Development Manager
Job Description
Wilderness Torah promotes healing, belonging, and resilience.
We awaken and celebrate earth-based Jewish traditions through inclusive
and intergenerational village-building.
Start date: April 1, 2024
Location: Hybrid, with strong preference in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area
FTE: 50% FTE with opportunity to increase to 100% FTE in 2025
Compensation: $65,000-$75,000 (@ 100% FTE), plus benefits
General Responsibilities
Are you a strategic, systematic, people-person interested in culture change and transformative experiences? Wilderness Torah, a leader in the earth-based Jewish renaissance, is hiring a Development Manager to propel its fundraising to new heights. Join an inclusive, highly collaborative team in building organizational capacity to deepen impact around the world.
As a critical member of Wilderness Torah, this person will manage the overall planning, tracking, and success of the organization’s development efforts, which includes securing funds through grants, individuals, events, and other fundraising initiatives.
This half-time position will become full-time in 2025, as it evolves within Wilderness Torah’s innovative shared leadership model.
Strategy and Planning
- In consultation with the fundraising team, develop annual and quarterly fundraising strategy, plan, and schedule for the year.
- Manage strategy and timelines for all donor and foundation communications and outreach, in consultation with staff.
- Identify, track, and manage development opportunities, including in-person and digital fundraising campaigns, grants, and other development efforts.
- Create a monthly fundraising update to share with staff and board.
Donor Identification and Outreach
- Research and identify funding prospects. Manage outreach to new and existing fundraising prospects, including community-, mid-, and major-level donors, in coordination with fundraising staff.
- Determine communication strategy for prospects, which includes emails, digital content, in-person meetings, remote meetings.
- Use fundraising data to identify new potential donors, inform communication strategies and to maximize results.
- Support the online donation platform in coordination with fundraising admin staff.
Donor Cultivation and Support
- Community-Level Giving
- Conduct digital campaigns
- Design campaign, consult on messaging as needed with staff
- Write and send emails
- Write and send thank you letters
- Conduct donor campaigns at festivals and events
- Coordinate with staff on campaign support
- Mid-Level Giving
- Create and execute a plan to cultivate these donors
- Create and send regular updates to these donors
- Coordinate with staff to communicate with donors
- Major Donor Stewardship
- Identify funding prospects via online databases to make recommendations for cultivation strategy.
- Schedule donor meetings throughout the year.
- Maintain regular contact with donors throughout the year.
- Create and send quarterly updates.
- Manage fundraising staff to meet with funders and track those communications.
Foundations and Grants
- Manage scoping and budgeting processes for grants and other proposals; manage timeline, calendar, and deadlines.
- Manage proposal process, manage timelines, and oversee grant reports.
- Manage contributions of other Wilderness Torah staff to proposal and report preparation processes.
- Ensure contact with key program officers at foundations.
- Maintain accurate proposal and report records in Salesforce and Google drive.
About You
You are a leader and a team player who loves to collaborate. You have experience managing fundraising efforts for an organization, including successful implementation and coordination of multiple campaigns. You’re ready to create innovative fundraising strategies to achieve fundraising goals. And you feel passionate about earth-based Judaism, desire to work in a mission-driven, non-profit organization, and possess the experiences and skills listed below.
Skills Needed
- Super organized
- Self-starter, excited to map out the fundraising puzzle and move it forward
- Great communication skills; able to coordinate with internal and external stakeholders to support fundraising success
- Experienced marketing/fundraising/grant writer
- Savvy with analyzing data and recommending data-informed decisions and strategies
- Multiple years of experience on a fundraising team
- Creative, excited to think of new angles for campaigns
- Excited to grow into a leadership role at Wilderness Torah (opportunity to move into Fundraising Director role in 2025)
Location
Wilderness Torah prefers the candidate to live in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, home of Wilderness Torah’s community and location of a majority of its programs. Candidate will work from a remote office and be able to attend in-person meetings regularly. Wilderness Torah does not have a physical office.
Compensation & Benefits
Throughout the hiring process we will seek to understand your specific skills, experience, and abilities as they will fit into our team. The offer range for this position is $65,000-$75,000 (at 100% FTE) annually commensurate with experience. The position is part-time in 2024, moving to full-time in 2025.
Wilderness Torah offers an excellent benefits package, including:
- Medical and dental benefits
- Retirement plan with a SIMPLE IRA with matching
- Four-day flexible workweek for 100% FTE employees (prorated for part-time staff)
- Ten U.S. holidays and Jewish holidays off (that follow the Shabbat rules of no work)
- 3 weeks paid vacation (increasing with time), 10 sick days, and parental leave
- 13 weeks of sabbatical leave after six (6) years of service
- Free attendance at Wilderness Torah community programs, 25% discount on youth programs
- Funding for professional development opportunities
How to Apply
Email the following materials to [email protected]. Include “Development Manager Application” in the subject line.
- Resume/CV
- Cover letter, including responses to the following:
- Why are you interested in this position and what makes you a good match?
- How would you describe your leadership style?
- How have you led fundraising efforts in the past? Provide at least two examples.
- What challenges do you anticipate in this role and how would you overcome them?
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the position is filled.
Wilderness Torah believes that personnel diversity is an organizational strength, and recognizes and values the intersecting identities that staff members bring to our organization. People of color are strongly encouraged to apply. Wilderness Torah is committed to providing equal employment consideration without discrimination on the basis of race, gender, ability, religion, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, or any other protected status.
Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity
Wilderness Torah holds a vision of liberation for all peoples and of building spaces where people from all backgrounds feel a sense of safety, belonging, and home. We create spaces that affirm the plurality of Jewish identities and work towards challenging systems of oppression and racism. Committed to the Jewish value of Tikkum Olam (repairing the world), we hold this work close to our heart in our holiday programs, youth programs, and educational trainings. While we have more work to do to advance diversity and inclusion, we are committed to creating Jewish spaces that celebrate diversity in race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and embodiment.
We value the unique perspectives that people from traditionally marginalized communities would bring with regards to this role of community leadership. Recognizing that prevailing systems of oppression have made it more difficult for people of historically marginalized identities to have access to positions of power and decision making, we strongly encourage applications and resumes from people of the global majority/Jews of Color, women and femme identified folx, Queer and non-binary individuals, and differently abled individuals.