Fundraising Lead (Kickstarting For Good)

Role Summary

As Fundraising Lead, you will bring your knowledge of the fundraising landscape and experience of donor management to help secure funding for both the Kickstarting For Good programme and our cohort, graduates and alumni.

You’ll work as one of our core team members, building on our established relationships with partners and foundations – alongside identifying new opportunities to diversify our grants and philanthropic funding base.

You will engage with major donors to understand intimately their individual theories of change so that we can present them with the best opportunities and funding cases that match their impact goals.

You will also engage with our incubation cohort to help them understand fundraising as a crucial activity in building and expanding their initiatives, whilst offering fundraising guidance to our growing alumni of established organisations.

This will include keeping them updated on application deadlines and new funding opportunities as they emerge.

Alongside this, you will take the lead on our own funding applications with major foundations, ensuring that our applications are exemplary, engaging, and submitted on time with all required supporting documentation.

An important evolution of your role will be to help position Kickstarting For Good to be attractive to new funding sources and opportunities that we may have not explored, including funding from adjacent cause areas and verticals.

• Job Details
• Location: Ideally, Berlin, Germany, or open to potential relocation in the future
• Start: ASAP
• Application deadline: open until filled

Key Responsibilities

• Take a leading role in securing core organisational funding, directly impacting the financial sustainability and growth of Kickstarting For Good
• Own and manage key donor relationships and funding pipelines where funding outcomes have significant implications for organisational planning and programme delivery.
• Seek out and secure funding for both our kickstarted initiatives ($5-8M per year) and the core Kickstarting For Good programme (ca. $600k).
• Manage and allocate re‑granting funds (below €50k), including decision‑making on distribution to supported initiatives and tracking of fund utilisation.
• Share your fundraising knowledge and support our K4G participants and graduates on their fundraising journeys.
• Secure re‑granting funds for both the K4G programme and also for our initiatives that have a re‑granting function.
• Develop and continuously refine a multi‑year fundraising strategy across diverse funding streams (philanthropic, institutional, and emerging funding verticals) in a rapidly evolving landscape.
• Identify and design novel funding approaches in areas with limited precedent, including cross‑sector and adjacent cause funding opportunities.
• Maintain and grow our existing donor relationships.
• Translate complex donor priorities and theories of change into tailored funding strategies and partnership models.
• Identify new funding opportunities from adjacent cause areas and verticals that we may be able to tap into.
• Represent Kickstarting For Good at events and online communities where fundraising opportunities may emerge.
• Lead on grant applications and managing application deadlines.

Qualifications

• Required
• Master degree in a relevant field and at least 5 years of professional experience in a fundraising role or environment.
• Alignment to K4G’s core goal of transforming the food system towards a healthier, more sustainable, plant‑based future.
• Excellent fluency in both written and spoken English.
• Experience of working with major philanthropic donors and foundations, and an understanding of the confidentiality and sensitivities required around that.
• Strong knowledge and experience of the funding landscape for food systems, dietary change, or ‘animal’ initiatives.
• Highly motivated and able to plan your work to achieve a goal independently.
• Comfortable working in a fast‑moving, high‑impact environment and able to embrace new opportunities and goals as they appear.
• Flexible and happy to get ‘hands‑on’ when required.
• A good level of general IT proficiency.

Desirable

• Your own, already established, network within the plant‑based movement’s funding sector.
• Knowledge and experience of the food systems, dietary change, or ‘animal’ movements.
• An understanding of Effective Altruism.
• An interest in start‑ups or entrepreneurship – especially if you have ever started or built your own initiative or historically worked in a start‑up or early‑years organisation.
• Presenting or mentoring experience (or a willingness to take this on).
• Knowledge of adjacent funding landscapes, such as environment, climate, public health, welfare, non‑human brains or others.
• Interest in adjacent cause areas that have the potential to create positive impact in the world.

Benefits of working with us

• Flexible working hours with the option of compensating overtime with time off.
• Full remote work with the option to work in our Berlin Office.
• Option to work temporarily from abroad (in compliance with the 183‑day annual limit)
• 25 days basic holiday (FTE) plus one additional day of holiday per year (additional days of holiday can be “bought” via small salary adjustments).
• A respectful working atmosphere in a highly motivated team.
• A strong focus on personal development and a designated training budget.
• Provision of a work laptop and access to a well‑equipped office in Berlin Tiergarten.
• Mindfulness programme and mental wellbeing – free membership for Open Up und Headspace.
• We are an inclusive workplace for our diverse employees around the world and encourage everyone in our organisation to bring all aspects of themselves to work.
• And last but not least: Join a great team and work with us to create a world where everyone chooses delicious and healthy food that is good for all people, animals and our planet!

About Us (Kickstarting For Good)

The Kickstarting For Good incubator is a 15‑week programme, combining virtual (online) phases with two in‑person weeks in Berlin, Germany.

During the programme, participants learn the skills, theory and mindset needed to create a high‑impact initiative, guided by high‑caliber mentors and programme advisors, culminating in a final pitch day at our incubator space in Berlin.

In 2025, we incubated 18 initiatives who are working to change the food system to a plant‑forward future and awarded more than $200,000 in grants and seed funding.

Collectively, the initiatives that we have helped kickstart have raised $10 million in philanthropic funding since 2022.

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