Lead, Prospect Research (Remote)

The Lead, Prospect Research is responsible for major gifts prospect & research, database management, and all pipeline development including moves management, financial reporting and analysis, and gift processing. This individual will ensure that all WVC Philanthropy market-facing teams are equipped with robust pipelines of well-researched Major Gifts, Corporate and Foundations prospects.
Additionally, the Lead, Prospect Research will provide donor management support for Middle Donors and Church Engagement. Together with the Product Manager, Campaign and Director, Philanthropy Engagement, they will build and maintain a strong moves management system that continuously moves donors through the stages of the donor cycle while continuously conducting internal and external research to identify and allocate new HNW individuals, corporations, foundations and planned giving prospects to the Philanthropy teams’ pipelines.  They will also provide strategic direction on the structure of CRM ensuring they are meeting the unique needs of all Philanthropy teams to create a best-practice customer service model.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Prospect, Research & Pipeline Development

• Ensure Philanthropy Engagement advisor pipelines and portfolios are robust, contain strong viable prospects and are supported by a continual flow of newly identified and effectively rated prospective donors.
• Together with the Director of Philanthropy Engagement, design, develop and implement policies, procedures and systems for effective moves management of donor opportunities including moving donors between teams (e.g. routine cross-functional pipeline meetings).
• Ensure strong prospect identification systems and tools are in place and utilized effectively including relationship mapping and work collaboratively with our Data Analytics & Insights team for predictive models.
• Maintain the research intake system and ensure research deliverables are provided in a timely manner to fundraising teams to support fundraising & engagement strategies.

Qualifications required:

• Post-secondary education in a relevant field, such as fundraising, analytics or information systems.
• Minimum 5-8 years of professional experience in a fundraising environment with a heavy focus on prospect research, database management, information systems/services and fundraising operations.
• Extensive knowledge of and experience with prospect research tools and prospect rating systems such as iWave, Grant Connect, Target Analytics.
• Experience supporting a major capital campaign.
• Experience overseeing Prospect Research and moves management processes.
• Strong technology skills and computer literacy is essential, including knowledge of Microsoft CRM, Raiser’s Edge or other fundraising or CRM systems.
• Experience with Agile methodologies preferred (e.g. scrum, Kanban, Retrospectives etc.)
• Advanced computer skills and proficiency in organizational financial systems and relationship management and opportunity tracking systems; good grasp of data architecture for large enterprise; Dynamics 365 experience a plus.
• Previous fundraising experience in the Philanthropic sector is an asset.
• A customer services approach and ability to demonstrate flexibility and problem-solving skills to resolve situations in a professional and calm manner.
• Extremely strong relational and teamwork skills with ability to contribute to a dynamic team in a service-oriented, fast-paced environment, working proactively, collegially, and constructively with other managers, both within the team and across the organization, to foster a results-oriented, collaborative environment.
• Ability to be adaptive and work in a complex and ever-changing environment.
• Results and goal-focused with an ability to anticipate and identify needs of internal and external clients and proactively and creatively explore alternate approaches, identify problems, and seek solutions.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and exercise considerable judgment, tact, and discretion while working with sensitive and confidential information.