idealist.org

- Wanted: Development Professional to lead fundraising efforts for rapidly-growing non-profit organization

Organization Description
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One Acre Fund is an award-winning, rapidly growing organization that eradicates hunger in East Africa. Instead of giving handouts to some of the poorest families in the world, One Acre invests in farm families to help them harvest more food for themselves. Our "investment bundle" includes education, financing, seed/ fertilizer, and export market access. Our program is designed to be usable by the extreme poor, and generates a 100%+ gain in farm income on every planted acre.

In three years, we have grown to serve 8,000 farm families (32,000 children). Our target is to serve 40,000 families (160,000 children) within two more years, scaling at a 50 - 100% growth rate thereafter. One Acre Fund is one of the most externally-validated recent social start-ups, winning grants from the highly competitive Echoing Green and Draper Richards Foundations, and first place wins at the Stanford and Yale social venture competitions. Website: www.oneacrefund.org

Position Overview
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One Acre Fund is an organization that can turn $120 into a life-changing loan that provides some of the poorest farm families in the world to grow their own way out of poverty. Although we earn substantial earned income from operations, our desired rate of growth requires us to aggressively grow fundraising.

We are seeking someone that will:

1. Support the Executive Director in continuing to grow and steward our current funding base. The development director will play the lead role in stewarding our middle-sized gifts

2. *Generate independent fundraising of at least $0.5m in 2010, and $1.0m in 2011

a. Identify and independently win grants in the $10,000-$100,000+ range.
b. Work with the Executive Director and board to provide some support on generating leads. We expect that the executive director and board will be able to help generate leads of roughly $0.2m per year, but it will be the primary responsibility of the development director to generate new leads independently.
c. The development director will have overall responsibility for initial contact, first and second meetings, meeting follow-up, proposal writing, and reporting stewardship
d. Limited support from a grant-writer posted in Kenya

3. Develop over time into a “Managing Director” role, which implies a greater degree of autonomy and importance to the organization. From mid-2010 onward, all of One Acre Fund’s US operations will be solely a fundraising organization that we build. We are ideally looking for a person that can lead the long-term expansion of our US operations.

Career development: Quarterly management consulting-style career reviews, and significant investment in career development. This post reports directly to the executive director, but requires a fair amount of autonomy and independence.

Benefits: Health cover, 401k, vacation time
Location: Flexible within the US. New York or San Francisco preferred.

* *Demonstrated ability and experience to generate new fundraising leads for international causes
* *Demonstrated ability and experience to independently land grants in the $10,000-$100,000 range for international causes
* At least one year experience as a development professional independently landing grants for international causes
* An ability to credibly discuss business concepts, performance indicators, etc with fluency – One Acre Fund is a results-oriented organization that primarily raises funds from savvy business people – we do not rely too heavily on the “bleeding-heart sell”
* Proven experience working independently, with minimum direction
* First year requirement: trip to East Africa for 2-10 weeks, to improve program fluency
* Strong writing ability and fluency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint
* Strength and promptness in email communication
* 24-hour responsiveness to donors
* Willingness to travel around the US 20%-40% of time
* Ability to self-manage
* A sincere and real dedication to our mission

Email cover letter and resume to jobs@oneacrefund.org (Subject line: "Development Director - Idealist")