Senior Associate, Prospecting & Donor Relations

Senior Associate, Prospecting & Donor Relations

New Orleans, LA

Hybrid

Anticipated deadline to submit application: March 26, 2025 at 12:00pm CST. Position may close early if application limit is met. Apply promptly for full consideration.

The Opportunity

The Senior Associate, Prospecting & Donor Relations is a key contributor to CEO’s fundraising efforts, driving the identification, qualification, cultivation, and stewardship of prospective foundation, corporate, and individual donors. This role offers an exciting opportunity to leverage creativity in engaging individual donors/funders in support of CEO’s mission. By strengthening CEO’s donor pipeline and stewardship efforts, the Senior Associate plays a crucial role in ensuring the long-term sustainability of CEO’s revenue and funding strategy. 

Reporting to the National Development Specialist, the Senior Associate collaborates closely with the Director of Advancement and Major Gifts, Regional Development Managers, and other internal stakeholders to conduct prospect research, generate detailed donor profiles, and prepare briefings and reports to enhance external funder and donor relationships. Using industry best practices from professional organizations such as AFP, GPA, and AASP, they will lead acknowledgment, recognition, and stewardship efforts, manage a small portfolio of annual fund donors, and analyze key donor indicators, including affiliations, wealth data, and philanthropic history. Additionally, the Senior Associate will ensure the integrity and organization of prospecting data within Salesforce and Monday.com.

A highly organized and motivated professional, the Senior Associate will play a vital role in attracting and retaining donor resources to support CEO’s mission. They will embrace CEO’s values and results-driven culture, effectively managing multiple deadline-driven projects while collaborating across departments to advance CEO’s work in reentry and workforce development.

As part of our mission, we strongly encourage individuals who have lived experience of incarceration or involvement in the justice system to apply for this role.

Who We Are

The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) provides employment services to people recently released from incarceration. Across the United States, 8,000-9,000 people participate in CEO each year, transitioning to employment that supports themselves, their families, and their communities.

What began as a demonstration project of the Vera Institute of Justice in the 1970s to address employment barriers facing the formerly incarcerated following release in New York City has grown into the leading reentry employment organization in the country, where over 30,000 formerly incarcerated individuals have secured full-time employment since 1996.

Who You Are

Education and Experience 

• You have at least 3-5 years of related fundraising, business development, philanthropy or sales experience with a proven track record of achieving goals. 
• You have donor and funder research experience  using both public search engines and paid sources such as Foundation Directory Online, iWave, etc. required
• You are fluency in use of Microsoft Office suite and Google Workspace
• You have proficiency using data and/or donor management platforms such as Salesforce
• You have fundraising-related professional certifications encouraged (such as CFRE, GPC, APRA courses, etc.)

Competencies

You have strong time management, organizational, and follow-up skills

• You have the ability to evaluate and verify the accuracy of information and sources
• You demonstrate the ability to synthesize large volumes of information and present findings & recommendations to stakeholders at all levels

You have excellent written and oral communication skills with the ability to present complex information to diverse audiences

• You have the ability to work autonomously to produce materials on deadline, while often managing multiple concurrent deadlines
• You have the ability to balance/execute on feedback from a variety of collaborators
• You have meticulous attention to detail and the ability to prioritize work in a fast-paced environment

You have the willingness to learn, ability to adapt, and agility to quickly shift priorities to meet the changing needs of our work

Skills to be learned on the job

• Delivering presentations on funder/donor cultivation recommendations to Senior/Executive team leadership
• Use of CEO-approved ethical AI tools such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Calendly, etc.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

Key responsibilities of the Senior Prospecting & Donor Relations Associate include but are not limited to:

Prospect Research & Engagement

• Researches funding prospects with alignment to CEO’s mission and impact
• Identifies new prospective donors using a range of resources and strategies, making action items and moves management assignments (using the Monday.com platform) with manager approval
• Synthesizes funder/donor information into insightful, comprehensive, and accurate research profiles to drive cultivation and solicitation strategies
• Produces fundraising and market landscape analyses, stays up-to-date and disseminates resources about donor trends, and analyzes patterns of giving and characteristics of the current donor pool
• Drafts narrative content for select proposals/concept papers as assigned by the National Development Specialist

Donor Stewardship

• Ensures streamlined donor engagement by managing the operations of the gift acknowledgment process, including drafting and mailing of donor acknowledgment letters, donor reports, tribute packets, pledge reminders, and other periodic donor-centric reporting
• Analyze the existing donor populations to identify individuals with greater giving capacity and communicate that evidence/make recommendations for engagement
• Support specific fundraising campaigns (including but not limited to Giving Tuesday and the End of Year giving campaign)
• Support the Fund Development team on special projects as assigned

Administrative Tasks 

• Leads the review and processing of daily gifts (coordinate with Finance to identify funding sources, create Payment records in Salesforce, and send written acknowledgements to funders/donors)
• Ensures accuracy and completeness of records in Salesforce, Monday.com, and Classy platforms, including tracking of appeals, contact information, and relationship history
• Responds to donor/funder inquires

Compensation and Benefits  

The salary range for this position is $57,600-$64,000/annually. CEO's compensation philosophy considers a variety of factors including experience, internal equity, and the labor market associated with the city in which the position is located. The labor markets associated with the cities in which CEO is based are variable, and the salary range included here reflects this. Our salary offer will fall within this range and will be reflective of the labor market of the city in which the position is based, as well the other factors named above. 

We recognize that salary is a part of the overall compensation package and also provide a comprehensive benefits package, including medical and dental coverage, as well as professional development opportunities to our staff.

We also offer paid parental leave, participation in a retirement plan, sick and vacation leave, paid holidays and more. We are a workplace that promotes continual learning and teamwork, offering lunch and learns, team outings, holiday gatherings and more for our staff.

More About Us

Center for Employment Opportunities believes that everyone deserves the chance to shape a stronger future for themselves, their families, and their communities. People who are justice involved are highly encouraged to apply for vacant positions at all levels. CEO is committed to the CROWN Act, and creating an open space where our employees can present as their true authentic selves. 

All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without unlawful discrimination based on race, color, creed, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, military status, prior record of arrest or conviction, citizenship status, current employment status, caregiver status, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local law. We value diverse experiences, including with regard to educational background and justice system contact.

Please note that due to the volume of resumes received, we are unable to contact each applicant regarding the status of each position or reply to candidates' inquiries via phone or email.

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