Director of Prospect Management & Research

Overview

The Director of Prospect Management & Research actively supports RAND Development's fundraising efforts by partnering with Development Officers to track movement through the donor cycle, analyze key fundraising metrics, and develop tools that make data visible and actionable. The position leads the implementation and maintenance of prospect management systems, oversees moves management and prospect strategy meetings, and ensures the accuracy and integrity of donor data.

The Director conducts advanced research to identify and evaluate prospects, prepares detailed donor profiles and reports, and contributes to the development of long-term philanthropic relationships. This role also provides leadership in prospect management policies, staff training, and the adoption of new technologies to enhance fundraising effectiveness.

Responsibilities

• Lead the implementation and maintenance of the prospect management system to identify, evaluate, categorize, and report on the progress of major gift prospects.

• Lead moves management and prospect strategy meetings.

• Conduct regular meetings with fundraisers and staff to discuss prospects and the state of portfolios, review activity metrics, and ensure recording of donor cycle stage progression.

• Proactively identify prospects and vet new donors by reviewing donor gift reports and news alerts; share relevant information with colleagues and update constituent records.

• Lead efforts to pipeline donors with additional capacity (e.g., small gift, high‑capacity referrals, annual giving, etc.).

• Conduct market, prospect, and donor research focused on the acquisition of new donors.

• Prepare detailed reports on individuals/prospects; may recommend strategies to segment donors.

• Compose individualized research reports, briefs, and other documents (profiles, biographies, project summaries) when advanced research methods are required.

• Oversee and conduct the comprehensive vetting process for prospective board members, including drafting detailed candidate profiles, evaluating philanthropic history and prior board service, conducting conflict‑of‑interest assessments, vetting donors to ensure alignment with organizational values, verifying financial capacity, and complying with donor due diligence best practices.

• Support and lead efforts to identify and cultivate relationships with donors and stakeholders before and after development‑focused events, including donor‑hosted programming, salons, workshops, regional meetings, RAND researcher and leadership‑attended programming and other engagement opportunities.

• Together with leadership and colleagues, develop and implement policies, procedures, processes, systems, and rating formulas relevant to prospect and development management and research.

• Act as RAND Development's lead regarding prospect tracking and prospect management policies and documentation.

• Train and onboard RAND Development Officers on best practices and systems.

• Train RAND Development Coordinators (and others as needed) to ensure that biographical (employment, address, email, and telephone updates) and donor information is accurate and recorded in the database in a timely, consistent, and reportable format.

• Manage a suite of prospect research tools and subscriptions; make recommendations when new technologies and tools emerge and annually evaluate ROI in existing subscriptions.

• Will work on other special projects as assigned.

Qualifications

• Proficiency and sophistication with computers, technology devices, software, and applications at a level appropriate for the position's duties; ability to learn and use new technologies, software, and applications at a level appropriate for the position's duties.

• Excellent project management skills.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with a keen ability to draft donor profiles that reflect strategic insight and foster meaningful donor relationships.

• Strong writing, editing, and proofreading skills.

• Proven success in following through with and completing projects, including multiple projects being worked on at the same time.

• Strong orientation toward taking initiative and ownership of…