Associate, Advancement - Good Reason Houston

Associate, Advancement

Job Description

About the Role

Good Reason Houston is on a mission to ensure that Houston becomes the top public education city in the nation. As a crucial part of driving this mission forward, Good Reason Houston’s Associate, Advancement will be core to the Advancement team's general operations and support for its key initiatives.. 

This position will play a key role in supporting the growth of Good Reason Houston’s philanthropic revenue and provide administrative support and general operations to the Advancement team - including but not limited to writing acknowledgment letters, data tracking, and project management.

The Associate, Advancement will collaborate across departments in the organization to craft proposals and support grant writing as needed, execute donor engagement activities and prepare stewardship reports. This role will report to the Chief Advancement Officer.

The ideal candidate will be self-motivated, organized, detail-oriented, and willing to execute critical functions of Advancement Team operations. This person must have excellent writing and communications skills, an entrepreneurial mindset, and alignment with our mission and organizational beliefs. This role offers an excellent opportunity to explore a career in nonprofits and/or fundraising. 

Primary Responsibilities 

General Advancement Operations (40%)

• Ensure data integrity of donor databases, including communications logs, data entry, gift acknowledgement, reporting, etc 
• Create weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports on progress to goal for internal meetings 
• Support board member engagement by preparing board-facing reports on annual progress and coordinating opportunities for board members to participate in donor engagement activities
• Provide donors with necessary documentation to facilitate and process giving (i.e. invoices, receipts, annual tax-letters, etc) 
• Other duties as assigned, as the organization’s fundraising program grows
• Draft and/or edit communications coming from the Advancement team for internal and external stakeholders
• Communicate and coordinate meetings and special needs for donors; this may require cross functional coordination internally and externally 
• Ensure timely delivery of donor acknowledgements 
• Partner with Finance team to maintain accurate financial records of incoming gifts 

Event Planning & Execution (30%)

• Lead special event coordination and execution - collaborating on event vision & leading event logistics and event communications; working cross-functionally to coordinate staff roles and develop collateral material
• Execute against event revenue goals for existing and new events
• Monitoring budget and expenses for events 
• Maintain and track donor pledges and payments related to special events
• Coordinate and manage vendors as necessary for special events
• Work with Finance team to maintain and execute vendor contracts
• Work with Communications team to prepare and update collateral material for events 
• Solicit event sponsors, including in-kind sponsorships

General Portfolio Support (Individual Institutional Giving) Support (30%)

• Support a variety of donor engagement activities to cultivate Good Reason Houston donors and donor prospects; conducting prospect research, developing donor profiles, supporting meeting preparation, and managing direct mailings 
• Ensure impeccable donor stewardship (timely gift acknowledgements, sufficient appreciation outreach, meet progress reporting and update meeting requirements and requests, etc.)
• Collect key information from cross-functional departments to support timely grant applications, funder menus, and required reporting 
• Plan and execute corporate volunteerism activities, and other volunteer opportunities as needed 
• Manage corporate engagements to boost brand recognition and awareness of Good Reason Houston 
• Attend key community events to maintain a pulse on trends, key needs/messaging, and donor prospects, as needed
• Support grant writing and reporting as needed
• Draft and/or edit communications coming from the Advancement team for internal and external stakeholders
• Identify follow-up needs and assign tasks as needed to ensure all necessary information is collected and reported
• Log donor interactions (e.g. emails, meetings, written outreach, etc) are logged in eTapestry database within the week that they occur

Qualifications & Key Attributes  

• 2 years professional experience in similar role, or a Bachelor’s degree, experience in fundraising highly preferred
• Superior attention to detail and organizational skills
• Ability to prioritize, sequence, and execute projects
• Excellent research, analytical, and problem-solving skills
• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Exceptional personal ownership for meeting goals and track record of follow-through  
• Proficiency with MS Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word required
• Ability to maintain and update databases with a high level of accuracy (Experience using donor database, such as eTapestry, Blackbaud, Salesforce, etc., highly preferred)
• Demonstrated capacity to be flexible and adaptable in changing environment, able to flex to respond to team needs and take on projects when needed
• Passion about the mission, vision, and goals of Good Reason Houston and how this position contributes to the organization’s success 

Our Team

Along with our core beliefs, the traits listed below were generated by the team to capture what it looks like in action when operating at our best. 

We embrace and drive change.

We are flexible and fierce.

We operate with a bold bias toward action.

We fess up when we mess up.

We dare greatly and engage humbly.  

We grow as we go.

We turn up the love when we turn up the heat. 

We root for each other. 

Good Reason Houston staff are expected to support this organizational culture by promoting and adhering to these team traits to maintain an open and cohesive work environment & relationships.

Working at Good Reason Houston

Good Reason Houston offers a competitive salary commensurate with experience in a similar position. The starting salary range for this position is $50,000. New hires are offered a salary depending on qualifications, internal equity, and the budgeted amount for the role. Good Reason Houston also has a 401(k) (automatic 3% employer contribution), life, medical, dental and vision insurance packages. Each employee accrues 35 paid time off days per calendar year in addition to the 19 paid holidays per year. Good Reason Houston is an office-based organization, but allows for virtual work on Mondays and Fridays.

Apply at www.GoodReasonHouston.org/Careers 

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