ABOUT THE POSITION
ACLU-Maryland exists to empower Marylanders to exercise their rights so that the law values and uplifts their humanity. ACLU of Maryland’s Development Department seeks to secure the financial resources to support ACLU-MD’s mission and strategic plan. We do this by engaging and soliciting our individual supporters and institutional funders in Maryland. We work closely internally with other departments, the Board of Directors, and National ACLU to ensure we are connecting our mission, values, and impact to our external funders. We are committed to Community-Centric Fundraising principles and ensuring the fiscal sustainability of ACLU-MD’s work. More information about how we fundraise may be found on our website.
The ACLU of Maryland is seeking a Donor Relations Officer (DRO) who will personally manage a portfolio of c3 (Foundation) and c4 (Union) donors and relationships. They will play a key role in ensuring the Development team meets our fundraising goals and increasing contributed revenue to the organization. The DRO will develop personalized gift strategies for donor cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship, ensuring consistent, compelling communications with portfolio donors and prospects. The DRO will report to the Development Director and will work closely with other members of the affiliate and nationwide Development teams, ACLU-MD’s Board of Directors, program staff, and volunteers on fundraising.
This position is an opportunity for someone with non-profit Development experience, including candidates who are looking to move into a front-facing role. The successful candidate will appreciate the Development Department’s existing commitment to Community-Centric Fundraising principles and fundraising success to-date while also bringing fresh ideas and perspective to their role. They will work toward a total department goal of securing approximately $2 million in unrestricted revenue annually.
ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS
The information provided below encompasses the essential functions and capabilities linked with this position:
Manage a portfolio of individual donors:
- Personally manage a portfolio of 125+ current donors, including their cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.
- Create individual goals for each person in the portfolio based on the donor’s history of giving to the ACLU, knowledge of that donor’s potential/capacity, and research tools.
- Create letters, emails, and other communications pieces for face-to-face donor meetings and other communications with donors.
- Create donor strategy memos, briefing, and debriefing materials for ACLU staff and board members, as needed.
- Directly solicit major and planned gifts.
- Schedule and complete 60+ in-person and/or virtual meetings with donors throughout Maryland, annually.
Engage grassroots and mid-level donors:
- Personally engage select grassroots and mid-level donors with a goal of moving them into the portfolio.
- Close gift renewals and upgrades using a personalized and proactive approach.
- Ensure appropriate cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship for donors in the pipeline.
- Ensure ongoing discovery and evaluation of opportunities to deepen relationships with donors.
Reporting:
- Utilize Salesforce, Looker, and any additional fundraising technology introduced.
- Record all interactions and post-meeting reports promptly in database.
- Maintain up-to-date and accurate database records.
- Track portfolio activity and progress.
- Report out on portfolio activity and performance to Director of Development, weekly.
Management & Supervisory Responsibility
This position is designated as a non-management position and does not encompass supervisor responsibility.
QUALIFICATIONS
Values Alignment
- Demonstrated personal commitment to advancing the ACLU’s values, mission, goals and programs, with an understanding of the range of civil rights and civil liberties issues and their implications through previous experiences.
Race Equity Commitment
- Demonstrated commitment to racial equity, dismantling white supremacy, and incorporating a structural power analysis into work.
- Must have knowledge and understanding of how power is manifested in matters of race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, religion, ability and socio-economic circumstances.
Typical Education & Work Experience
(Relevant education/experience may substitute for required education/experience at a rate of one-year relevant education/experience per year of required education/experience.)
- Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent
- 3-5 years of experience working in non-profit Development.
- Donor database experience.
Certification or License Requirements:
- None
Typical Functional Experience:
- Ability to balance autonomy with collaboration. An energetic self-starter with interpersonal savvy who can work independently and creatively, manage a robust pipeline, and build strong donor relationships while functioning as part of a cooperative and coordinated internal team.
- Comfortability with soliciting gifts, identifying solutions around barriers, communicating on the phone, virtual meeting, via email, text, and in-person.
- Ability to effectively communicate the mission, accomplishments, and goals of the ACLU in a compelling way and to tailor communications to different audiences.
- Ability to simplify complex themes and myriad details into a short, compelling presentation or written piece.
- Ability to maintain a travel schedule for visiting donors throughout Maryland and willing to drive a personal vehicle for work.
- Ability to integrate data into decision-making and strategy development.
- Excellent time management skills.
Technical Aptitude:
- Maintain advanced working knowledge of office-related software, including Apple and Microsoft office products and any industry-specific technology or other internet research tools.
Work Schedule & Travel Obligation:
- A driver’s license and availability to travel throughout the state. (Mileage is reimbursed at a rate of 65.5 cents per mile in 2023.)
