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. This fall, we entered the third year of a five-year growth plan, with a goal of growing our corps to 200 by 2010, up from 150 in 2006-07. To enable this growth, we will grow our funding base to approximately $4.0 million annually, up from $ 2.2 million in 2007.
The development director will work with the executive director of Teach For America’s St. Louis regional office to develop a diverse and sustainable local funding base and to achieve the funding growth necessary to support the regional program. The development director will be instrumental in driving the St. Louis region’s efforts to raise $3.1 million in 2008 and in growing the funding base to $4.0 million in the next few years, ensuring Teach For America’s expanded impact in St. Louis. The development director will report directly to the executive director.
Teach For America seeks individuals of all ethnic and racial backgrounds to apply for the position.
Responsibilities:
Responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:
• Working closely with the executive director and the regional board of advisors to create the region’s development goals and strategy, ensuring that the region maximizes opportunities and significantly grows funding while ensuring long-term sustainability
• Regularly assessing progress to goals to ensure St. Louis is on track
• Strategically building and managing a donor portfolio, thereby building strong donor relationships in partnership with the executive director, increasing donor renewal and upgrade rates, and identifying what factors drive revenue growth
• Cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding a portfolio of donors including individuals, corporations, and foundations.
• Growing the local Sponsor A Teacher Campaign (our fundraising campaign that matches individual donors to Teach For America teachers), ensuring that funders are cultivated and stewarded effectively, and developing new strategies to identify and engage high-net-worth individuals
• Supporting the executive director in: developing the regional board; preparing for board meetings; corresponding with and managing board members
• Producing high-quality written donor communications that meet cultivation, solicitation and stewardship objectives for those donors, including letters of intent, proposals, follow-up correspondence, update reports, thank you letters, newsletters and materials for packets and events
• Managing all development operations with precision, including donor events; the Raiser’s Edge donor database; pledge and gift tracking, collection, processing, acknowledgement and reconciliation; school district invoicing; the finance and grant reporting relationship with the national office; and hard and soft copy files .
• Managing interns or temporary support and/or working with administrative staff on the regional team as necessary to assist with administrative tasks and team projects
Education and Experience:
• Bachelors degree required
• Minimum 4 years fund raising and development experience preferred
• Record of achieving ambitious goals and creating effective systems to manage multiple projects
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities:
• Excellent strategic thinking and goal orientation
• Strong relationship builder and keen understanding of what motivates others
• Ability to operate with purpose, urgency, and accuracy in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment
• Strong detail orientation and organization skills
• Excellent writer and communicator
• 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=1678.
