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Form of work
SalarySummary
The Development Specialist provides administrative and project support to West Central Initiative’s development team. This includes gift processing and acknowledgements, data maintenance and reporting, and department workflow and outreach coordination. This position also helps our general operation run smoothly by managing conference space requests and ensuring our facility is properly maintained.
Responsibilities
Primary Responsibilities
The Development Specialist:
Maintains data in our customer relationship management system, including processing gifts and pledges, distributing tax acknowledgement and billing letters, maintaining all donor-related data, recording donor interactions and preferences, running related reports, and more.
Coordinates annual outreach plan to our 82 communities, nine counties, and White Earth Nation.
Helps to coordinate the development team’s processes and workflows.
Manages conference room use for internal and approved external groups, including room set up, technology assistance, and clean up.
Assists with fundraising campaigns, including annual, endowment, and special projects.
Assists with donor-focused presentations and outreach.
Participates in researching, identifying, and cultivating new donors.
Serves as the building superintendent to ensure the facility is properly maintained.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in English, marketing, communications or a related field and three years of professional fundraising experience.
Skills
To perform this job successfully, the Development Specialist should have the abilities and strong working knowledge of:
Project management practices, including the ability to organize work, set priorities, follow up on assignments, and meet deadlines.
Microsoft Office Suite: Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint.
Oral and written communication to collaborate, influence, and build relationships.
Competencies
To perform the job successfully, the Development Specialist should demonstrate the following competencies:
Project Management – Coordinates projects, communicates changes and progress, completes projects on time and budget.
Judgment – Demonstrates critical thinking based on in‐depth data gathering, corroborating information, considering others’ input, personal values, and ethics.
Oral Communication – Speaks clearly and persuasively in positive or negative situations, listens and gets clarification, responds well to questions, demonstrates group presentation skills, and participates in meetings.
Written Communication – Writes clearly and informatively, edits work for spelling and grammar, varies writing style to meet needs, presents numerical data effectively, able to read and interpret written information.
Technical Skills – Assesses own strengths and weaknesses, pursues training and development opportunities, strives to continuously build knowledge and skills, shares expertise with others.
Strategic thinking – Demonstrates ability to facilitate discussions and take actions to support and expand goals and mission.
Alignment with Core Values
The Development Specialist understands, supports, and executes WCI’s strategic plan and aligns work with the organization’s four core values:
Neighborliness arises out of a strong belief that our interconnectedness is crucial to our long-term viability. Town to town, county to county, organization to organization, and certainly person to person, the fabric of our region depends on cooperation, appreciation, openness, and generosity.
Generosity is a dimension of neighborliness, but it flies higher over the region because it speaks to a willingness to embrace a common good that can only be achieved through collective action, through everyone giving of their time, talent, and treasure.
Empowerment in our current context is directed both internally and externally. We encourage both our staff and our fellow citizens to be a part of bold action in our region, and to develop and use power to a good end.
Trend-testing is a dimension of that bold action. We learn from one another while we work together to solve problems. We will embrace risk and learn from our mistakes, always.
This position offers a flexible, potentially hybrid, schedule but requires daily on-site work at our headquarters in Fergus Falls.
This job description is not intended to be all-inclusive. The Development Specialist will also perform other related job duties as assigned by the Director of Development.
WCI reserves the right to revise or change job duties as the need arises. This job description does not constitute a written or implied contract of employment.
