Marketing and Communications Director of Development
Job Description
Position Description:
New Visions for Public Schools is looking for a dynamic, experienced leader for our organization-wide development efforts. We are the largest non-profit organization dedicated to improving public education in New York City, with over 150 employees and an annual budget of over $26 million, and we are growing rapidly. We currently manage 10 charter high schools, are lead partner for a network of 69 district high schools, and support more than 250 additional district schools and thousands of teachers, in total serving more than 180,000 students across all grades and all five boroughs of New York City.
The Director of Development will oversee strategy and execution of fundraising of all types, ensuring that New Visions has the resources to maintain and expand our support to City schools.
Core Duties and Responsibilities:
- Lead the creation of a multi-year fundraising strategy for the organization, in collaboration with New Visions senior management and Board of Directors
- Ensure diverse and balanced funding sources for the organization, including maintaining significant institutional and governmental support, and expanding corporate and individual giving
- Craft compelling narratives across multiple media that present New Visions programs to a wide range of audiences and potential funders
- Represent the organization, its Board and senior management and engage directly with donors, prospects, governmental and non-governmental partners, school communities, and other constituencies
- Oversee day-to-day aspects of New Visions’ fundraising efforts, including
- Leading development and cross-departmental strategy meetings to identify and address key fundraising priorities.
- Prospecting to identify potential funders and assess alignment to organizational fundraising and programmatic needs
- Crafting proposals to multiple different potential funding audiences, including philanthropic institutions and foundations, corporate donors, individual donors, and governmental grant programs.
- Monitoring progress against grant goals and timelines and leading efforts to complete funder reporting requirements on a timely basis
- Developing strategy for additional fundraising activities, such as Annual Funds, fundraising Galas or other events
- Designing and maintaining systems to track progress related to existing grants and pipeline proposals; share findings with program staff with the appropriate level of urgency.
- Manage a team of 2-4 development professionals, establishing priorities and goals for the team and tracking progress; assigning, overseeing, editing and ensuring the quality of development materials; and building team capacity to take on increasingly significant roles and responsibilities within the development team
Required Skills and Knowledge Base:
- Proven success in fundraising, ideally including experience with institutional, individual, corporate, and governmental funders
- Exceptional and enthusiastic writer and editor, with the ability to communicate compellingly using both quantitative and qualitative data to support an argument
- Compelling and comfortable public speaker, able to craft a public narrative and articulate multiple strands of New Visions’ work
- Knowledgeable about the education funding landscape, both locally and nationally
- Able to build strong relationships quickly
- Excellent strategic thinking skills, ability to “market” ideas, and an orientation towards systems improvement
- Ability to set priorities, move multiple projects in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment, identify and communicate potential needs or problems, and be flexible when new opportunities or demands arise.
- Past experience supervising and developing staff and building effective teams.
- Experience using Google productivity suite, including Docs, Sheets, and Slides preferred.
- Experience with Raiser’s Edge preferred.
Education and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree required.
- Five to seven years of related experience in a nonprofit or in an educational environment.
- Experience leading major development and/or fundraising efforts required, with experience in the education or social services space strongly preferred.
