Assistant Director, Alumni Affairs & Annual Giving, Yale School of Nursing

Overview

Under the direction of the Associate Dean of Development and Alumni Affairs, the Assistant Director is responsible for supporting the development of a strong YSN alumni community and encourages financial engagement of alumnae/i and friends with YSN, especially through the YSN Alumnae/i Association (YSNAA) and Yale School of Nursing Annual Fund. The successful candidate must manage complex institutional relationships and processes, both internal to YSN and externally with the greater Yale community as well as coordinate the efforts of alumni volunteers, staff, faculty, and students. This position is vital to YSN’s development effort as it must expand and deepen the donor pool by increasing the number of annual donors and increasing their level of annual giving. The incumbent will be assessed in part on activity level related to the fund, including dollars raised, alumni participation, and the number of leadership annual fund gifts. The incumbent will also assist in the design and implement a compelling alumni relations plan with a significant emphasis on healthy involvement, volunteerism, and initiate and support alumni involvement of all types in addition to annual giving.

Required Skills and Abilities

1. Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
2. Outstanding interpersonal skills, necessary for working with donors, volunteers and colleagues, including tact, diplomacy, discretion, and the ability to maintain confidentiality inside and outside the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs.
3. Ability to understand the objectives of annual giving and the overall university fundraising priorities, and to integrate goals with those objectives.
4. Strong organizational skills, including attention to detail. Demonstrated ability to handle diverse, simultaneous tasks and attend to follow-through. Highly motivated and energetic; must possess initiative.
5. Demonstrated ability to work independently and as part of a team.
6. Outgoing personality and ability to initiate and enjoy direct communication with alumni; customer-service orientation.
7. Ability to know or quickly learn the tools related to tracking and communicating with alumni, e.g. Yale Message

Preferred education and experience

1. Professionalism, maturity, and an understanding of the often confidential nature of fundraising.
2. Demonstrated knowledge of Excel and Word; familiarity with fundraising/marketing databases.
3. Knowledge of Airtable and other programs used by AA&D at Yale.

Principal Responsibilities

1. Develops revenue and donor goals; develops and implements effective fundraising programs for each assigned class or constituency, including external personal visits, personalized written campaigns, phonathons, social media, direct mail, and email.
2. Recruits, trains, and manages a substantial group of alumni volunteers; creates communications to large number of volunteers; supervises mass mailings to volunteers; informs volunteers of updated information and deadlines; evaluates individual donor and volunteer needs and provides other personal support. Has the authority to represent the University to alumni donors and volunteers.
3. Advises, educates, and solicits potential alumni donors through external face-to-face meetings, phone contacts, and written communications.
4. Monitors, on a weekly basis, annual giving solicitation strategies as well as participation and dollar goals for all supported classes. Identifies opportunities/needs to adjust strategies in order to reach fund raising goals. Implements new and modified strategies as needed.
5. Continually reviews alumni donor profiles to identify potential top annual donors and determines individual solicitation strategies.
6. Develops, fosters and maintains positive alumni relations to keep alumni engaged and disposed to give back to the University.
7. Coordinates special annual programs with a targeted focus.
8. Plans and attends meetings and events on and off campus.
9. May perform other duties as assigned.

Required Education and Experience

Bachelor's Degree in a related field and two years of direct fundraising, marketing, communications or volunteer management experience or an equivalent combination of education and experience.