Job Title: Development Associate

Type: Full-Time (Hybrid)

Start: July 2024

About Solar One

Solar One is a 501c(3) organization that empowers communities in the New York City metro area to thrive in the face of the challenges brought on by climate change and embrace a world that is low carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive.

Initially founded in 2004 to manage Stuyvesant Cove Park, a two-acre native plant park and a small environmental education center, Solar One has grown into an award-winning organization with a thriving array of programs. Solar One's mission is to design and deliver innovative education, training, and technical assistance that fosters sustainability and resiliency in diverse urban environments. We empower learning that changes how people think about energy, sustainability, and resilience by engaging and educating diverse stakeholders and beneficiaries.

Solar One seeks a skilled and motivated fundraising and development professional to join our team as Development Associate. The successful candidate will work closely with Solar One’s Chief External Affairs Officer and team to help plan and implement the organization’s individual and corporate giving strategies, participate as one of the staff leads on the annual fundraising event, provide administrative support and manage the fundraising team’s CRM.

Responsibilities include:

Corporate and Individual Donors

• Assist with annual individual and business donor campaigns, working closely with the Chief External Affairs Officer to plan and implement donor appeals.
• Collaborate with the Development team to steward existing donors throughout the year including implementation of an annual gift renewal plan/process, spring campaign, and end of year campaign.
• Manage the development and implementation of a comprehensive cultivation and stewardship plan for individual and corporate donors, including a calendar of touchpoints and personalized outreach.
• Assist in developing and implementing innovative email campaigns, social media fundraising, and other donor communications in partnership with the Development Team and Communications team.
• Ensure that donors and prospects receive the highest level of customer service, maintain donor and prospect data with exceptional accuracy and timeliness.
• Coordinate donor recognition. Ensure gift receipts are sent in a timely manner, and provide support to senior staff for personal acknowledgments. Draft acknowledgment letters and other donor correspondence as needed.
• Support the distribution of the Annual Report, Year-End Appeal, and other communications to donors.
• Coordinate and maintain third-party accounts to ensure gifts are processed and acknowledged.

Events

• Assist in the organization and production of cultivation events and special meetings, including coordinating logistics, sending invitations, and managing RSVP lists. Prepare follow-up and post event tracking and correspondence of all event attendees.
• Assist with planning and implementation of Solar One’s annual fundraising event, with the CEO, Board of Directors, Development Team and Director of Events.
• Assist with sponsor prospecting, proposal customization and presentation, and sponsor follow-up and support.

Board of Directors and Board Committees

• Assist CEO and CEAO with communications related to meetings of the Board of Directors, including meeting scheduling, meeting set-up and clean-up; note-taking and other tasks as needed.
• Assist with the meetings of the Development and Marketing Committee of the Board of Directors, including setting meeting dates and times, preparation of meeting materials, notetaking and other tasks.

Administrative Support and CRM

• Support the Development Team with administrative tasks including keeping records up-to-date in external databases, keeping fact sheets and documents needed for proposal submission up-to-date and other tasks as needed.
• Ensure accurate record-keeping and donor tracking by performing data entry, reporting, and updates in Salesforce for donors, donations, fundraising events, and solicitations, including contact information, gift amounts, biographical information, pertinent correspondence, engagements, and other data.
• Track relevant grant/proposal paperwork, including grant agreements, reports, correspondence and deadlines for proposals and reports through Salesforce and in archival digital files.
• Maintain an institutional dashboard and annual grant and reporting deadline calendar, and track details of how to access submission portals.
• Work closely with the Chief External Affairs Officer and Finance team to reconcile donation records with official financial records.

Qualifications include:

• Bachelor’s degree with a minimum of 3-5 years of progressively responsible fundraising experience with a demonstrated expertise in individual and corporate fundraising.
• Exceptional organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Experience in donor relations, event planning and customer service.
• Demonstrated interest in non-profit work, with interest in sustainability, environmental justice, renewable energy and environmental education a plus.
• Professional, collaborative interpersonal style, ability to interact with a diverse range of people across different levels of the organization and a team-centered approach.
• Able to take initiative and work proactively to ask questions and solve problems.
• Ability to handle confidential information with sensitivity and integrity.
• Strong written and interpersonal communication skills and enjoys interacting with internal and external stakeholders.
• Experience working with Salesforce or a similar CRM database.
• Solid computer proficiency (MS Office – Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and Google tools (Drive, Sheets, Docs, Slides) required. Proficiency in presentation layout and design required.
• Excellent diplomacy, communication, presentation, analytic, and problem-solving skills

Pay and Benefits

Position Type: Full-time (35 hours)

Salary Range: $62,000 - $68,000

Hybrid Work Schedule

Solar One’s full-time employment benefits include:

• Health care and well-being programs including medical, dental, vision, EAP
• 4 weeks of paid time off that increases with tenure
• Life and disability insurance
• Paid Holidays
• 401(k) retirement savings

Solar One is an equal opportunity employer. Solar One strives to increase diversity, equity, inclusion and justice in all elements of our work and with our partners to support the interdependent needs of renewable energy and resilience and people in a rapidly changing world. Solar One recruits and employs through a lens of equity and encourages people of all races, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, genetic information, service in the uniformed services, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law to apply.