Basic Function

The Office of Annual Giving seeks a sophisticated and experienced marketing and communications professional with a background in direct mail, email, and social media marketing. This position will manage all messaging and marketing projects for Annual Giving, using applied analytics, data analysis, and complex segmentation to advance CMC’s high alumni participation rates in giving as the College embarks on the 75th Anniversary year and public phase of a comprehensive fundraising campaign.

The three primary responsibilities of the position will be to proactively create and manage segmented mass and targeted solicitations, analyze and report on annual giving fundraising efforts, and actively solicit alumni and parents for donations to the College. The successful candidate will have robust writing and communications skills, strong attention to detail, proven ability to manage projects/programs from strategy and creation through successful implementation, and analyze and recommend data-driven marketing decisions from complex data sets.

Description of Duties and Responsibilities

Essential Functions: 

The Assistant/Associate Director will play a pivotal role in delivering highly personalized communications to CMC alumni, parents, and friends, with responsibility for more than 4,000 donors and $1M in revenue annually.  Reporting to the Director of Annual Giving, the Assistant/Associate Director works both independently and collaboratively to perform the following essential duties and responsibilities:

• Direct the project management of multi-channel Annual Giving communications, including overall planning, concept creation, design, and messaging, using data to inform an integrated marketing plan to meet donor acquisition, reactivation, recurring giving, and retention goals in Annual Giving. Ensure on-time delivery of projects, including accuracy of print and electronic mailing lists.

• Develop and manipulate communications marketing strategy connecting print, electronic, and social media messages with broader Advancement and College goals.

• Write communications representing multiple voices of alumni, parents, students, staff – including leadership voices – faculty, and the Office of Annual Giving.

• Create customized messaging and mail schedules that best fit all targeted segments, and take ownership of the full marketing calendar within Annual Giving.

• Serve as the key relationship manager with strategic marketing partners and vendors such as mail houses, printers, graphic designers, photographers, videographers, web designers.

• Manage significant budget for direct mail and communications channels.

• Analyze communication fundraising effectiveness to diagnose weaknesses and highlight scalable success. Initiate A/B testing and similar marketing tactics to improve donor conversion and develop donor and gift forecasting models.

• Build reports and visual presentations appropriate for both internal use and volunteer groups, identifying growth areas for both annual and major giving.

• Evaluate data mining capabilities to improve prospect pipeline strategy.

• Solicit alumni and parents for unrestricted gifts to the College.

• Update website content and streamline ease of online donating.

• Represent the Office of Annual Giving at events locally, including ImpactCMC (volunteer weekend), Parents Weekend, Alumni Weekend, Commencement, and Res Publica Society events.

• Participate in campus-wide events; related duties as assigned.

• Promote a team atmosphere where creativity, fun, excitement, and a high level of motivation and extraordinary achievement are valued.

Regular attendance is considered an essential job function; the inability to meet attendance requirements may preclude the employee from retaining employment.

The successful candidate will also be able to perform the following essential functions:

• Take and follow directions.

• Work cooperatively with others.

• Receive and respond appropriately to constructive criticism.

• Display a positive attitude.

• Balance multiple tasks and priorities.

• Performs other essential duties and tasks specific to the position.

Qualification Standards

Education: B.A. or B.S. degree required (undergraduate degree from a selective liberal arts institution preferred).

Experience: A minimum of four years of project management, data analysis, data visualization, fundraising, and/or mass-communications writing, with increasing responsibility over time, is required, with at least two of those years in fundraising. Prior management experience is preferred.

Licenses: A valid driver’s license or equivalent means of reliable transportation to off-site meetings and events is required.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: Individual must possess knowledge, skills, and ability to be able to successfully perform the essential functions of the position, or be able to explain or demonstrate how the essential functions will be performed, with or without reasonable accommodation, using some other combination of knowledge skills and abilities.

• Demonstrated experience in project management required. PMP certification preferred.

• Statistics background required, advanced use of data analysis or visualization software preferred.

• Strong writing skills required. Experience with copy-editing and content creation experience preferred.

• Knowledge of Adobe suite, Canva, or other graphic design software preferred.

• Exceptional organizational skills, strong follow-through, and an ability to work well with others required. Must be highly detail-oriented.

• Interpersonal skills and an ability to interface professionally with alumni – including trustees and board members — parents, administration, faculty, and students are required. Must have the poise and ability to work effectively with high-level donors, the academic community, and colleagues in a cooperative environment.

• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision required.

• Knowledge of selective, private higher education landscape preferred.

• Handle all activities and highly confidential information with patience, discretion, courtesy, tact, and exceptional judgment while working with people from a wide variety of backgrounds required.

• Knowledge of advanced features of Microsoft Offices suite of products, especially Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and the ability to learn and apply new computing software applications required.

• Familiarity with project management tools, such as Basecamp, is required.

• Expertise with Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge software and the Blackbaud Net Community, or experience with similar relational database programs and mass-communication software, is preferred. Experience querying databases preferred.

• Familiarity with HTML/CSS is preferred.

• Familiarity with student calling programs is preferred.

• Ability to motivate others to exceed expectations. Strong customer service background preferred.

• Must be willing to work flexible hours, including occasional weekends.

Hours: The regular hours for this are Monday-Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Hours may vary due to the needs of the College or department and will include evenings and weekend work. This position requires a minimum of 40 hours per week.