The Director of Development will lead Teach For America-South Louisiana to raise $2.8 million annually across our five parish region in order to (1) support a teaching corps of high-impact first and second-year teachers each year, (2) grow the scale, strength, and impact of our local alumni movement, and (3) strengthen our role as a key partner and leader in the local movement to end educational inequity. As Director of Development, you will set vision and execute strategy to build the support necessary to fuel our work within the South Louisiana community and to create a meaningful experience for current and potential supporters. In your role, you will build relationships and networks within the community externally and know our programmatic work internally in order to share our impact and organizational values with donors and supporters. You will regularly laterally-manage and support other teammates in service of meeting our collective goals, working in close collaboration with our Board Members, Manager of Communications, Director of Talent Strategy and Operations and Associate to Regional Teams. You will report directly to our Executive Director and serve as a member of the Regional Leadership Team.
The ideal candidate is: a sophisticated verbal and written communicator, highly organized with incredible attention to detail and thrives in a fast-paced, goal-oriented environment; able to lead and invest others, is a team-player who operates and leads with a high sense of optimism in the face of challenges, learns continuously through regular feedback and is passionate about realizing educational equity in South Louisiana.
Prospect Research and Opportunity Development (10%)
- Through research and fieldwork, prospect individuals and institutions who are currently, or who have the potential to, invest in education and social reforms within South Louisiana
- Through immersion with regional management, colleagues, corps members, and alumni, learn and understand our organizational vision and strategy in order to identify the intersection of philanthropic priorities with our work
- Develop consensus with Board Members and the Executive Director on the types of donors that are strategic to pursue
Revenue Strategic Planning and Goal Management (20%)
- Create a project management plan and laterally manage team engagement and operations to ensure we have a robust and vetted donor pipeline as an input into our annual planning process
- Contribute to and synthesize our team’s vision and strategy for how Teach For America-South Louisiana builds an ever-growing network of diverse private and public sector champions to meet the region’s fundraising goals
- Analyze goal progress, diagnose root causes for your operation’s successes and gaps, propose course adjustments in strategy and operations, and demonstrate continual adaptation and learning
- Develop strategies and solutions to address root causes, and propose and execute the strategies across our broader team to meet these goals
- Optimize, in some cases design, and maintain the IT systems that we use to project plan, analyze progress towards goals, and course adjust, ensuring that annual giving campaigns are effectively deployed across stakeholders and efficiently deployed across various actors on our regional team
Donor Experience, Board Engagement, and Information Management (40%)
- Set vision for the donor experience, designing strategies to increase proximity of supporters and the efforts of educational equity
- Set vision and direction for communications and outreach to our donors and decide, in collaboration with the Executive Director, how to deploy staff capacity to meet our donor stewardship and experience needs
- Serve as the staff lead for the Board’s Fund Development Committee. Prepare for and lead the development reports in board meetings, manage board members on specific projects or activities, and correspond with board members as needed
- Prioritize key actions for you, your Executive Director and Board Members, such as external meetings, event appearances, and/or correspondence, and prepare/support them to execute your cultivation and stewardship plans
- Use Salesforce to retain accurate and complete information about our donors and your stewardship strategy, including giving data, contact data, affiliations, correspondence records, grant documentation, historical touch-points with Teach For America, and your strategic insights
Cross-Functional Mobilization and Executive Leadership (20%)
- Serve on the region’s leadership team, playing a key role in setting vision and strategy for the regional team
- Operate with a high level of personal responsibility for the region’s functions as a whole, keeping the health of the enterprise as a top priority
- Influence and compel others across the regional team to build understanding and investment in your work’s vital impact on our broader mission, such as managing the alumni and new donor giving campaigns that require activation of all functional teams and investment of our regional team
- Propose, develop and initiate strategies and channels for sharing Development insights regionally, and for integrating Development perspectives into programmatic decision-making
Region-wide and Organization-wide Responsibilities (10%)
Teach For America thrives on cross-functional partnerships throughout our organization. Our staff members are skilled in working across layers, understanding and managing through the reality of competing commitments, navigating these situations with grace, and being culture leaders within our regional team. We do this by upholding an orientation towards flexibility and generosity while also remaining deeply committed to a sense of possibility and achievement. While some days we work independently to achieve milestones, realizing our goals requires regular collaboration at all levels. Everyone shows their support for region-and-organization-wide initiatives by actively engaging in the following:
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness professional development
- Corps member induction
- Corps member professional development days
- Corps member hiring events
- Corps member acceptance confirmation
- Regional staff recruitment and talent cultivation
- Cross-functional special projects
- Corps member selection interviews
- All staff leadership development and team building
- Regional social events with staff, corps members, and alumni
Prior experience
- At least five years of work experience is strongly preferred.
- Knowledge of or experience in Teach For America is preferred.
- Knowledge of the philanthropic landscape in South Louisiana preferred.
- Prior experience managing a market, portfolio of clients/constituents, or operation towards measureable goals (i.e. registration goals, sales goals, billings, media/brand mentions, recruitment goals, organizational efficiency goals, etc.) is required; prior experience in fundraising is preferred.
Work Demands
- Willingness and ability to participate, occasionally, in events that fall on nights and/or weekends.
- Willingness and ability to travel at least once per year for professional development purposes.
Skills
- Ability to remain organized and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment, with strong strategic and operational planning skills.
- Interest and skill in working across layers and collaborating with others to achieve outcomes.
- Ability to create strategic proposals that compel corporations and individuals to invest in the organization while also foreseeing, avoiding, and mitigating risks to the organization’s funding and public perception; skill in understanding the perspectives of others and developing communications to build trust, rapport and support, with exceptional customer-service instincts; strong interpersonal writing skills, effectively tailoring writing for different audiences.
- Ability to use Microsoft Excel to organize and analyze priorities, goals, tasks and data. Some prior experience with Salesforce is ideal; comfort in learning and using new IT systems like Salesforce is required.
- Drive and commitment to continuously develop and better yourself, your team, and Teach For America.
- Dedication to furthering Teach For America’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness through personal identity exploration.
- Dedication to and consistent embodiment of our organization’s core values.