‘I thoroughly enjoy spending time with our alumni and supporters and it is clear to see the impact of their involvement on Southampton. The University’s continued success and advancement relies heavily on the philanthropy, expertise and advocacy of this important part of our community, and I see my work in this area as an exciting part of my role leading this excellent organisation.’
We are so proud of what we have achieved in recent years as a relatively small office and we’re enthusiastic about growing and diversifying our team, welcoming new ideas, perspectives and innovation to ensure we truly make a difference. We are about to embark on the largest expansion in philanthropic and engagement activity in the University’s history. This is a testament to the confidence of the University’s leadership team in our work and the incredible support of our entire community.
Our team works collaboratively and takes a cross-office approach in all we do. We are structured in three strands:
Together we create engaging communications and events for our alumni and supporter community, fundraise for strategically important projects across the University and facilitate the giving of time and expertise from our community of brilliant volunteers. This activity is enabled and advanced by the work of our Development Services team, across operations, research, database management and analysis, which underpins everything we do.
Last year we generated just under £7 million of donation income and achieved nearly 5,000 volunteering hours. You can see some of the things we do by flicking through our most recent Giving Report and our Hartley News alumni magazine or by watching this special film, created to recognise the impact of alumni and supporters on our Southampton community.
We now have our sights set on delivering a new University-wide campaign that will raise more money than we’ve ever raised as well as an ambition to capture many thousands of volunteering hours. The next decade is exciting and you have the opportunity to join our team at the beginning of something very special. To achieve these ambitious and motivating goals, we are recruiting to several new, significant roles across the whole team, increasing our resource and expertise in all areas of our work.