Director of Development

The Director of Development will work closely with the Executive Director to create a pathway and a strategy to fund Birmingham Promise’s ambitious mandate to provide financial assistance and high-paying internships and apprenticeships to Birmingham City Schools seniors. The Director of Development will be at the spearpoint of that effort, helping to develop the organizational strategy, leading the design of the fundraising strategy and managing all parts of its implementation.

To execute on the objectives and responsibilities of this role, this individual must be an organized, proactive, meticulous, and experienced fundraiser. They must possess excellent interpersonal and communication skills, experience in project management, and a demonstrated capacity to liaise with diverse groups of stakeholders to create champions and long-time funders of our work. Given our strong corporate-based founding, we are particularly seeking someone experienced in shepherding individual giving contributions at the highest level. We seek an individual with a commitment to ensuring that the young talent that exists in Birmingham is connected to opportunity and someone who has the will to remove all the barriers preventing that connection.

Design, implement, and lead an ambitious development strategy

● Take ownership of our overall fundraising goal (~$8.5M yearly), and create a plan to identify and cultivate individual, institutional, corporate, and public sector support

● Manage diverse portfolio of large and small gifts, ensuring diligent stewardship through relationship-building and meaningful engagement opportunities

● Diligently track our progress to goal for short and long term financial sustainability, and own our strategies for closing any gaps that exist

● Create new pathways for raising short and long term funds from individual givers, including events, campaigns, and societies

● Conduct in-depth analysis of new and existing donors, particularly high net worth individuals, to inform strategy for influencing, motivating, and inspiring donors to contribute to our work

● Leverage the executive director, board of directors, and other advisors to cultivate major donors and prospects

● Prepare landscape analysis research to build our fundraising pipeline, identify alignment between our work and donor interests, and recommend concrete next steps.

● Manage our development and communications manager to outstanding results in storytelling and strategic communications related to our case for support; ensure strong coordination around external communications, newsletters, media, press releases, public relations materials, etc.

Ensure fundraising systems, processes, and mindsets are integrated in Promise’s work

● Solicit, develop, prepare, and manage partnership proposals and reports, including working with team members to collect data, stories, and other inputs

● Manage across the organization to enlist colleagues in helping to execute on project plans for cultivation purposes (i.e. ensuring grant reports and milestones are on track, support fundraising events, etc.)

● Create and adjust compelling presentations for funder meetings and touch points

● Provide input/support into the budget development process

● Develop and track communications and cultivation/stewardship plans

● Draft internal and external donor-related communications, such as emails, thank you letters, concept notes, reports, donor histories, and fundraising summaries for board meetings for Promise and Prosper

● Create strategic meeting briefs for the executive director and others with appropriate objectives, asks, angles, and donor history, as well as listing potential questions from funders and propose potential responses

Maintain strong systems and project plans

● Maintain up-to-date and accurate data on donors in our CRM system (Salesforce)

● Tightly project manage cross-team initiatives

● Create and manage other tracking systems to support fundraising goals

● Leverage data systems to stay abreast of fundraising efforts to proactively identify internal collaboration opportunities, such as ensuring next steps are completed, making strategic suggestions for donor cultivation strategies, knowing progress and path to fundraising goals, and identifying next steps and owners

● Any other related duties assigned, designated or required.

Administrative Support

● Manage the gift process for new donations and payments

● Provide other administrative support to our fundraising efforts on an as-needed basis

● 5-7 years of professional experience in non-profit fundraising and partnership management

● Proficiency in Salesforce or another client relationship management system, Microsoft Suite applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) and Google Drive

● Some experience with designing materials (decks, one-pagers) preferred but not required

● English fluency required

You are a good fit for this position if you:

● Have a deep understanding of our mission and excel at sharing it internally and externally

● Thrive on helping people understand how giving to Birmingham Promise is the best possible investment of their financial support

● Have direct experience raising funds via campaigns or giving societies and are excited to bring that knowledge to bear at Promise

● Are someone who is relentless when it comes to uncovering funding opportunities and pursuing them

● Take ownership of a fundraising goal and drive towards it with energy and creativity

● Enjoy involving and inspiring members of a team to take part in fundraising efforts

● Have a mindset that sees a “no” as an invitation to learn, redirect strategy, gain more leads and connections, and generally as an opportunity for abundance

● Enjoy collaborating with a diverse set of stakeholders who represent different segments of our community and economy

● Enjoy working in a fast-paced, mission-driven, team and people-centric culture

● Thrive when navigating ambiguity or complexity towards an overarching goal or mission

● Hold deep respect for families and students and know how to talk about our schools with dignity and respect and without perpetuating damaging stereotypes

● Have a relentless belief in the promise of Birmingham City School students and graduates

● Can be self-directed and self-motivated around setting and meeting deadlines, driving necessary activities forward, anticipating challenges or needs, and bringing in help or additional resources as needed

● Show great attention to detail and excellent organizational skills

● Have exceptional writing and communication skills

Pay range: $70,000-$90,000

Birmingham Promise provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, Birmingham Promise complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training. Birmingham Promise expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status.