Director, Buddies
Listed on 2026-08-29
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Marketing / Advertising / PR
Event Management & Planning, Marketing Communications
Location: New York
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New York, New York, NY, US
Salary Range: $90,000.00 To $ Annually
Best Buddies International is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, leadership development, inclusive living, and family support for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
Best Buddies is the largest organization dedicated to ending the social, physical and economic isolation of the 200 million people worldwide with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Our programs empower people with IDD to form meaningful friendships with their peers, secure jobs, improve communication and advocacy skills, and live independently, while also offering support for their families.
Department: National Development
Reports to:VP, Cycling
Location: New York, NY
# of direct reports: 1
Salary range:$90,000-$100,000
Position Overview:The Director serves as a senior member of the Best Buddies Challenge team, working closely with the VP, Cycling and Best Buddies Challenge senior management team on all regional development, fundraising, sales, and recruitment initiatives. The Director will be responsible for recruiting and managing sponsors, large scale ride teams, assisting and creating opportunities for team growth, converting interested parties into event participants, and be the point person for tracking and benchmarking participant commitments, revenue, maintaining accurate grids, coordination of key sponsor/corporate meetings and team development.
The position plays a crucial role in sponsorship development and outreach, and working cross-event to play a supporting role in all aspects of the Best Buddies Challenge:
New York.
- Bachelor’s degree with a minimum of 5-7 years’ experience in development, peer-to-peer fundraising, and recruitment marketing.
- Non-profit or endurance event experience strongly preferred.
- Proven ability to lead high-impact fundraising and participant engagement initiatives.
- Experience building a sales pipeline to work toward a sales target and a proven ability to hit that target.
- Excellent relationship management and project management skills, including managing and prioritizing projects with multiple and often competing deadlines, and the ability to work under pressure.
- Proven ability to deliver high-touch customer service and work with customer relations management (CRM) database systems (e.g., keep contact logs, conversation notes, etc.)
- Flexible to work evenings, weekends, and attend special events as required.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Outlook and PowerPoint, with exceptional skills in Excel required
- Highly organized, detail-oriented, and able to work independently and productively
- Work well under pressure and establish priorities while reporting to and working with a variety of people
- Must be the lead team player who is willing to pitch-in and help with everything from grassroots marketing to presenting to corporations.
- Motivated with a self-starter personality who is deadline conscious
- Experience with cycling or endurance sports a plus.
include, but are not limited to:
- Serves as regional contact for top individual donors, sponsors, and fundraising teams.
- Partners with the VP, Cycling to ensure operational execution aligns with overall strategic objectives for participant growth, sponsor satisfaction, and event success.
- Provides insights from in-market execution to inform future strategies for recruitment, community engagement, and event planning.
- Works alongside national sponsorship team by serving as key “in‑market” sponsorship and ride representative for all sponsor needs
- Implements and oversees all on-the-ground recruitment efforts (i.e. Sponsor/ Corporate/Team presentations)
- Meets weekly and monthly goals for recruitment and lead generation
- Assists in development of annual plan, timeline and goals for each revenue line item
- Provides the highest level of client service in the form of meeting…
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