About Teach For America
Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates of all academic majors who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in the effort to expand educational opportunity. Our mission is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity that exists along socioeconomic lines.
Since our founding in 1990, we have become the nation’s largest provider of teachers for low-income communities, and have been recognized for building a pipeline of leaders committed to educational equity and excellence. This year, approximately 5,000 corps members are teaching in 26 urban and rural areas across the country, collectively reaching approximately 440,000 students. At the same time, more than 12,000 alumni are working within education and from every field to effect fundamental change.
We are a high-growth, performance-driven organization, with over a $100+ million budget and 800+ staff. We operate in an entrepreneurial and fast-paced work environment, maintain focus on quantitative measures, and are committed to continuous improvement. While approximately 55 percent of our staff members are alumni of our program, fully half – from support staff to senior management – bring a range of outside experience and perspectives to the organization. Our staff is diverse in every respect, and we are committed to maximizing the diversity of our organization as we want to engage all those who can contribute to our effort and ensure our access to and participation in the circles of influence in our diverse society.
Fueled by a sense of urgency to do more, we have launched an ambitious plan to grow in scale while at the same time increasing our corps members’ short-term and long-term impact. By 2010, we aim to have some 7,500 corps members teaching in 33 regions and to foster the continued leadership of some 23,000 alumni. To support these goals we are working to grow our operating budget to over $150 million and the size of our staff to over 1,000.
Summary:
As part of a broader nationwide growth effort, the St. Louis region of Teach For America is in the midst of an ambitious expansion effort. The manager of individual giving will be instrumental in driving St. Louis’ efforts to raise $3.1 million this year and in growing the funding base to more than $4 million in the next few years, ensuring Teach For America’s expanded impact in St. Louis. The manager of individual giving will report directly to the development director.
The manager of individual giving is responsible for growing our individual giving campaign from $1.35 million to $1.6 million over the year. This includes external donor cultivation, managing all internal systems, increasing the retention rate of current donors, and inspiring our teachers to participate in meaningful ways.
Responsibilities:
Responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:
• Developing and launching new strategies to capture and engage high-net-worth individuals and secure major gifts
• Researching, prospecting, and cultivating donors through new strategies to engage local alumni, young professionals, and other individuals
• Increasing our individual giving revenues from the Sponsor A Teacher campaign (our fundraising campaign that matches individual donors to Teach For America teachers) from $850,000 to $1 million over the year.
• Strategically managing a donor portfolio, thereby building strong donor relationships in partnership with the executive director, increasing donor renewal and upgrade rates, and support the identification of what factors drive revenue growth
• Ensuring that donors have highly effective opportunities to engage with their sponsored teachers, planning and executing effective school visits for current and prospective sponsors, and facilitating the communication of 200 teachers with their teacher sponsors
• Planning receptions and events geared to cultivating potential donors. This includes management of all logistics, coordination of events hosts and speakers, and follow-up
• Improving and managing the operational systems required to support an individual giving strategy that requires a great deal of donor cultivation and stewardship
Education and Experience:
• Bachelors degree required
• Minimum 2-4 years experience preferred
• Record of achieving ambitious goals and creating effective systems to manage multiple projects
• Individual donor fundraising experience preferred, but not required
• Teach For America corps member experience preferred but not required
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities:
• Ability to speak compellingly about our organization, mission, and individual giving campaign to individuals and groups of individuals
• Good strategic/ critical thinking and goal orientation
• Strong relationship builder with keen understanding of what motivates others
• Customer service approach to donor management
• Ability to operate with purpose, urgency, and accuracy in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial, and deadline-driven environment
• Excellent verbal and written communicator
• Exceptional detail orientation and organization
• Knowledge of Raisers Edge, Excel, and PowerPoint preferred but not required
Compensation:
Salary for this position is competitive and depends on prior experience. In addition, a comprehensive benefits package is included.
Apply now at http://tbe.taleo.net/NA5/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=TEACHFORAMERICA&cws=1&rid=1647.
