Fundraising Specialist

Position:Fundraising Specialist

Department: Office of Development, Chanakya University

Location: Chanakya University campus, with extensive daily travel to corporates across Bengaluru. Full-time.

About the Role

Chanakya University's Office of Development is hiring a Fundraising Specialist to drive corporate and CSR fundraising through direct, field-based outreach. This is a hunting role: the person will spend most days door-knocking companies, pitching to decisionmakers, and converting cold outreach into closed CSR grants and donations. This is a people role, strong pitching, communication, interpersonal skills and closing ability matter a lot. This is a field-based role, you will be spending most days meeting potential donors.

Key Responsibilities

• Identify and door-knock corporate offices, CSR foundations, and potential donors to generate new fundraising leads
• Convert meetings and cold outreach into confirmed CSR grants, sponsorships, and gifts
• Build and manage a live pipeline of prospects; track meetings held, conversion rate, and funds closed. Essentially, design and build end-to-end process from donor identification to conversion
• Prepare proposals, concept notes, and pitch decks tailoring them to each company's CSR policy and Schedule VII (Companies Act) priorities
• Represent the university at CSR conclaves and industry networking events

Required Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's degree required; MBA or postgraduate degree preferred
• Minimum 5 years of experience in fundraising, CSR outreach, corporate sales or business development
• Proven track record of hitting sales or fundraising targets
• Education/nonprofit/CSR sector experience is a plus, but strong sales instinct matters more than sector background

Skills & Attributes

• Excellent pitching, persuasion and negotiation skills
• Genuinely comfortable with high-volume field work, cold outreach (and frequent rejection)
• Self-driven, resilient, target-oriented, works well with minimal supervision
• Confident engaging senior stakeholders (CXOs, CSR heads, promoters)
• Strong English communication; Kannada a plus

Compensation

Competitive, as per industry norms.