The Prospect Strategy & Research team works to advance Teach For America’s fundraising efforts through centralized research operations, providing general support to all 51 regions and each National Development front-line fundraising team. This support includes direct prospect research execution support, strategic prospect strategy consulting, and training on prospect research practices, tools, and processes.
As the Managing Director, Prospect Strategy & Research, you will directly impact our organization’s fundraising efforts and the organization’s financial strength at large as a result of your experience and expertise in fundraising and prospect development. You will lead this effort by defining and driving the team’s vision and strategy. You will manage a team of five staff members toward ambitious goals to build robust prospect pipelines that ultimately generate significant new revenue for the organization. You will report to the Vice President, Development Operations and also work closely with leaders across the national and regional Development teams, as well as our CEO’s office.
Strategic Planning (15%)
- Develop and recommend the vision and strategy for the organization’s prospect development efforts (includes research, prospect management, and analytics) to the Vice President, Development Operations and the Senior Vice President, Development.
- Define the roadmap needed to bring the organization to the next level of strategic prospect development.
- Set clear priorities, goals, and benchmarks that you and your team will use to assess success and progress.
- Manage the roadmap by identifying and executing on key milestones and deliverables, assessing and responding to risks and issues as needed, and monitoring and reporting on the impact and progress.
Prospect Development (55%)
- Manage and execute prospect strategy and research requests for TFA’s senior leaders, including our CEO.
- Create and implement prospect management system.
- Execute landscape analyses for regional and national fundraising teams.
- Lead ongoing strategic research of current, lapsed, and new donors for both national and regional fundraising teams.
- Lead review, assessment, and qualification of prospects as a result of wealth screenings, and other proactive research strategies.
- Conduct proactive research and recommend new prospects for the Vice President of Individual Giving, our national board support team, and the Senior Vice President of Development.
Management (30%)
- Set the vision for and establish team culture focused on core values and achieving results.
- Directly manage and coach a team of four managers and one director to meet and exceed their goals.
- Identify new opportunities for professional development for the PSR team—encouraging staff to create, improve, and manage specific projects.
- Be a culture leader of the Development Team based on our core values and reflective of our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusiveness.
- Manage relationships with all vendors and oversee team budget for all research databases, materials, and department research resources.
- Build and cultivate strong relationships to ensure that research is meeting the needs of stakeholders.
- Minimum of 6 to 8 years of work experience in prospect development work and/or managing a prospect development team, preferably with experience in creating a prospect management system
- Experience creating and managing fundraiser portfolios
- A demonstrated track record of achieving excellence and successful outcomes
- Proven track record of successfully leading and managing a team preferred
- A history of building strong relationships and influencing others to achieve ambitious goals
Skills
- Ability to think critically and strategically while making timely decisions and demonstrating good judgment
- Ability to organize and manage a diverse range of assignments and projects with high efficiency and a thorough attention to detail and follow through
- Ability to operate independently and efficiently in an entrepreneurial, fast-paced, results-oriented culture
- Ability to create and implement systems and policies for large groups of people
- Ability to conduct landscape analysis
- Exceptional communication skills, both oral and written
- Exceptional client service orientation and the ability to build strong relationships with various teams
- Expert knowledge of various research tools, such as Lexis-Nexis, RelSci, Donor Search, and other databases and online resources
- Knowledge of Salesforce CRM preferred but not required
Work Demands
- Ability to travel to in-person meetings in various U.S. cities 6 to 8 times per year
- Occasional weekend or evening work is required.