community of legacy practitioners, driving ambition and sharing best‑practice marketing, stewardship and supporter‑journey insights.
• Develop or refine data‑mining and prospect‑identification tools (e.g., propensity modelling) to help Members identify high‑potential audiences.
• Maintain a global repository of best practices, ensuring easy access to optimised assets, testing frameworks, creative content and strategic insights.
• Track global and market‑level legacy performance to inform strategy and monitor progress.

• Contribute and Integrate Across Fundraising Programmes
• Collaborate with Philanthropy and Donor Development Leads to ensure an aligned pipeline‑building strategy and reduce functional silos as well as supporting or leading relevant cross‑team projects, including areas such as Mid‑Value that strongly intersect with legacy.

• External Sector Engagement & Market Intelligence
• Represent Save the Children in global fundraising networks to stay at the forefront of innovation and emerging trends in Legacy fundraising, to participate in benchmarking peer performance and encouraging sector collaboration.

Experience and Skills

Essential

1. Significant experience in strategic legacy leadership roles in large fundraising organisations.
2. Experience of leading the development and implementation of large-scale legacy strategies and strategic initiatives that require deep stakeholder engagement in complex international organisations.
3. Proven experience of delivering legacy fundraising with a demonstrable record of success in securing pledgers and developing a legacy pipeline. Experience in doing this in multiple markets is an advantage or at the global level in an international team.
4. Ability to analyse complex data sets across multiple channels and markets to identify actionable insights. Adept at understanding market trends, consumer behaviour and competitor analysis to inform strategic decisions.
5. Ability to build and maintain excellent relationships and work effectively in a multicultural and multi-ethnic environment respecting diversity.
6. Strong personal organisational and self-management skills with the ability to lead and work in teams and to motivate others.
7. Excellent written and oral communication skills in English. Additional language skills in one or more of our members' working languages would be an asset.

Desirable

• Experience of running successful Mid-value Fundraising Programmes

Education and Qualifications

Essential

• A degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Nonprofit Management, or relatedand/or equivalent relevant experience to a senior level.
• Technical Proficiency: Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and fundraising software. Knowledge of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and data analysis tools.
• Language Proficiency: Excellent written and spoken English. Proficiency in additional languages is beneficial.

Working at Save the Children International

Save the Children is the world's leading organisation for children, employing ~25,000 staff. We save children's lives. We fight for their rights. We help them fulfil their potential. Through our work in 116 countries, we put the most deprived and marginalised children first.

We know that great people make a great organisation, and that our employees play a crucial role in helping us achieve our ambitions for children. We value our people and offer a meaningful and rewarding career, along with a collaborative and inclusive environment where ambition, creativity, and integrity are highly valued.

The work here is challenging but is also immensely rewarding. At Save the Children, you will be in good company, working with talented, like-minded individuals who are determined to ensure that all children survive, learn, and are protected. Your contribution will help ensure children's voices are heard at the highest levels, and that we achieve our global strategy, Ambition for Children 2030, and reach every last child.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Equal Opportunities

DEI is core to our vision, values and global strategy. Save the Children is committed to creating a truly diverse, equitable and inclusive organisation, and one which will support us in our vision to ensure every child attains the right to survival, protection, development, and participation.

We are committed to equal employment opportunities, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality, disability, marital or civil partnership status, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, caring or parental responsibilities, age, or beliefs and religion. We are committed to diversifying our staff to better represent the communities we serve and actively welcome underrepresented groups to apply.

Reasonable adjustments will be made should any candidate invited to interview require this.

Application Information

Please attach a copy of your CV and cover letter with your application. A full copy of the role profile can be found at SCI Careers It is recommended that you save a copy of the role profile as it will no longer be available after the advert closes.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and the job advert may be closed earlier than advertised subject to the volume of suitable applicants. Please submit your application at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.

Due to the high volume of applications we receive, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Candidates who are successfully shortlisted should expect to hear from us within 2 weeks of the advert deadline.

Our Recruitment Process

1. Application review by our recruiting team based on your CV and cover letter
2. Two-stage competency-based interviews with the hiring team
3. Some recruitment may include an additional assessment or case study stage, or a third stage interview
4. If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment, followed by your contract subject to passing background checks

We need to keep children and adults safe so our selection process includes rigorous background checks and reflects our commitment to the protection of children and adults from abuse. All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our Code of Conduct and all policies and procedures relating to Anti-Harassment, Health and Safety, Safeguarding, and DEI and Equal Opportunities.

Save the Children does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.