Job Description
Bow Valley College is the largest and fastest growing Comprehensive Community College in Alberta. We have locations across southern Alberta helping 14,000 learners each year. Our mission is to contribute to the vitality of communities and strength of the economy through innovative adult education programs and services which equip students for successful living, lifelong learning, and employment in a global knowledge-based environment.
Bow Valley College is made up of employees who are committed to our learners´ success, as well as each other´s. Our staff and faculty consistently say it is the people who keep them at the College, the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our students, and the incredible support they receive from their co-workers and supervisors.
We are currently accepting applications for a Prospect and Pipeline Specialist in our Fund Development team.
Reporting to the Director, Fund Development & Alumni Engagement, this position is responsible for identifying, researching and analyzing prospects for leadership and major gift cultivation and solicitation. This role serves as the foundation of annual fundraising operations and directly contributes to the College’s fundraising success. The Prospect and Pipeline Specialist consults directly with Director, Fund Development & Alumni Engagement as well as with the frontline fundraising team to identify and qualify major donor prospects.
Areas of responsibility will include:
• Uses creative research techniques and provides high-level research on individuals, alumni, corporations, and foundations using a wide variety of biographical, organizational and financial sources, including online databases, Internet websites, library and government sources and other external repositories of public information to identify prospects.
• Analyzes and synthesizes accumulated information to assess financial capacity, philanthropic tendencies, giving propensity and linkages to Bow Valley College fundraising priorities.
• Evaluates research results to develop and implement further research strategies utilizing ethical intelligence-gathering techniques of the information profession.
• Identifies donor gift capacity through the analysis and clarification of complex information.
• Develops and maintains written reports, biographical profiles, providing basic analysis of trends and short and long range results.
• Composes donor profiles, event briefs and other reports using style, grammar and content appropriate to specific audiences.
• Extracts and communicates key information which directs cultivation and solicitation strategies.
• Maintains active awareness of the important news and events related to philanthropy.
• Conducts preliminary research on identified prospects and donors including biographical and philanthropic interest and code the information on the prospect record for use by development staff.
• Extracts relevant information from contact reports to create, code and updates records of engagement appropriately.
• Coordinates, implements and maintains pipeline management activities, including monitoring, and making recommendations to management on, portfolio sizes, stage distribution, moves management, fundraising plans, and prospect stagnation and sunsetting.
• Leads the development, management and fine-tuning of the overall pipeline/prospect management systems, and identifying, reporting on, and analyzing key metrics and performance indicators.
• Supports strategic partnership development by Identifying trends and partner needs, while maintaining a business development partnership pipeline.
• Performs intelligence gathering on prospects and targets in alignment with business development partnerships, tracking and entering all research efforts.
• Maintains up-to-date documentation on prospect and donor record, ensuring that it is comprehensive, current and user-friendly
• Develops, implements and coordinates systems and procedures to meet the pipeline and information needs of Development staff in preparation for contacting, cultivating and soliciting major gift prospects (individuals, corporations, foundations, other) for annual, major gift and campaign fundraising priorities.
• Keeps abreast of trends in the field of prospect research, emerging technologies, and available research tools.
• Proactively identifies opportunities to capture additional information in constituent database fields, as necessary.
• Prepares strategy for and secure key meetings with high-level internal and external meetings for the Development Team.
• Proactively identifies opportunities to capture additional prospect management information in database fields, as necessary.
• Handles information on prospects ethically, accurately and confidentially.
• Enters research, market, and prospect information to the College’s integrated database, and handles confidential prospect information in a sensitive, ethical manner.
• Supports the Director, Fund Development & Alumni Engagement and team members in the development and maintenance of effective partnerships with key stakeholders within the College, Fundraising and Development sectors.
• Examines facts and evidence related to donor contacts, identifies prospects and or issues for further escalation, and effectively summaries key information when passing donor contacts to appropriate team members
Oversight and Leadership
• Exercises overall supervisory discretion of the Market Research Officer.
