Development Manager; EJG

Essie Justice Group (Essie) is building grassroots power to dismantle the US incarceration system, the most egregious creator of racial and gender injustice of our time. We are a loving and powerful community of women with incarcerated loved ones and include cisgender women, transgender women, formerly incarcerated women, gender nonconforming people, elders, and young people. After five years of year-over-year organizational growth, we are looking to increase our fundraising capacity to catalyze the accessibility of our program to reach 1 in 4 women who have loved ones behind bars and sustain bold decarceration advocacy.

We are seeking an accomplished and values-aligned Development Manager to join our team.

The Development Manager is a clear and persuasive writer who relishes the opportunity to uplift meaningful movement work to philanthropic partners, enjoys thinking empathetically about audiences, and is above all motivated by a deep belief in the leadership development and liberation strategies of directly impacted people. A perceptive and careful listener, the Development Manager is adept at identifying big and small opportunities to strengthen connections between our supporters and our organizing and advocacy work.

The ideal person in this role is an experienced manager of institutional funding relationships and is also excited by the opportunity to be involved in a variety of development projects including collaborations with influencers, creatives, and elected officials. In 2019, in addition to managing grants, individual donor engagement, and coordination of Essie’s Board of Directors day to day, the Development Manager will co-lead the planning of Essie’s five year anniversary benefit celebration and help create a multi-year fundraising strategy to support Essie’s three to five year campaign and organizing vision.

Institutional Grants Management

• Articulate our organizational accomplishments and aspirations in grant applications and reports.
• Manage all deadlines and workflows for LOIs, grant applications, and reports including internal deadlines for collection of information from other staff ensuring on-time submission and high rate of successful funding requests.
• Evaluate and recommend new funding opportunities in alignment with Essie’s strategic priorities and programmatic work.
• Manage Grant Writer and up to one intern.

Philanthropic Relationship Management

• Establish and maintain relationship management systems that increase our capacity to attract, develop, and maintain meaningful relationships with grant partners and philanthropists.
• Prepare materials to communicate with supporters including thank you letters, event reports, and annual reports.
• Plan and coordinate creative, strategic, and meaningful fundraising events and activities including management of project timelines, logistics, guest lists, materials, and programming.
• Create and update supporter appreciation content on our website.
• Maintain all donor and fundraising digital and hardcopy files, including utilizing Essie’s Salesforce instance.

Strategy Development & Board of Directors Coordination

• Participate in the development of fundraising strategy by providing reports, insights, and strategic thinking.
• Research viability of new fundraising tactics and strategies in preparation for development of multiyear fundraising including grassroots fundraising.
• Assist the Founder & Executive Director in coordinating the Board of Directors including scheduling and preparing materials for meetings, preparing quarterly fundraising updates, and supporting Board engagement in program, fundraising, and strategic planning.

Ideal Qualifications

• 5+ years of relevant fundraising experience including grant…