Career Center

JOB DESCRIPTION:

Old Trail School is seeking an experienced fundraising professional to serve as the Assistant Director of Development and a member of the Advancement Team. An ideal candidate will have fundraising experience in an education marketplace (ideally in an independent school environment) as well as a background in education, either in classroom experience or degree.

Primary responsibilities will be management and execution of the Old Trail School Fund (OTS Fund), including Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge entry; stewardship, and coordinating letters of acknowledgment and notes of thanks. In addition, this person will be responsible for planning and execution of all development-related events for donors, alumni, and community-wide events centered around our different constituents (parents, alumni, grandparents, and parents of alumni). This position will also support alumni engagement, report generation, stewardship, analysis of results, and the recently launched campaign to support the endowment. In addition, this position will serve as the liaison between the School and the Parent’s Association.

The ideal candidate will develop a coordinated matrix of communication and solicitation strategies involving email, direct mail, phone/mail, personal visitation, and volunteer engagement, all focused on shaping a sustainable tradition of giving.

In addition, the Assistant Director of Development will foster the growth of best practices in the supporting areas of gift processing, data management and donor relations.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Determine annual giving goals and build strategic and tactical plans for achieving these goals. This strategy will be a comprehensive plan.
• Focus on effective communication and solicitation activities within specific constituent segments identified as having potential for the greatest growth. 
• Oversee all development programs including phone-a-thons, faculty/staff campaigns, social media campaigns, data entry, report writing and generation, gift processing, donor stewardship.
• Work with the Director of Marketing & Communications to formulate and execute a communications program supporting stewardship.
• Work effectively with the Advancement team to gain strong participation in giving from every constituency and build strategies for moving donors to higher giving levels.
• Coordinate annual giving with current and past trustees in a sophisticated and effective fashion.
• Manage a prospect pool with philanthropic goals for personal visits and giving outcomes. 
• Listen carefully to and understand constituencies’ needs, both internally and externally, and proactively respond to those needs in a consistent and timely manner.
• Work cooperatively to achieve common goals; support cooperation, collaboration and the sharing of information while providing the best quality product available and continuously upgrade standards to maintain quality, in all areas of responsibility.
• Willingness and flexibility to plan and staff Development events and initiatives as need (6-8 events during the school year).
• Engage with alumni and assist in coordinating alumni events to foster community giving.

REQUIRED SKILLS:

• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree preferred
• At least 5-7 years of fundraising experience, preferably in independent schools.
• Proven success at working collaboratively in educational leadership
• Ability to use data and trends to drive strategic planning
• Excellent oral and written communications skills
• Ability to adapt to and learn new technologies; experience with Blackbaud and RE NXT products or equivalent database management software a plus
• Understanding of gift processing and donor relations