• Based on operational needs of the team, has overall authority to assign/reassign work.
• Develops, gains approval for, recruits and hires staff to meet the changing needs.
• Responsible for overall supervision, evaluation, scheduling, performance management and motivation of staff to ensure optimal service is maintained;
o Performance appraisals on direct reports;
o Provides any required feedback on matters requiring coaching or discipline;
o Responsible for the recruitment and hiring of direct reports subject to the necessary approvals according to Bow Valley College delegated signing authority; evaluates candidates and make recommendations on candidates to be hired; writes and reviews job descriptions, recruitment action forms; reviews postings and interview scripts; shortlists candidates, participates in interview panels;
o Considers and approves vacation requests, professional development and overtime needs with consideration to budget parameters;
o Maintenance of absence reports, vacation and other absence approvals;
• Interprets and applies the terms of relevant collective agreements and represents management in responding to any grievances of employees within team.
• Establishes key objectives for staff – ensure these objectives are achieved as outlined to a high quality standard and comply with college/unit policy and procedure.
• Leads team meetings to ensure all team members understand their roles in specific projects/activities and how these activities align with the strategic direction of the unit, department, and College.
• Develops, maintains and instills in staff concepts and strategies for good customer service. Establishes, maintains and manages a customer service satisfaction model and culture within the unit.
• Reviews reports for accuracy prior to distribution to stakeholders.
• Identifies areas of opportunity within prospect research and proactively advises on issues that affect the College.
• Establishes priorities and strategic direction for the area, in collaboration with the Director.
Job Requirements
Minimum Qualifications
- Completion of a 2-year diploma program, preferably in Business Administration, Communications, or a related field is required for this position.
- Minimum of two years’ experience in a fundraising environment, preferably in prospect management, or equivalent amount of relevant experience in development, academic, non-profit or corporate environment.
- An equivalent combination of directly related education and experience may be considered
Preferred
- Completion of a University degree is considered an asset.
- Working knowledge of fundraising, donor relations and public relations concepts, principles, procedures and techniques.
- Demonstrated experience in prospect research, development, library research or information related field preferably in a higher education environment.
- Knowledge of the range of resources available to prospect researchers and the ability to apply those resources in an organized and purposeful manner.
- Demonstrated analytical skills to initiate and perform complex analyses and organize information to identify philanthropic patterns, tendencies, and relationships among individuals, corporations and foundations.
- Demonstrated ability to conceptualize and develop proactive prospecting methodologies to support organizational goals, including data mining, sophisticated constituent database queries, etc.
- Strong computer skills and demonstrated background in Internet-based research.
- Experience working with a relational database a necessity, as well as the Microsoft Office suite of products, including Excel.
- Ability to download and export information between systems.
- Excellent oral and interpersonal skills, including diplomacy required to function effectively among campus fundraisers, high level campus administrators, volunteers and other constituencies to bring large scale projects to completion.
- Ability to work in a team environment.
- Demonstrated ability to work independently, prioritize work, and independently manage multiple, diverse and competing priorities while meeting deadlines.
- Strong project management skills and problem-solving skills and demonstrated ability to work in a demanding environment.
- General fundraising skills, including proficiency at supporting and participating in prospect management and tracking processes and staying informed of trends in the field
This is a continuous, Exempt position.
Please note that all successful candidates will be required to provide government issued identification and proof of educational qualifications upon hire and may be required to provide an enhanced police information check.
Diversity and Inclusion Commitment
Bow Valley College is strongly committed to fostering diversity and inclusion within our community. We welcome applications from qualified candidates who would contribute to the further diversification of our employees including, but not limited to, visible minorities, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities and persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity.
Minimum Education Requirements: Diploma
Location: BVC CALGARY – CA (Primary)
Job Family; Fund Development
FTE Per Individual (%): 1.00
Closing Date: 4/17/2023
Employment Status: Continuous
Salary: commensurate with experience
