Job Purpose:

Reporting to the Vice President for Advancement, the Assistant Vice President for Advancement Operations, is a senior leadership position in Pomona College’s Advancement program. Responsible for providing strategic leadership for the College’s development infrastructure, leads successful annual giving strategy, and serves as a key partner to colleagues in Advancement to utilize data and analytics to drive fundraising success, especially in the context of Pomona College’s aspirational comprehensive fundraising campaign that is currently in the planning stage.

The AVP is responsible for strategic design, development and implementation of operational functions that provide a foundation for Advancement to achieve its goals in fundraising and constituent engagement. The AVP is charged with aligning business support functions, policies and procedures, and technology infrastructure with the strategies, resources and priorities of the College. The AVP builds, sustains, encourages, and supports productive relationship with and among colleagues and develops and implements policies, practices and systems in Advancement Operations.

Oversees Advancement-wide strategic planning activities and business operations, and leads four essential teams – Advancements Services (which includes Records and Gifts, and Business Process, Analytics and Reporting); Prospect Research, Relationship Management and Analytics; Stewardship and Donor Relations and Annual Giving – to create and sustain a customer-service oriented and donor-centric Advancement operation. The position requires significant management experience and the ability to facilitate a healthy team-environment, to supervise and inspire employees toward excellence, and to lead by example.

The AVP for Advancement, Strategy and System Operations works closely with the Vice President and Advancement Senior Leadership Team, to establish and communicate the organizational vision and goals (both multi-year and annual). This position supports the VP, Board of Trustees Advancement Committee and the College’s senior leadership in launching development initiatives.

The Assistant Vice President for Advancement Operations must demonstrate familiarity with a variety of the field’s concepts and demonstrate a command of industry standards and procedures. The position requires judgment and ability to act independently to plan and accomplish goals.

Essential Functions: 

Reporting directly to the Vice President for Advancement, the Assistant Vice President for Advancement Operations, performs the following essential duties and responsibilities:

• Lead and supervise the department staff in Advancement Operations to achieve overall success for the College.
• Provide organizational and team-based strategic planning based on data-drive recommendations.
• Provide clear direction and oversight of all Advancement operations and activities in order to develop and achieve annual and multi-year goals. Responsible for monitoring and evaluating direct reports and overall department staff performance. Maintain an efficient, collegial, and proactive work environment within the Advancement department offices.
• Lead the Advancement Services operations, overseeing donor database management; gift and biographical records management; and gift processing and accounting; data science, predictive analytics and reporting.
• Lead a successful stewardship and donor relations program that strategically targets donors, particularly leadership level donors to strengthen their financial support for the College.
• Provide leadership and strategic vision for prospect research, relationship management, and analytics with business intelligence to support principal and major gift development and solicitation, as well as comprehensive campaign initiatives.
• Lead and manage annual giving program to ensure successful progress toward annual and campaign targets for annual giving.
• Oversee division-wide strategic planning and implementation; provide direction and guidance to advancement colleagues on strategic priorities and projects.
• Oversee dynamic programs that builds data supported, action-driven applications and tools in RaisersEdge and current CRM database suite of tools.
• Oversee RFP, selection and implementation strategy of new CRM database, as well as online event management and fee processing.
• Manage the compliance and ethical standards of the Advancement Operations in accordance with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)/ the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB).
• Oversee the development and implementation of a detailed Advancement budget consistent with College policies and practices. Hold budget meetings, as needed, with other Advancement senior management. Interface with College Treasurer and Comptroller to ensure budget is integrated into College plan, in close coordination with VP for Advancement.
• Manage College Advancement human resource operations consistent with budget, and university policies and practices. Provide strategic direction and advice to Advancement senior management in matters dealing with personnel. Ensure that college procedures are followed.
• Manage the development, implementation and tracking of College Advancement strategic plan with VP and Senior Staff. Work with senior management team to develop long and short-range objectives. Develop measurements and tactics to achieve goals. Monitor progress towards goals on a regular basis.
• Interface with internal departments and the College on behalf of Pomona Advancement. Serve as Pomona’s Advancement’s liaison for College reporting, including the VSE survey, strategic plan, annual institutional indicators, risk assessment surveys and various miscellaneous College reports.
• Assist the VP in staffing the Advancement Committee of the Board and all Board-related Advancement activities.
• Work closely with the Vice President for Advancement, the Pomona College Board of Trustees, senior staff, Deans, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and parents to develop successful annual giving campaigns to secure financial support for the College’s mission and strategic priorities.
• Must be proficient with Microsoft Office Suite. Raiser’s Edge, data analysis, predictive analytics, and statistics strongly preferred.
• Management experience and a clearly articulated management philosophy that supports high performance and employee retention.
• A substantial knowledge of best practice in prospect research, prospect management, advancement operations, strategy and analytics, stewardship, and annual giving.
• Serve as a College spokesperson in the area of Advancement as necessary.

Qualifications: 

Education:

Advanced degree required with a preference in business, information systems, data analytics or organizational design.

Experience:

A minimum of 15+ years of demonstrable leadership experience with increasing responsibility and demonstrated success managing databases, research programs, annual giving, and/or strategy and analytics units, with a preference for leadership in higher education advancement.

Required Knowledge and Critical Skills: 

The Assistant Vice President for Advancement Operations must possess the knowledge, skills and abilities to be able to successfully perform the essential functions of the position or be able to demonstrate how the essential functions will be performed, with or without reasonable accommodation, using other skills and abilities not listed below.

• A demonstrated commitment to an information based, database centered, prospect management approach to managing the development pipeline.
• Management experience and a clearly articulated management philosophy that supports high performance and employee retention
• A substantial knowledge of best practice in prospect research, relationship management, strategy and analytics, stewardship, annual giving, etc.
• Accounting experience is preferred.
• Direct knowledge of top-tier development programs.
• Direct knowledge of successful fundraising practices.
• Understanding of effective and efficient practices for multiple areas of advancement operations.
• Deep knowledge of best practices regarding managing databases, research programs, strategy and analytics units.
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, a passion for the liberal arts, and a high degree of professionalism and integrity.
• Must understand and communicate the mission and history of the College’s liberal arts environment.
• Demonstrated leadership in managing diverse functions of Advancement operations, activities and budgets with strong strategic planning and organizational skills.
• Superior technology skills are required, including an understanding of a complex data management tools; technical skill/experience with software development tools, and familiarity with computer programming, and statistical software.
• Able to work both independently and as a collaborative executive member of the College in support of the College’s strategic vision and the division’s annual goals with a high standard of integrity and ethics.