Associate Director/Director, Client Services

About the role

The Associate Director/Director, Client Services serves as a leader in the nonprofit community, inspiring and supporting nonprofits to realize their full fundraising potential. About 80% of the Associate Director/Director’s time is spent supporting a portfolio of clients, in partnership with other Aperio team members. About 20% of time is spent on business development, serving as a thought leader in the community and proactively building relationships with a portfolio of prospective clients, referral sources, and other nonprofit leaders and fundraisers.

Client services responsibilities (80%)

The Associate Director/Director, Client Services provides thought partnership and hands-on support to a portfolio of nonprofit clients, in collaboration with other members of the Aperio team. In every project, the Associate Director/Director will position clients for sustainable revenue growth and fulfill client objectives. To that end, the Associate Director/Director will:

  • Adopt a client-centric approach

  • Continually seek to understand each client’s values, objectives, and expectations

  • Leverage the Aperio approach of results-orientation, creativity, simplicity, and authenticity to create value for clients

  • Cast a bold vision for each client’s fundraising potential, drawing attention to the full value of the client’s assets—mission impact, future vision, team strength, volunteer community, database potential, etc.

  • Partner with clients to develop and articulate their strategy for realizing their fundraising potential

  • Serve as a thought leader and subject-matter expert on the Aperio roadmap for revenue growth

  • Translate strategies into concrete, actionable plans

  • Convert plans into detailed project plans with clearly stated objectives, deliverables, timelines, stakeholders, and dependencies

  • Project-manage the implementation of project plans, combining client-centric leadership with hands-on support to achieve objectives and complete deliverables in the expected timeframe

  • Complete substantive portions of projects for clients to lessen the burden on staff

  • Partner with the staff to build internal capacity for efficient and effective fundraising

  • Seamlessly blend into the culture and workstyle of the client, building trust and working partnerships with a variety of stakeholders

  • Use all available Aperio resources—expertise, experience, templates, tools, etc.—to seamlessly and efficiently advance project plans

  • Contribute resources to the Aperio library through client work

  • Contribute to Aperio’s efforts to fight racism and discrimination through client services

  • Leverage the time, expertise, and experience of Aperio’s Expert Network to increase value for clients and accelerate service delivery

  • Communicate progress against project plans to clients on a weekly basis

  • Communicate results achieved to clients on a monthly basis

Direct project support varies by client. It can include, but is not limited to:

  • Conducting assessments

  • Producing reports summarizing assessment findings, recommendations, and strategies

  • Interpreting data analyses

  • Creating major gift, foundation, and corporate portfolios

  • Supporting clean-up and SOP-development for databases and operational processes

  • Creating governance models, dashboards, and trainings to implement/enhance metrics management

  • Conducting moves management strategy sessions

  • Preparing plans and materials for donor calls, meetings, and solicitations

  • Creating fundraising toolkits

  • Engaging leadership and boards in philanthropy

  • Conducting qualification outreach to donors (emails, phone calls, meetings, etc.) for ad hoc donor lists or a defined qualification portfolio

  • Developing and writing collateral

  • Developing and writing custom proposals and stewardship reports

  • Facilitating workshops

  • Providing 1:1 coaching

Business development responsibilities (20%)

The Associate Director/Director, Client Services serves as an ambassador for Aperio in the community to grow Aperio’s client portfolio and support nonprofits broadly in their efforts to thrive. The Associate Director/Director builds and engages a targeted portfolio of prospective clients, referral sources, and other key relationships. In addition, the Associate Director/Director educates, equips, and inspires other nonprofit leaders and fundraisers about what it takes to thrive. To fulfill this role, the Associate Director/Director will:

  • Build and engage a portfolio of 50-100 strategic relationships, sourced from personal networks and cold outreach

  • Actively network to grow and strengthen the portfolio, achieving monthly activity metrics

  • Leverage portfolio engagement resources provided, such as templates, scripts, segmented lists, and cold outreach prospect lists

  • Approach conversations with curiosity to learn from experience on the ground

  • Contribute to Aperio’s efforts to fight racism and discrimination, especially in nonprofits, fundraising, and philanthropy

  • Present/facilitate and participate in conferences, workshops, and webinars hosted by Aperio and other industry groups

  • Create articles and videos that educate, equip, and inspire nonprofit leaders and fundraisers

  • Promote and engage with Aperio content across social media channels

Qualifications

  • 5+ years’ experience in relationship-based fundraising (major gifts, foundations, or corporate partnerships), including 3+ years’ experience focusing full-time on generating philanthropic revenue from a portfolio of individuals, foundations, and/or companies

  • Demonstrated ability to efficiently manage a portfolio of relationships and grow revenue from that portfolio year-over-year

  • Experience soliciting $100,000+ gifts

  • Experience managing complex projects to successful completion

  • Outstanding organizational and time-management skills and ability

  • Ability to inspire and hold accountable diverse internal and external stakeholders

  • Experience partnering with volunteer and staff leadership on donor relationships and/or projects

  • Ability to analyze and interpret data and apply insights to strategy

  • Demonstrated ability to leverage metrics to improve the donor experience and fundraiser performance

  • Superb relationship management, interpersonal, and communication (written and oral) skills

  • Strong storytelling and public speaking skills

  • Strong understanding of technology systems pertinent to major gifts (Salesforce and Raiser’s Edge a plus)

  • Openness to the ever-changing, dynamic environment of a start-up company

  • Eagerness to learn new knowledge and skills

  • Ability to travel for assignments, as needed, up to 50% of time

Location

This role combines remote work-from-home and on-site client support requirements, which can vary by project from no onsite support to daily support.

To facilitate work-from-home, Aperio provides essential technology equipment and:

  • A $250 home office set-up stipend at 90 days

  • A monthly mobile phone reimbursement of $75 per monthCompensation

Aperio is pleased to offer competitive compensation and benefits, as well as accelerated career development opportunities.

Base compensation for this role is $75,000 - $120,000 commensurate with experience in development operations, Salesforce administration, and/or Raiser’s Edge administration. Bonus and promotion opportunities available.

Benefits include:

Flexible scheduling

  • Paid time off (PTO) starting at 4 weeks per year

  • 10-15 holiday days per year, including closure over the year-end holidays

  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance

  • 401K with company matching of 100% of employee contributions up to the first 3% of pay and then 50% of employee contributions on the next 2% of pay

Application

To apply for this role, please use this link and include the following:

  • Your resume

  • A brief cover letter describing why you’re interested in Aperio

  • A sample of a donor-facing piece that you’ve written

Next
Next

Associate Director/Director, Client Services—Development operations focus