Development Associate, Quarterly Magazine

Summary

We are embarking on an ambitious plan to significantly grow the public presence of our magazine, and are starting by hiring our first ever full-time development staffer. If you believe there is something amiss in our culture’s relationship to science and technology, if you are self-motivated, organized, and thrive on relationships, if you are excited by the idea of helping us create a new fundraising juggernaut, of working closely with the Editor to develop the strategy to do it, of taking on the array of responsibilities that come with being part of a small entrepreneurial team, and of building this role into something you own — we are looking for you. We are reviewing applications on a rolling basis, and encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

Who We Are

We exist to make sense of an antihuman malaise that has settled upon our culture’s relationship to science and technology, and to help cultivate a more confident and decent culture in its place.

We have been publishing for nearly two decades, but have done all this work with a small team — currently three full-time employees — and have never had a staff member primarily focused on development. Thanks to a record recent fundraising drive, we have developed an ambitious plan to significantly expand our staff, our work, and our public footprint, starting by hiring a full-time Development Associate dedicated to making this vision a reality.

Who You Are

Prior knowledge of the mechanics of development is a significant advantage. Our ideal candidate will therefore have one to five years of prior experience fundraising for a like-minded nonprofit.

You are a strong fit for this job if you have, and can demonstrate, these four things:

Social and communications skills: You are the right person for this job if you thrive on cultivating and sustaining a large number of professional and personal relationships, if you love firing off emails to let people know what your organization is working on, if you love hosting (occasional) events, if you’re good at responding promptly when people get in touch with you. You are the right person for this job if doing these things doesn’t deplete you but fills you with energy and purpose.

Organization, process, and systems skills: You are the right person for this job if you can leverage software and organizational techniques to help you keep track of hundreds of people with whom you have current or prospective relationships. You are great with spreadsheets, but you use them only as a tool to execute tasks, not as a substitute for sound decision-making. You follow processes when they’re useful, tinker with them when they’re slowing you down, and junk them when they’re just in the way. You have excellent attention to detail, without letting this divert your focus when work needs to get over the finish line.

Passion for the mission: You believe in the purpose of The New Atlantis, find rewards in its work, and might even be interested in participating now and then in the editorial process. Ability to help us communicate the meaning of our mission to the public, and its value to prospective donors, is essential to this role, and this authenticity can’t be faked.

Entrepreneurial spirit: You recognize possibilities others miss. You’re not just part of the plan; you want to make it your own. You have an image in your mind, later in your career, of being able to say “I built that,” and you aren’t satisfied until the image is real.

In your role as Development Associate, your overarching responsibilities are to act as the project manager for all development activities and as the right-hand person to the journal’s Editor in his development work.

The primary role of the Development Associate will be to serve as a project leader. The editorial staff, and particularly the Editor, will be at the Associate’s disposal to help strategize and carry out tasks. The Editor will maintain the chief relationship with our supporters, speak and meet with prospective supporters, and do primary writing for grants and other major funding proposals. The Development Associate will be tasked not only with keeping the trains running on time, but helping set the train schedules, lay down new tracks, and rip up old ones when ridership lags.

In short, it will be your responsibility to keep attention every day on what is happening with the development work, to stay in touch with key supporters and contacts, to draft donor communications, to secure and schedule meetings with prospective donors, to suggest and plan new fundraising projects, and so on. The editorial staff has chartered the train line and you will be its conductor — but our hope is that over time you can grow into its architect too.

The scope of the role will be further refined once a hire is made, but some of the tasks this role may involve are:

• Researching prospective donors.
• Sending initial outreach emails to donors, managing and conducting follow-ups.
• Arranging meetings with prospective donors.
• Preparing notes for our editor prior to meetings.
• Managing the software used for research, tracking, and outreach.
• Identifying prospective foundations and their relevant points of contact.
• Managing donor appreciation.
• Helping to organize occasional in-person events for donors.
• Organizing large-scale public capital campaigns through our website and mailing list.
• Creating attractive presentations of our work and mission for donors.

You will also have the opportunity to occasionally participate in editorial meetings — evaluating submissions, planning future content and publicity strategy — in order to give you a working sense of the publishing mission of the journal.

Remember: You will be a pioneer in this job. Much of what it shapes up to be will therefore depend on your skills and interests, and your vision for what a robust expansion of our development efforts could be.

The position is full-time and on-site in our office in Washington, D.C., between Farragut Square and Dupont Circle. While remote work will often be an option, early on in the position you should plan to be available to work from the office on most days.

Salary is commensurate with experience, and benefits include health and life insurance. After six months from your initial hire date, you will be eligible for a retirement plan. Raises and bonuses are possible based on performance — as our development program succeeds, we intend to compensate our development staff accordingly.

Please email a résumé, and a brief note expressing interest and why you think you’re a fit for the qualities we’re looking for, to admin@thenewatlantis.com, with the subject line “development application.” If useful to demonstrate relevant skills, we welcome but do not require including one or two supplementary items of deliverable material you have produced in a previous professional role. We will contact you if we are interested in discussing your application; unless your email bounces back, you can assume we have received it.