Senior Development Officer, Food Procurement
GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES
As Durham’s largest emergency food distribution hub, Feed the Need in Durham is responsible for the acquisition and distribution of over 2 million pounds of food to our member agencies and community partners annually.
The Senior Development Officer, Food Procurement (Officer) is a newly created position within Feed the Need. This integral role within our organization puts an exciting twist on traditional fundraising. With food insecurity growing at an expediential rate, Feed the Need is on a mission to build an innovative, efficient, and effective food recovery program.
With enthusiasm, energy and creativity the Officer will build a progressive and forward thinking department from the ground up with a keen vision for future growth. They will join the organization in the fight against food insecurity, developing standards, processes, policies and goals for food acquisition. Through their professionalism, and strong communication skills they will comfortably collaborate and negotiate with food donors across the supply chain, including producers, distributors, and retailers on behalf of Feed the Need.
SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES
Strategic Development
- In collaboration with the Chief Operating Officer, build and implement the departments strategic direction for food procurement, in line with the organizations overall strategic plan.
- Ensure compliance with fundraising best practices, including all ethical guidelines and principles outlined by the Canada Revenue Agency, Imagine Canada, Association of Fundraising Professionals, and Canadian Centre for Philanthropy.
- Ensure a seamless coordination of food procurements efforts with ongoing fundraising and communications initiatives.
- Ensure effective systems and procedures are in place, for accurate record keeping, report maintenance, monitoring and analyzing.
Procurement Planning & Reporting
- Identify and cultivate donors, developing a conversion and activation programs for each.
- Develop and execute a proactive lead generation strategy to secure new donations, diversifying the donor base through new industry segment growth.
- Develop understanding of target donor base and offer unique experiences to attract new donors.
- Collaborate with the fundraising team and other stakeholders to develop a donor recognition and stewardship initiative, manage the food donor aspect of the program, ensuring appropriate and timely acknowledgements.
- Develop prospect research profiles and presents and promotes business initiatives and opportunities to new audiences and partners, presentations, briefings and reports.
- Works closely with the leadership team to identify donation opportunities and food needs.
Donor Stewardship
- Represents Feed the Need in Durham as the face of the organization at food donor engagements within Durham and/or other areas as required.
- Recruit and retain diverse and committed groups and individual volunteer team members.
- Collaborate with fundraising team to understand and contribute to the campaign and social media schedule, developing corresponding donor information and activities, while providing website and social media content.
- Ensure donor acknowledgement and stewardship activities are implemented according to assigned timelines and recognition levels.
- Producing quarterly acknowledgement letters and ensure timely distribution. Cultivating donors by way of specialized and personalized correspondences, thank you letters and calls, procuring/creating signage, impact report listings, etc. with the goal of securing repeat/increased gifts. Liaising with other staff to perform tasks as necessary.
- Support donor retention and growth; achieving monthly, quarterly and annual targets for food acquisition.
- Accountable for ensuring that all food donor information and data is accurately captured, tracked and analyzed in the organizations database(s).
- Responsible for the research, identification and relationship building of new prospects across the supply chain, including producers, distributors and retailers to collect their perfectly imperfect and/or surplus of food.
All other duties as directed by the Chief Operating Officer.
INTERNAL/EXTERNAL RELATIONSHIPS
The Officer reports to the Chief Operating Officer. The Officer will work collaboratively with community and its stakeholders to develop and enhance relationships and partnerships while working towards meeting the departmental goals and targets. Given the level of community engagement, this role requires collaboration across all aspects of the organization. While external relationships will be built with government entities, media outlets, volunteers, donors and member agencies, the extent of the public reach is truly limitless.
KEY COMPETENCIES AND SKILLS
- A skilled fundraiser and relationship-focused, with success and great comfort engaging and a proven track record in building meaningful partnerships with a range of stakeholders, including donors, members, and external partners.
- Open to thinking ‘outside of the box’, with the ability to think quickly and creatively ‘in the moment’.
- Reliable as a leader, exhibiting good judgment, tact and discretion, when dealing with confidential or sensitive information.
- Superior organization skills and ability to multitask, self-directed with the ability to work both independently and as part of a team in a fast-paced environment.
- Sound problem-solving and project management skills, ability to assess situations to determine importance, urgency and risk, ability to think creatively to solve challenges in a timely manner and in the best interest of Feed the Need in Durham.
- Exemplary planning skills with the ability to identify strategies to move the organization forward, set goals, create, and implement action plans, and evaluate the process and results.
- Excellent interpersonal and presentation skills to effectively communicate with employees, and external contacts, including corporate donors, the media, and the general public.
- An understanding of effective web-based activities including digital campaigns and social media/marketing with keen ability to use social media outlets for fundraising and donor cultivation.
- Passionate about strategic collaboration and shared success – ability to set clear performance goals with the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances.
- Advanced computer skills with proficiency, intermediate to advanced level, in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint; experience and or eagerness to learn additional internal programs.
- Possess high degree of integrity, with demonstrated empathy and a passion for the mission
- Must possess a valid ‘G’ License and have access to a reliable vehicle.
- Ability to successfully pass a criminal record check for working within the vulnerable sector
WORKING CONDITIONS
Feed the Need in Durham values the contributions of their staff and treasures their ability to plan, work, laugh and grow together, as a team. This position is a full-time, salaried position at 37.5 hrs a week with daily on-site hours scheduled by management in accordance with operational requirements. The Senior Development Officer, Food Procurement works with other members of the team in an open concept office located at 371 Marwood Dr. in Oshawa. Work is performed in the office environment in conjunction with off-site visits and or meetings. It is understood that it may be necessary for the position at times, to work irregular hours/days to ensure that the objectives of the organization are being met.
How to apply
Please submit your cover letter and resume by email, PDF, or Word document addressed to Laurie Snyder, Chief Operating Officer and email it to HR@ftnd.ca
Subject line: Senior Development Officer, Food Procurement