- The ability to work occasional evening, weekend, and irregular hours and to travel within the state as needed.
- Resides in Maryland and willing to relocate to Maryland within 6 months of employment
Physical Demands:
The following capabilities are general requirements necessary to perform the essential functions of this position related to work schedule, physical demands, working environment, travel, etc.
- Effectively communicate with others verbally and in writing, including by phone e-mail, or in-person.
- Understand, remember, communicate, and apply complex oral and/or written instructions and factual information.
- Maintain sustained concentration on computer screens and use keyboard and a variety of peripherals.
- Ability to push, pull, lift up to 25 pounds in the course of the workday in the normal performance of their duties.
Bonus Considerations
The following are the desired competencies, characteristics, or traits for this position:
- Experience with issues relating to human rights, civil rights, or racial and social justice.
- Experience fundraising with an anti-racism/anti-oppression lens and incorporating Community-Centric Fundraising principles into work.
- Development portfolio management experience.
- CFRE.
- Frontline fundraising experience.
- Experience working with a Board of Directors.
- Salesforce experience.
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
Starting salary for this position $80,571.52, which per the agreement between ACLU Maryland and OPEIU Local 2, correlates to Category C, Step 1 – Step 3 on the approved compensation scale for base salary. Actual starting salary is a set calculation based on the individual candidate’s prior relevant work experience (including full-time and part-time internships and volunteer work), education, certification, and required foreign language skills (if applicable) per the agreed upon OPEIU Local 2 Union Compensation Scale, and therefore is not negotiable upon hire. For any questions, please reach out to the HR team.
Excellent benefits include:
- 2 weeks paid vacation at time of hire (increasing to 3 weeks after two years)
- 14 paid office holidays
- 12 paid sick days
- Telework and flex-time
- Generous medical insurance including two health, dental and vision insurance options for staff members, their dependents and spouse/domestic partner
- Flexible spending accounts employee assistance plan
- Six weeks of paid medical leave, life and accidental death and dismemberment. insurance, short-term disability and long-term disability insurance.
- 401(k) defined contribution retirement plan with employer match.
- Free on-site parking, additional commuter benefits with access to commuter rail station.
- Direct exposure to cutting-edge civil liberties and civil rights work.
This is a position that is exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
To Apply
Please submit a cover letter, resume, three professional references, and a short (no longer than 5 pages) writing sample and/or work sample to the website listed below.
https://www.aclu-md.org/en/jobs/donor-relations-officer-2023
We discourage applicants from applying through third-party websites. Early applications are strongly encouraged. It will not be possible for us to respond to telephone or email inquiries.
Resumes or applications sent via other avenues will not be considered.
Deadline/Start Date
The position will remain open until filled. Interviews will be scheduled on a rolling basis.
Request an Accommodation
The ACLU of Maryland makes every effort to assure that its recruitment, selection, hiring, and employment practices provide all qualified persons, including persons with disabilities, with full opportunities for employment in all positions.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual with a disability and need assistance applying online, please email human resources at [email protected]. If you are selected for an interview, you will receive additional information regarding how to request an accommodation for the interview process. We encourage individuals of all abilities to request reasonable job accommodations through our office of human resources.
Requesting a reasonable accommodation will not automatically be perceived as a disqualifying factor that would prevent an employee from performing the essential duties of the job.
ABOUT THE ACLU OF MARYLAND
The ACLU of Maryland is a non-partisan, non-profit public interest organization devoted to protecting civil rights and civil liberties. The ACLU of MD is an affiliate of the national ACLU, a key defender of civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The ACLU works in the courts, legislature and in communities to defend and expand individual rights and personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and civil rights laws. The ACLU of Maryland is committed to centering race equity in our work, internally and externally, to better support and be accountable to communities of color, whose civil rights and civil liberties are systematically threatened by white supremacy.
The ACLU of Maryland is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to diversity and inclusion in our work and on our teams. We encourage applications from all qualified individuals without regard to race, color, gender, sexual orientation or preference, gender identity and expression, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, veteran, or formerly incarcerated person status. Persons with disabilities may request accommodations.
Organization Commitment to Race Equity
All individuals in our organization are expected to support and maintain our organizational commitment to centering race equity in their work, internally and externally. We practice accountability and allyship to Black, Indigenous, People of Color, LGBTQ+, and disability communities, whose civil rights and civil liberties are systematically threatened. Application of this principle requires the conscious use of a race equity lens at all levels of work to both identify and understand implications of structural racism, challenge or confront systemic conditions or resulting issues, and dismantle overall institutional systems related to white privilege and white supremacy when engaging, advocating, and defending the civil liberties and civil rights of all Marylanders.