Development and Communications Coordinator

About UP Education Network

UP Education Network (UP) manages and operates five schools in Boston and Lawrence, MA. We serve over 2,300 elementary and middle school students. UP is invited by local school districts to restart chronically underperforming district schools as UP Academies. Each UP Academy shares the same vision: Students in our schools cultivate sharp minds, share their kind hearts, and explore their path and potential. UP graduates succeed on the path to college and pursue their passions.

Role

The Development and Communications Coordinator contributes to UP Education Network’s philanthropic strategy by ensuring an exceptional development operations and donor/prospect experience that deepens relationships and expands our base of support. The Development and Communications Coordinator will play a key role in executing UP’s external marketing materials and communications strategy to ensure that UP is well-positioned to communicate its work and results to key stakeholders. The Development and Communications Coordinator will lead all development operations work including database management, reporting, gift acknowledgment, and prospect research. The Development and Communications Coordinator will also play a critical role in executing stewardship efforts and donor engagement events. This individual will also have the opportunity to support corporate and foundation relations working including, research, writing proposals, and reports. The Development and Communications Coordinator will report directly to the Chief Development Officer and be part of the Development and Communications Team.

Specific Responsibilities

Development Operations

• Manage all aspects of UP’s CRM, Salesforce, ensuring that UP effectively builds and executes systems to track information on specific donors.
• Maintain accurate records in Salesforce and support the Development team in achieving monthly targets on donor cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship activities.
• Prepare reports for UP’s CEO and Board of Directors on progress against development goals and key performance metrics.
• Execute individual gift and grants processing and acknowledgment tasks in a timely and thoughtful manner.
• Prepare the agenda and reports for monthly pipeline meetings.
• Manage UP’s Mailchimp database and update contact information regularly
• Conduct proactive prospect research to help populate UP’s donor pipeline and prepare research profiles ahead of key meetings & engagements.

Donor Stewardship & Engagement

• Support planning events to engage individual, foundation and corporate donors, including school site tours and breakfasts, for volunteer events and opportunities, and for other events as needed.
• Stewardship support including executing mailings, giftings, and collecting content to support other forms of personalized thank you’s.

Social Media, Marketing & Communications

• Develop written and printed materials to communicate UP’s mission and results to various external audiences, including Impact Reports and Annual Reports, various materials to use in meetings with potential funders, and materials needed to brief the UP CEO and Board of Directors.

• Manage all aspects of UP’s website, including generating new content for the website and updating the website when needed.
• Manage UP’s presence on social media, developing and posting materials to help ensure UP effectively uses its social platforms to tell engaging and impactful stories in service of the organization's mission and vision.
• Collaborate with various department teams and the Development team to create visually stimulating and engaging digital content, marketing materials and short videos.
• Visit each UP school to take pictures, videos, attend events, and collect marketing and social media content from school based staff.
• Support the execution of UP’s annual fundraising communications, including collecting content for annual campaigns and regular appeals to individual donors and including both email appeals, social media posts, videos and print materials.
• Support the creation of internal organization wide communications including monthly newsletters from the CEO.

General Development Support

• Manage an annual grant calendar tracker, ensuring the development team meets all grant deadlines, including ongoing reporting for previously awarded grants.
• Support the Development & Communications Managers as needed with researching, writing and preparing grant proposals.

• Provide other support to the Chief Development Officer as needed.

Qualifications

• Exceptional organizational and project management skills, and demonstrated success in meeting deadlines;
• Strong attention to detail and evidence of an ability to manage multiple work streams at the same time;
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, including both oral and written communication skills;
• Experience in website and/or social media management;
• Experience with Salesforce or similar database platform preferred;
• Experience in developing non-profit marketing materials, including campaign materials and annual reports, in a way that is visually compelling and that ensures materials are aligned to their audience.
• Experience writing and managing grant proposals and reporting requirements a plus;
• Experience using PowerPoint required; experience using MailChimp preferred, Proficiency with the skills to create digital content, working with programs like Canva, Adobe, Windows Movie Maker, iMovie;
• Passion and commitment to education reform and to creating high-quality educational opportunities for all students;
• Associate's degree preferred; 2 years of work experience preferred;
• UP Academy alumni are strongly encouraged to apply!
• Current authorization to work in the United States – A candidate must have such authorization by his or her first day of employment.

Compensation and Benefits – This position falls into UP Education Network’s Coordinator salary band. Additionally, UP offers medical insurance coverage and subsidizes the majority of the employee, spouse/domestic partner, and child premiums. Other benefits include dental and vision plans, disability, life insurance, parenting benefits, flexible spending account options, generous vacation time, commuter benefits, professional development, and a 403(b) plan.

We encourage applicants of diverse backgrounds to apply for any open position in which they feel qualified. Strongly encourage UP Academy alumni to apply! We believe that we have a responsibility to recruit, retain, develop, and reward a diverse and talented staff. Our students must be exposed on a daily basis to a diverse group of powerful role models - in their teachers, their school leaders, and their supporters in the network office. With this in mind, we are committed to recruiting the most talented individuals from the widest possible range of backgrounds to join our creative, mission-driven team.