Donor Relations/Grant Specialist

ORGANIZATION OVERVIEW

The mission of Sunshine Gospel Ministries (SGM) is to seek the renewal of the city through ministries of discipleship, mercy, and justice. Our vision is to empower youth and families to thrive and lead prosperous, healthy lives through connectedness, opportunity, and economic sustainability. Our culture is open, warm, inviting and family oriented. We are a ministry that seeks individuals who have a passion for the gospel, and our youth and families in the Woodlawn community.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Donor Relations and Grants Specialist is responsible for implementing the donor relations strategy in conjunction with the Development Director and the Director of Marketing and External Relations. The Donor Relations and Grants Specialist supports the development team's efforts to broaden SGM's individual donor base, providing major gift, sustainer and planned giving donor pipelines, along with supporting direct response activities that generate growing revenue streams for the organization. The Donor Relations and Grants Specialist manages the grants writing process and also provides administrative support to the development team to ensure effective data management and reporting and donor stewardship efforts (acknowledgements, meeting requests, printed materials). The Donor Relations and Grants Specialist contributes to developing and implementing messaging to existing and prospective donors, continually adapting a strong and compelling case for support.

The primary purpose of this position is to implement donor relations activities and engage with donors as part of a larger development plan (including tracking donor relations activities, assisting with direct response plans and activities, and making recommendations for improving program results). The duties of this position also include researching grant opportunities, drafting and submitting grant proposals based on funding requirements.

ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES / FUNCTIONS**

Duties include but are not limited to the following:

• In conjunction with the Development Director and Director of Marketing, implements and assesses an overall donor relations strategy that supports the short and long-term fundraising goals.
• Maintains online profiles, including Charity Navigator and Guidestar; maintains donor gift data; manages sustainer programs, including promotion, tracking, stewarding and providing annual acknowledgements.
• Promotes planned giving programs via direct mail, newsletters, and other organizational publications and communications.
• Assists with individual giving appeals (in collaboration with consultants, vendors and the development team); strengthens giving circles that generate annual support through stewardship; provides annual fundraising support to the organization, such as donor-driven campaigns and events.
• Manages strategy and appropriate implementations of external campaigns such as Giving Tuesday and year-end appeals; manages strategy and appropriate use of social media for individual giving appeals.
• Assists with proposals and reports for major donors and other writing needs; has excellent interpersonal skills with a demonstrated history of appropriately handling communication with high-net worth donors and/or foundation representatives.
• Maintains physical and electronic donor communication materials and Development Department supply inventory.
• Completes accurate contact reports utilizing Bloomerang/Raiser's Edge/CRM when interactions occur.
• Coordinates with Marketing to develop art for holiday messages, give days, and other electronic messaging.
• Researches and identifies grant prospects at the local, state and national levels.
• Determines grant proposal concept by identifying and clarifying opportunities and needs, studying requests for proposal (RFPs), attending strategy meetings, participating in relevant staff meetings, and developing a strong understanding of SGM's work, programs, priorities, innovations, history, mission, and results.
• Maintains grant deadlines and program tracker and enters relevant information into the database. Meets proposal deadlines by establishing priorities and target dates for information and shares information with the development team. Coordinates requirements with various program staff and contributes proposal status information.
• Drafts, revises, and produces high-quality proposals and reports for multiple stakeholders by using templates and following proposal-writing standards including readability, consistency, and tone. Assembles information including project nature, objectives/outcomes/deliverables, implementation, methods, timetable, staffing, budget, standards of performance, and evaluation. Presents proposals in creative or required formats. Obtains approvals by reviewing proposals with key stakeholders, including various program and executive-level staff within the organization.
• Drafts content related to grant partners for general external communications such as newsletter articles, blog posts, and social media content.
• Assists with database management; is capable of pulling reports to meet various funder queries.
• Responds to phone and email inquiries concerning the department; responds to a variety of inquiries regarding interest in supporting the organization.
• Other duties as assigned.

RELATED DUTIES

• Ability to work some evenings and weekends for special events.

EDUCATION, SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

Required:

• Bachelor's Degree in a related field
• Minimum 5 years' experience in the nonprofit sector with donor recruiting and stewardship, fundraising, and grant writing experience.
• Experience with Bloomerang or Raiser's Edge or other related fundraising software
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills; strong writing skills (including the ability to proofread and edit content.
• Exceptional team and project management, organizational and time management skills; ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects simultaneously and complete them timely.
• Strong leadership skills; ability to make sound decisions when under pressure; ability to be resourceful and creatively resolve issues.
• Experience managing a project or program budget.
• Self-motivated with the ability to work independently as well as effectively as part of a team, instilling confidence and trust among fellow staff and external constituents.
• High ethical standards, discretion, and confidentiality in working with donor information.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office suite.
• Ability to work well within a diverse team and across departments.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS & WORKING CONDITIONS

Physical demands: While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally required to walk and/or sit; use hands to fingers or feel objects, tools or controls, reach with hands and arms; balance; stoop; talk or hear. The employee must be able to bend, stoop, pull, push, lift, as well as have overhead extension of arms. Must be able to stand for long periods of time; be able to lift, carry or move at least 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and the ability to adjust focus.

Work environment: While performing the duties of this job, the employee will work in a public building and/or outdoors and thus will be exposed to weather conditions prevalent at the time. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.

DIRECT REPORTS

None