Development Officer

BACKGROUND

Frontline Women’s Fund (formerly Donor Direct Action) is a global nonprofit with a mission to drive funding and other resources to women’s rights groups working in the world’s most challenging and inhospitable environments.  We identify the groups most in need, match them with donors, furnish them with grants, and provide a platform for their voices and needs to be heard. 

Founded in 2011 as a project of the Sisterhood is Global Institute, FWF offers creative solutions to resourcing human rights groups that too often go unrecognized and underfunded.  We fund groups concerned with violence and discrimination against women, as well as those fighting to end female genital mutilation and sex trafficking. Over the last dozen years, we have grown our annual budget from $50,000 to almost $2 million, with commensurate growth in the amount of money we give away.

To support our work, FWF raises money from both institutions and individual donors, with revenue split roughly 50-50 between the two.  Aiming to increase our grant making four-fold over the next 5-10 years, we are now poised to hire our first full-time development staffer to leverage our success and help us build a full-scale, professional fundraising program.

JOB SUMMARY

Reporting to and working closely with the Deputy Director, the Development Officer will lead the individual giving strategy, support the Deputy Director’s institutional fundraising efforts (primarily through prospect research), and establish the systems, structures, and best practices needed to undergird a successful and sustainable fundraising operation.

Primary responsibilities include managing relationships with individual donors, including planning and implementing all cultivation and stewardship activities, donor and prospect research, and managing reporting for individual giving.

The ideal candidate has a clear grasp of all core components of development, with particularly strong experience in individual giving, including major gifts, stewardship, and annual giving campaigns (direct mail and digital), and is excited about building FWF’s development program from the ground up.

This is a full-time position based in New York City.

REPORTS TO: Deputy Director

RESPONSIBILITIES

Individual Giving Strategy and Management

• Collaborate with the Director and senior staff to establish, revise, and execute the yearly development plan, including setting and attaining donation targets from individual contributors.
• Identify and develop a pipeline of major gift prospects.
• Develop, implement, and maintain a major donor program, including supporting the Director’s major donor relations and outreach.
• Devise strategies for cultivation and stewardship of FWF’s major donors and prospects.
• Analyze donor and giving data to develop well-founded strategies for renewals and increases.
• Conduct prospect research on individual donors to grow the organization’s mid and major donor communities. 
• Advise on prospect research tools needed to enhance this function.
• Prepare meeting briefs for senior staff when meeting with donors, including agendas and other miscellaneous communications collateral.
• Work with Director and senior staff to develop plan for engaging board more meaningfully in fundraising.

Annual Appeals and Communications 

• Lead the design, creation (including copywriting), and project management of annual digital and mailed fundraising appeals, including analyzing campaign results and creating reports to use in planning future appeals.
• Work with communications staff to develop creative and mission-focused fundraising messaging across multiple channels and on various platforms.

Development Operations

• Lead on systematically capturing all vital donor data in Salesforce.
• Ensure accurate and timely gift entry and other donor data, including prospect research, notes on major donor calls and meetings, and next-steps and tasks.  
• Track progress towards revenue goals and prepare regular reports, as needed.
• Ensure that overall data hygiene and integrity is maintained.

Related Responsibilities

• Provide institutional prospect research support to Deputy Director.
• Lead the conceptualization and design of donor events, including goals, themes, and content (for cultivation-specific and fundraising-focused events).
• Coordinate and deploy colleagues on FWF’s staff to support the fundraising, appropriate to their roles, and foster a culture of philanthropy across the organization.

QUALIFICATIONS

• A Bachelor’s degree with at least 5 years of nonprofit fundraising experience.
• Strong familiarity with human rights, and women’s rights and justice.
• Expert knowledge of donor databases, preferably Salesforce.
• Demonstrated experience working on individual giving, email campaigns, annual funds, and/or related tasks.
• Track record managing a portfolio of donors, including understanding their philanthropic motivations, deepening their relationship with the organization, supporting leadership’s solicitation of gifts, and stewarding their contributions.
• Ability to analyze and use data and metrics to shape goals, strategies, and tactics.
• High level of skill with iOS and MS Office applications Word, Excel, and Outlook.
• Strong research skills.
• Superb verbal and written communications skills, with experience tailoring messages to suit intended audiences and compelling readers to act.
• Excellent project management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to prioritize and plan work activities across multiple projects.

HOW TO APPLY

Candidates should send the following to vacancies@frontlinewomensfund.org with “Development Officer” in the subject line:

• Current Resume
• Cover Letter
• Writing Sample