Director of Development Operations

Mar 26

Anticipated Start Date: ASAP

Description

Accelerate Change is seeking an experienced Director of Development Operations to lead and execute on the strategic vision for the Development Operations Department, overseeing all aspects of grant management and managing and optimizing donor data and operational responsibilities. This role supports high-level fundraising and external funder communications, provides leadership to the Development Operations Department team and collaborates cross-functionally, and ensures all grant activities are compliant with rigorous audits.

Responsibilities

Lead the strategic vision for the Development Operations Department, ensuring alignment with organizational goals, strategy, and priorities. Oversee all aspects of grant management, including grant writing, proposal development, and grant reporting for Accelerate and incubated projects.
Oversee and optimize all development operations, including processing donations, tracking data in Salesforce, donor and donation reporting, acknowledgment letters, fulfillment of stakeholder information requests, and other key operational responsibilities.
Lead and execute external funder communications strategies, including email campaigns, LinkedIn presence, funder events, webinars, and production of annual reports and other donor-facing materials and communications activities. Support fundraising solicitation and funder relationship management led by the Executive Director and President alongside the Head of Partnerships.
Ensure that every donor and prospect has an elevated and meaningful stewardship experience, overseeing and directly answering questions, addressing issues, and providing information to current and prospective funders. Provide leadership, coaching, and performance management to the Development Operations Department team to foster professional growth and accountability.
Collaborate cross-functionally with program and finance teams to ensure all grant activities are compliant with approved budgets and project objectives.
Provide regular updates to leadership on grant performance, compliance issues, and opportunities for improvement to the President and Executive Director as needed. Conduct quarterly audits of grant compliance and expenditures, ensuring strict adherence to funder guidelines and organizational policies.
Systematically review and audit grant agreement terms to ensure organizational adherence and proactively identify and flag potential risks or discrepancies. Oversee the review and validation of all grant-related data entries to maintain data accuracy and support informed decision-making.
As part of the Leadership Team, help shape the strategy, programs/activities, and culture for Accelerate Change. TBD. As part of a rapidly growing organization, you’ll need to embrace change and that your responsibilities will shift over time. Pitching in to help with the needs of your department and the overall Central Team is an important part of your role.
Help advance our goal of becoming an anti-racist organization.
Within your role, apply equitable work practices, challenge white supremacy, and help make our programs more inclusive. Center our understanding that multiple systems of oppression intersect with racism and be an active part of our values work. Serve as a resource to our networks of partners.
Help amplify partner successes, make connections between partners and facilitate learning sharing, and offer your expertise to partners in our networks wherever it makes sense.
Take an entrepreneurial approach to their work and learning new skills. In our fast-paced, unstructured environment, we love it when staff first try to figure things out on their own and then ask for help if they’re stuck. Seek out opportunities to deepen their skills on current/emerging platforms and with lean startup methodology.
We take an individualized approach to growth where staff have the chance to explore and propose development opportunities that align with their interests and the team’s priorities.

Requirements

Commitment to social change. Accelerate Change is a mission-driven workplace focused on civic engagement with BIPOC and low-income communities. You have a demonstrated commitment to this work and you’d like to be part of a team of people who do, too.
5+ years experience with key responsibilities: We’re looking for someone who has at least 5 years of experience in a director-level role overseeing a development team or development operations department for a medium-sized (or larger) nonprofit organization.
This includes: Demonstrated experience working with the Salesforce platform, with a strong focus on the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). Strong understanding of nonprofit financial compliance and IRS regulations as related to development operations. Excellent writing skills, attention to detail, and ability to follow instructions.

The ideal candidate will be an adaptable self-starter and high performer who can meet outcomes and deadlines with accuracy, efficiency, and top-tier quality. People management skills that involve training and supporting a small team of managers and their development operations support contractors.

A solutions-oriented approach to problem-solving with the ability to collaborate across key departments and stakeholders as necessary and a willingness to think outside the box to find solutions to streamline processes within the department.

Salary Range and Employee Benefits

$90,000-$104,000

How to Apply for this Job

Apply Now

About the Organization

Accelerate Change is a nonprofit (c3/c4) media lab dedicated to catalyzing new scalable and sustainable digital media models for citizen engagement. We are particularly focused on developing new digital media models that engage communities of color and low-income communities, as well as models that bring together diverse citizens across class and race. We focus on media ventures that are driving social change through news, education, and action.

Accelerate Change uses lean startup methodologies and other business strategies to help start-up nonprofit ventures and established organizations scale their digital media relationships and revenue. Here’s some more information on those strategies:

Functional Organizing

Our model is based on the idea that membership organizations can experience explosive, financially sustainable growth when they provide a robust set of benefits and services that have an outstanding value to the people they seek to organize (“functional organizing”). Learn more about our model for scalable citizen organizing in the article, “The Secret of Scale” from the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Lean startup methodologies

Our approach is centered on identifying challenges and unmet needs in people’s lives. We use lean startup methodologies to rigorously test ideas for services and benefits that could help address those pain points and provide real value in people’s everyday lives. Read more about our approach to experimentation in the article, “The Promise of Lean Experimentation” from the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Accelerate Change supports some of the fastest growing nonprofit digital media ventures in the country, with a particular focus on communities of color. We also work with a select group of established nonprofit organizations to experiment with new digital media initiatives.

Our partners include:

PushBlack, the nation’s largest nonprofit media platform for Black people, reaches over 8 million Black Americans each month with Black news, history, and culture stories.

Noticias Para Inmigrantes, a nonprofit news and education program for immigrants, provides bi-lingual news and information that empowers 1 million immigrants to navigate life in America. Pulso, a national nonprofit media organization focused on Latinx communities, reaches over 2 million Latinx Americans each month with culturally relevant news and information.

ParentsTogether, a national, parent-led nonprofit media organization, helps over 2 million subscribers stay up to date on the issues affecting their families. La Alianza, a digital news service for immigrants and domestic workers created by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, provides Spanish-language stories to hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

Accelerate Change’s team of 14 central staff and 29 venture staff bring a diverse mix of tech, business, organizing, and media backgrounds that contribute to identifying solutions and developing new media and citizen engagement models. Accelerate Change is an equal opportunity employer. We believe that people of color, people from working class backgrounds, women, and LGBTQIA+ people must be centered in the work we do. Hence, we strongly encourage applications from people with these identities or who are members of other marginalized communities.

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