Reporting directly to the assistant director, donor relations, the staff associate, donor relations, is an essential role helping to build donor trust through consistent and meaningful communications from the university. The staff associate assists with coordinating and tracking of quarterly stewardship with school/unit departmental fund administrators and provides administrative support for the donor relations and events area. The staff associate is responsible for partnering with key stakeholders, advancement communications and gift offers to write, and project manages personalized and meaningful stewardship communications that update donors on the impact of their philanthropy and will assist with developing and implementing strategies for effective and timely acknowledgment, recognition, and stewardship of donors.

The Advancement Team’s core purpose is to provide meaningful engagement to secure resources in support of the university’s mission. Our team members are driven by our desire to match donor passion with university priorities. We value innovation and positivity in a supportive and collaborative environment. We provide strategic and consistent professional development to enhance each team members’ personal growth. This position offers the right individual an exciting opportunity to join a dynamic and consistently record-breaking advancement team. As we embark on the largest campaign in Massachusetts state university history, we are looking for talented team members who are passionate about providing equal access to high quality education.  

1. Create, distribute, and coordinate stewardship communications, including gift and pledge acknowledgment letters, new donor welcome communications, customized presidential or vice president communications, and congratulatory/condolence notes and gifts.
2. Oversees personalized major gift donor stewardship to illustrate the impact of their philanthropy by writing, designing, and producing custom reports, along with other highly personalized, meaningful stewardship communications including narrative and financial updates, executive summaries, videos, and other custom gifts.
3. Assists advancement communication in writing and editing assignments which include donor testimonials, articles for publications, website content, broadcast emails, program remarks, and other advancement writing assignments.
4. Under the direction of the assistant director, donor relations, strategizes the best ways to steward major donors, giving societies, and affinity groups. Collaborate closely with leadership, gift officers, events team, and advancement services team to devise new ways of reaching these audiences with meaningful and regular communication.
5. Coordinate, generate, and follow-up on the Foundations' quarterly departmental gift reports for all university academic and administrative departments. Research, as needed, questions from individual departments pertaining to these reports which include gift and fund information.
6. Provide administrative support and oversight of key stewardship duties such as: Crosby Society letters, president's weekly pending action and gift report, notifying the president's office of alumnus with 100-year-old birthdays, prospect event follow-up.
7. Manage event related stewardship tasks such as distribution of photos to attendees.
8. Provides support in monitoring student staff, phone lines, voicemail, email, event registrations and staffs events when needed.
9. Take an active role in providing key information and resource guides for gift officers.
10. Works with university photographers and videographers on documentation of the campaign, donor impact, advancement events and stories as needed.
11. Maintain organization and sharing of files between server and database by tracking gift fund recipient statistics.
12. Support the mission, goals and objective of Salem State Advancement and serve on university committees as directed by the vice president and assistant vice president.
13. Assist in the supervision of student employees and provides leadership, direction, training and support of their work.
14. Demonstrates sensitivity to faculty, students and staff of varying racial, ethnic, religious, gender, cultural, disability, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
15. Demonstrates sensitivity to students with a diversity of learning styles.
16. Serves as a role model and mentor for students as appropriate.
17. Other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications:

1. One to three years of experience in customer relations or donor engagement, sales, customer retention, fundraising and/or loyalty programs or transferable retail sales role. Non-profit development or higher education experience is a plus
2. Previous project manager experience and strong organizational skills
3. Broad-based knowledge and skills related to all aspects of donor recognition, cultivation, and stewardship

Preferred Qualifications:

1. Bachelor’s degree
2. Proven ability to work in a fast-paced, deadline-driven, goal-oriented environment, simultaneously balancing diverse responsibilities
3. Demonstrated ability to lead projects and manage complex team projects
4. Ability to coordinate with multiple departments and work both collaboratively and independently
5. Excellent verbal and written communication skills. Demonstrated editorial experience and skills

Working Conditions:

This is a hybrid position with on-campus, in-person responsibilities which may require occasional work on evenings and weekends.

Office activities are performed in an environmentally controlled office setting subject to extended periods of sitting, keyboarding and interaction with computer equipment; occasional bending, reaching, lifting, pushing and pulling up to 5-10 pounds.

Salem State University complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified applicants and employees with disabilities. For accommodation information or requests please email eo-hr@salemstate.edu.

Special Instructions to Applicants:

Please apply online and attach resume and cover letter.

Employment is contingent upon a completed background and CORI check satisfactory to the university. 

This position is not eligible for H1B visa sponsorship.

EEO Statement:
Salem State University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Persons of color, women and persons with disabilities are strongly urged to apply.

Please Note: If there is no application deadline associated with a position, it may be removed at any time and additional applications will not be accepted.