Overview
Fauna & Flora, the world’s oldest international conservation charity, embarked on a major digital transformation: the rollout of Salesforce as a new organisationwide CRM. With a golive date imminent and 2.5 years of groundwork completed, the charity required a Database Manager who could champion the system internally, optimise its use, and embed strong fundraisingled data practices across the organisation.
Charity People partnered exclusively with Fauna & Flora to deliver this strategically important hire, working closely with Tom Beesley, Director of Supporter Marketing.
The Brief
This pivotal role sits at the heart of Fauna & Flora’s ambitious fundraising and data modernisation plans. The Database Manager would:
Lead the optimisation, configuration and ongoing development of Salesforce, ensuring fundraising teams adopt and benefit from the new system.
- Enhance data processes, quality and compliance while supporting audits and Gift Aid activities.
- Train and support staff, troubleshoot issues and champion best practice.
- Help design and refine supporter journeys across multiple channels, including Marketing Cloud.
- Collaborate across teams to build datadriven insight and decision making.
- Explore future use cases for Salesforce beyond fundraising as the system matures.
The charity sought a proactive systems specialist with Salesforce expertise, fundraising knowledge, and the ability to drive organisational change with confidence, empathy and clarity.
Our Approach
To run a focused and effective campaign, we applied a structured recruitment process tailored to the complexity of the project and the organisation’s culture:
Indepth briefing and role scoping
We conducted detailed discovery conversations with Tom Beesley and key fundraising stakeholders to clarify success measures, technical requirements, organisational context and cultural expectations.
A targeted and compelling advert
The advert captured the transformational nature of the project, Fauna & Flora’s missiondriven culture, and the opportunity for the appointed candidate to shape the charity’s digital backbone.
Proactive search and curated shortlist
We engaged candidates from CRM leadership, Salesforce administration, technical fundraising and digital transformation backgrounds, focusing on those with experience driving adoption and improving organisational systems.
Candidate preparation and process management
We supported shortlisted candidates through the interview stages, ensuring clarity around expectations, the Salesforce implementation status, and the charity’s collaborative and empowering team culture.
The Outcome
Charity People successfully appointed a high-calibre Database Manager who brings:
- Strong Salesforce configuration and optimisation expertise.
- A collaborative and solutionsoriented approach.
- The ability to train, support and influence diverse fundraising teams.
- A mindset of continuous improvement aligned with Fauna & Flora’s longterm ambitions.
The successful candidate is already contributing to embedding Salesforce across fundraising, improving data quality, and helping the organisation realise the value of its largest-ever technology investment.
Why It Worked
Close partnership with Fauna & Flora
Regular communication with Tom Beesley ensured clarity, pace and alignment throughout, supporting confident decision making across a complex and timesensitive project.
Sector and technical insight
Our deep understanding of CRM transformation, Salesforce adoption and fundraising operations enabled us to identify candidates with the right blend of technical, strategic and interpersonal skills.
A values driven approach
Throughout the process, we aligned the campaign with Fauna & Flora’s organisational values—collaborative, committed, supportive, inclusive and impactfocused—attracting candidates wellsuited to the culture.
Candidate Feedback
“I had such a great experience working with Neil throughout the hiring process for my new database manager role in the charity sector. He was extremely professional and supportive, quick to respond to my questions and kept me updated throughout the process, which really eased my nerves! I definitely recommend working with him if you have the chance.”
— Shannon Donnelly, Database & Fundraising Systems, Fauna & Flora
”Working with Neil on a recent round of recruitment was a pleasure. It was a new role for us, leading on a significant transformation project, and he really took the time to understand our needs and the broader context we were operating in. We were really pleased with the range of candidates he sourced for us and thrilled to appoint one of them to the role. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him and will certainly look to work with him in the future.
Ben SmithHead of Data and Insight at Amnesty International UK
”Neil is a proper recruitment consultant. He's excellent. He knows his stuff and has been my very first phone call for years now when I've needed to hire good data folk! He has consistently done a sterling job of finding great people for me. As an ex-recruiter myself, I get how the business works and therefore have a real appreciation of just how good Neil is at his job. To cap it all, he's a thoroughly decent bloke too. Need to fill a data role? Call him!
Tim B.NfP Data & CRM Consultant / Project Manager, Birkbeck, University of London
”Neil was great to work with at Charity People. As a director, he is approachable, open and has a genuine interest in people. He’s also an interesting person himself and always has a good story to share. One of the things that makes Charity People stand out, is the culture and Neil is the man behind that!
Emma AdamsFundraising for Mental Health at Prospect Research
