Senior Research and Due Diligence Officer, Development
London, England, United Kingdom Full-time Posted 6 days ago
We are the independent scientific academy of the UK, founded in 1660. The Society has a long history of philanthropic support and in 2015 ran a successful 350th anniversary fundraising campaign which raised £100m. We count many well-known philanthropists, foundations and corporates within our list of current supporters who fund a range of activities including Science 2040, Brian Cox Videos, a Science Book Prize, Wolfson Fellowships and an annual bilateral meeting with India. Due to a convening power and reach that is globally unique, our philanthropic potential is enormous. This is an exciting opportunity to join a growing team and the next two to five years will be formative in enabling the Society to galvanise philanthropy in support of our founding mission: to promote excellence in Science for the benefit of humanity.
Sitting as part of Development Operations, the Senior Research and Due Diligence Officer is a newly established role and will be pivotal in ensuring the success of the Development team. The successful candidate will lead on all research activities associated with fundraising at the Royal Society. Key activities include providing detailed, high-quality briefings on top prospects and donors for front line fundraisers and Society leadership; identifying new prospective donors to build an informed and targeted fundraising pipeline; providing insight into philanthropic market trends to inform our longer-term strategy; undertaking due diligence to ensure the Society is not actively engaging with organisations and individuals that may bring with them reputational risk; and providing individual support to fundraisers to ensure there is consistent movement of prospects through the pipeline, maximising the resource the Society has invested in fundraising.
Reports to: Development Operations Manager
Line manages: N/A
Location: Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG
Hours: Full-time, 35 hours a week
Contract: permanent
Pay band: D
Salary range : £38,000- £50,000 per annum
The application closing date is 6 July 2026 at 23:59.
Interview will be held on 23 July 2026.
Key Responsibilities And Tasks
Prospect Research
Knowledge and Skills Required
Pay Band D roles are described in the following dimensions:
Decision-making - You organise and undertake a range of specialist tasks. You take action, makes decisions or recommendations within established policies or guidelines which are standard for your area of work. You seek guidance on complex or unfamiliar matters.
Thinking challenges - You undertake the analysis needed to find the best solution to unusual situations or issues where the answer is not available through existing policies, standards or procedures. You use your initiative to investigate new ways of working or to improve policies or procedures.
Communicating - You shares and present information or ideas to others, tailoring your language, style and media used to meet the needs of varied situations and responds to specialist queries. If your role demands, you make new contacts and participate in external networks on behalf of Royal Society.
Developing people - You are likely to have direct line responsibility for one or more staff members in a narrow field of work. If you are in a specialist role, you advise, guide or train others in a specific discipline or field of work.
Managing Resources - You are likely to have delegated responsibility for allocating resources, for reconciling financial information or for monitoring and recording use of a delegated budget.
Applying knowledge & expertise - You apply your specialist or technical skills in a specific area of expertise that requires theoretical understanding gained through vocational or professional qualification, practical knowledge and skill, or equivalent level of expertise obtained through relevant specialist experience.
The levels for a pay Band D role are described below.
Self-management
Sitting as part of Development Operations, the Senior Research and Due Diligence Officer is a newly established role and will be pivotal in ensuring the success of the Development team. The successful candidate will lead on all research activities associated with fundraising at the Royal Society. Key activities include providing detailed, high-quality briefings on top prospects and donors for front line fundraisers and Society leadership; identifying new prospective donors to build an informed and targeted fundraising pipeline; providing insight into philanthropic market trends to inform our longer-term strategy; undertaking due diligence to ensure the Society is not actively engaging with organisations and individuals that may bring with them reputational risk; and providing individual support to fundraisers to ensure there is consistent movement of prospects through the pipeline, maximising the resource the Society has invested in fundraising.
Reports to: Development Operations Manager
Line manages: N/A
Location: Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG
Hours: Full-time, 35 hours a week
Contract: permanent
Pay band: D
Salary range : £38,000- £50,000 per annum
The application closing date is 6 July 2026 at 23:59.
Interview will be held on 23 July 2026.
Key Responsibilities And Tasks
Prospect Research
- Provide relevant high quality and accurate research profiles on our current and prospective donors for fundraisers and senior leadership.
- Collate research information to inform the cultivation and solicitation of prospects, ensuring our approaches are well informed and that we are maximising our relationships.
- Work with wealth, affinity and propensity indicators to support us in being ambitious and considering our approaches.
- Provide insight and research into philanthropic market trends, informing our longer-term development strategy.
- Keeping an up-to-date knowledge on best prospect research practices and trends.
- Identify new high-value funding prospects from the CRM and other sources.
- Deliver prospect research activities to qualify leads for fundraising teams across corporate, trust and major donor income streams.
- Undertake network mapping to identify outreach opportunities.
- Proactively develop new areas of prospecting to continually replenish the prospect pipeline with high-capacity prospects in order to meet current and future income targets.
- Use the relationship management database (or CRM) to track prospects through the solicitation process, produce dashboards and reports and glean insight from data.
- Undertake regular prospect portfolio reviews with fundraisers to assess the health of the pipeline.
- Look for ways to improve functionality based on the team's needs.
- Act as a data champion for the Development team.
- Undertake early-stage due diligence checks on prospective donors.
- Writing detailed due diligence reports intended for senior management.
- Working with the Development Operations Manager to manage the process involved with the Royal Society's Gift Acceptance Policy.
- Undertake any additional duties in accordance with this role.
Knowledge and Skills Required
- Experience of prospect research in a fundraising organisation including identifying and prioritising prospects, network mapping and developing gift capacity ratings.
