Development Manager

Position: Development Manager

Reports To: Vice President of Development

Classification: Remote with some travel

Location: Twin Cities or Nashville preferred; open to remote candidates anywhere in the U.S.

Soles4Souls Mission: Soles4Souls turns shoes and clothing into educational and economic opportunities.

Our CORE values: Transparency, Entrepreneurial, Accountable, Meaningful – represent who we are!

Summary: The Development Manager is a dynamic, versatile fundraising professional responsible for executing a broad portfolio of revenue-generating activities that advance the organization's philanthropic goals. This role is central to the day-to-day operation of the Development team, with primary ownership of donor stewardship, retention, and the monthly giving program, plus a strong secondary focus on grant writing and management. The ideal candidate brings a data-driven mindset, strong project management skills, and the ability to move fluidly between relationship work and operational execution. This is a hands-on, high-ownership role for a fundraiser equally comfortable stewarding a monthly donor, writing a grant proposal, or running a campaign dashboard.

Primary Responsibilities:

Donor Stewardship & Retention

• Design, implement, and continuously improve a comprehensive donor acknowledgement and stewardship program that ensures every donor feels valued, informed, and connected to the mission.

• Own and grow the monthly giving program in partnership with the Digital Marketing team: acquisition, retention, upgrade asks, and donor communications.

• Manage the matching gift program, including eligibility verification, platform optimization, and donor communications to maximize match revenue.

• Lead year-round stewardship touchpoints across the donor lifecycle, including impact reporting and personalized recognition, to strengthen retention and giving overtime.

Grant Writing & Management

• Work closely with the Director of Institutional Partnerships to write compelling grant proposals, letters of inquiry, and stewardship reports; coordinate with program staff to gather data and impact metrics.

• Maintain a grants calendar ensuring timely submission of all applications, acknowledgements, and reports in full compliance with funder requirements.

• Track grant performance and reporting obligations, ensuring accurate documentation across all active grants.

Fundraising Events & Sponsorship Activation

• Plan and execute fundraising events from concept through post-event follow-up, including budget management, logistics, vendor management, volunteer coordination, and timely donor acknowledgement.

• Build and manage a documented process for tracking sponsor benefit fulfillment across all events and campaigns; ensure all contracted elements are delivered accurately and on time.

• Collaborate with the Marketing team on collateral events, sponsor recognition, and promotion to ensure consistent branding.

Development Operations

• Manage pledge accounts receivable, including tracking outstanding pledges, generating reminders, and coordinating with finance for accurate fulfillment.

• Serve as internal project manager for development initiatives, keeping timelines, follow-ups, and deliverables on track across all programs.

Qualifications:

• Minimum 3 years of professional fundraising experience with demonstrated success across donor stewardship, retention, and grant writing.

• Strong understanding of fundraising best practices and development operations within a nonprofit with a meaningful revenue portfolio.

• Proficiency with CRM systems; NetSuite experience strongly preferred.

• Demonstrated grant writing success with private and corporate foundations.

• Proven ability to plan and execute fundraising events and manage sponsorship relationships from activation through renewal.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to craft compelling, on-brand donor-facing materials.

• Highly organized self-starter; able to manage multiple projects and deadlines with minimal supervision.

• Proficiency in Office 365; ability to learn new software quickly.

• Bachelor's degree preferred

Compensation: To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including skills, depth of work experience and relevant licenses/credentials, and may vary from the listed below.

S4S is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse staff and strongly encourages applications from candidates of color and other diverse backgrounds. Competitive salary. Benefits include medical insurance with 80% employer coverage, HRA account, 100% dental insurance & vision coverage, long-term disability, life, 401K with up to 6% employer match, professional development benefits, open FTO and paid parental leave.