- Experience of using and interrogating relational databases, ideally MS Dynamics.
- An understanding of the principles of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and how they impact prospect development.
- Experience conducting due diligence research to assess and escalate reputational risk or ethical concerns regarding source of wealth or company operations.
- Excellent standard of written communication with the ability to produce accurate and concise briefings.
- A proactive attitude and ability to set priorities, problem solve, and work independently and to deadlines.
- Resourceful, tenacious and curious in conducting research tasks.
- High level of IT literacy, including strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office and databases.
- Experience of working as an independent researcher and leading prospect research activity within a fundraising office.
- Experience of researching international prospects in the Royal Society's key markets (including USA, China, Europe and Hong Kong).
- Experience of working in collaboration with colleagues across different teams and senior stakeholders to identify opportunities for prospecting.
- Experience of chairing meetings and presenting data and insight.
- Familiarity with prospect research tools and the ability to identify and recommend the best tools to support our work using the budget as cost effectively as possible
- An interest in science, scientists and the aims and objectives of the Royal Society.
Pay Band D roles are described in the following dimensions:
Decision-making - You organise and undertake a range of specialist tasks. You take action, makes decisions or recommendations within established policies or guidelines which are standard for your area of work. You seek guidance on complex or unfamiliar matters.
Thinking challenges - You undertake the analysis needed to find the best solution to unusual situations or issues where the answer is not available through existing policies, standards or procedures. You use your initiative to investigate new ways of working or to improve policies or procedures.
Communicating - You shares and present information or ideas to others, tailoring your language, style and media used to meet the needs of varied situations and responds to specialist queries. If your role demands, you make new contacts and participate in external networks on behalf of Royal Society.
Developing people - You are likely to have direct line responsibility for one or more staff members in a narrow field of work. If you are in a specialist role, you advise, guide or train others in a specific discipline or field of work.
Managing Resources - You are likely to have delegated responsibility for allocating resources, for reconciling financial information or for monitoring and recording use of a delegated budget.
Applying knowledge & expertise - You apply your specialist or technical skills in a specific area of expertise that requires theoretical understanding gained through vocational or professional qualification, practical knowledge and skill, or equivalent level of expertise obtained through relevant specialist experience.
The levels for a pay Band D role are described below.
Self-management
- Works unsupervised and can motivate self
- Produces results under pressure
- Can manage in stressful situations
- Pushes for the best results
- Pursues and encourages feedback that may reveal an error in judgment and then makes appropriate adjustments
- Recognises own personal biases or limitations, and uses this understanding to improve decisions and plans for action
- Seeks out mentors and other development resources to gain additional self-awareness and personal development
- Reflects on negative situations with maturity and seeks to understand own contribution to the situation
- Holds things together and acts as a settling influence
- Contributes ideas and identifies opportunities to work with others both within the team and across the organisation
- Willing to provide feedback to sectional colleagues when requested
- Produces succinct presentations and papers for senior colleagues
- Understands when to seek senior advice on potentially delicate negotiations
- Reaches a variety of audiences using an appropriate mix of communication methods and tailored messages to appeal to their unique needs
- Speaks from the heart to compel action and creates an emotional appeal for organisational priorities
- Creates an environment of transparency while respecting confidentiality requirements
- Builds consensus for delivering team goals. Frequently interacts with peers, on cross-functional matters.
- Makes the best of internal/external resources and coordinates well with external partners to best meet the needs of the Society
- Builds contingency into projects taking into account possible outside factors
- Sets and monitors performance against quality and results orientated targets.
- Focuses on both short and long-term goals
- Creates novel solutions to problems
- Creates a detailed design or plan to implement a new solution or approach
- Evaluates new technology as potential solutions to existing issues
- Adjusts course as new information comes to light
- Executes quickly and decisively in a time-sensitive situation
- Takes accountability to persist until opportunity is realised or problem solved.
- Determines and clarifies the exact requirements of any situation
- Checks information for accuracy and raises concerns if information is inaccurate
- Extracts the key points succinctly, clearly and accurately
- Puts forward suggestions for improvement concerning current processes or systems
- Tries different ways of doing things to get the best results
- Compares and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of options
- Formulates an opinion by considering opposing views and suggestions
- Runs trials and models or applies statistical analysis and stress testing to confirm or disconfirm proposal
- Overcomes obstacles and is not deterred by setbacks; checks assumptions and first principles and works out alternative approaches
- Reacts proactively to new challenges and works in a flexible manner to produce solutions
- Provides feedback and participates in discussions surrounding new ideas approaches or projects
- Maintains focus and continues to deliver when things are 'up in the air'
- Adjusts to act differently depending on the situation
- Takes steps to understand basic risk management and importance of identifying and maintaining controls
- Helps others to understand and cope with ambiguous situations
- Delegates effectively, setting clear expectations and authority
- Monitors results and feedbacks to team on a regular basis
- Recognises others' contributions and acknowledges their limits
- Helps others to identify ways to improve their performance
- Prioritises supervisory responsibilities and carries them out in a timely fashion
- Understands and can identify client/stakeholder/staff needs and looks for opportunities to improve their experiences
- Demonstrates trust in others' ability to accomplish tasks at acceptable levels of performance
- Provides current, direct, complete and actionable positive and constructive feedback
- Has a mind-set of sharing own and others' expertise
- Creates an environment of transparency while respecting confidentiality requirements
- Focuses on surfacing underlying customer issues/concerns and identifying root causes
- Increases exposure to and personal relationships with customers
- Expresses positive views of the customer
