Development and Communications Manager

About Child Find of America

Founded in 1980, Child Find of America is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to locating missing children, preventing abduction, and supporting families through crisis intervention, education, and conflict resolution. Child Find provides professional services to families and children experiencing missing child, runaway, family abduction, and family conflict situations, while also offering education and training to parents and allied professionals.

Child Find is entering a period of strategic growth. Our current priorities include expanding our reach to more families, strengthening our position as a leading source of knowledge and expertise in family abduction prevention and resolution, and building the awareness and skills of allied professionals. A key part of this work is strengthening our fundraising, communications, marketing, and partnership-building capacity.

Position Summary

Child Find of America seeks a thoughtful, energetic, and highly capable Development and Communications Manager to help grow the organization’s visibility, donor base, funding partnerships, and public engagement.

This is a hands-on position for someone who can think strategically, write persuasively, manage details, build relationships, and follow through. The ideal candidate will bring experience in nonprofit development, grant writing, marketing, and communications, along with the flexibility to both lead projects and handle the day-to-day work required in a small, mission-driven organization.

The Development and Communications Manager will help build and strengthen Child Find’s fundraising systems, including grants, individual giving, corporate sponsorship, planned giving, donor stewardship, and annual appeals. The position will also support communications and marketing efforts that help Child Find tell its story clearly, reach new partners, communicate impact, and elevate awareness of family abduction, missing children, and prevention services. In addition, the Development and Communications Manager will also help promote Child Find’s professional development training programs for allied professionals, including trainings delivered in person, virtually, or asynchronously.

As Child Find grows, this position may also help supervise, coordinate, or manage staff, interns, consultants, or contractors involved in development, communications, marketing, training promotion, donor stewardship, or administrative support. The successful candidate should be comfortable both delegating work and directly handling the detailed execution required in a small nonprofit environment.

Key Responsibilities

Development and Fundraising

• Develop and implement fundraising strategies to increase contributed revenue from individuals, foundations, corporations, and other institutional funders.
• Research, write, submit, and manage grant proposals and reports.
• Identify and cultivate foundation, corporate, and individual donor prospects.
• Build and manage a corporate sponsorship program aligned with Child Find’s mission, programs, and public education goals.
• Help develop a planned giving program, including messaging, donor materials, outreach strategy, and stewardship systems.
• Support annual giving efforts, including appeals, donor communications, campaign messaging, acknowledgments, and donor retention strategies.
• Strengthen donor stewardship practices so supporters understand Child Find’s mission, impact, and future direction.
• Maintain accurate donor, grant, prospect, and sponsorship records in the organization’s donor software program.
• Track development activity, deadlines, proposals submitted, gifts received, stewardship actions, and fundraising outcomes.
• Work with the Executive Director and board members to support donor cultivation, board fundraising engagement, and relationship-building.
• Help translate Child Find’s strategic plan and investment needs into donor-facing language that clearly explains the opportunity, need, and expected impact.

Communications and Marketing

• Develop clear, compelling messaging that communicates Child Find’s mission, services, expertise, and impact to multiple audiences.
• Support the development and implementation of a communications and marketing plan.
• Create content for newsletters, appeals, website updates, donor communications, social media, presentations, brochures, annual reports, and other outreach materials.
• Help refresh and maintain materials that explain Child Find’s work to families, referral partners, donors, funders, and allied professionals.
• Use program data, stories, and outcomes to communicate Child Find’s value while protecting confidentiality and the dignity of families served.
• Coordinate with staff to identify stories, trends, and program insights that can be shared appropriately with donors, partners, and the public.
• Support efforts to increase awareness of Child Find among domestic violence organizations, child welfare agencies, missing children clearinghouses, law enforcement partners, legal services providers, and other allied professionals.
• Monitor communications performance, including website traffic, email engagement, social media engagement, referral activity, and other visibility measures.
• Ensure that external communications are accurate, trauma-informed, mission-aligned, and consistent with Child Find’s voice.

Training Program Marketing and Earned Revenue Development

• Support the future marketing and sales strategy for Child Find’s professional development training programs.
• Help identify potential audiences for training, including allied professionals, agencies, professional associations, higher education programs, and licensing-related audiences.
• Develop promotional materials for trainings, webinars, online modules, and professional development offerings.
• Support the development of pricing, sponsorship, subsidy, and earned-income strategies for training programs.
• Coordinate outreach to prospective training partners and purchasers.
• Track inquiries, prospects, training sales, participant engagement, and revenue.
• Work with program staff to communicate the value of Child Find’s expertise in family abduction prevention, crisis response, conflict resolution, and child-focused strategies.

Staff, Vendor, and Project Management

• Help supervise, coordinate, and support development, communications, marketing, training promotion, or administrative staff as the organization grows.
• Provide day-to-day direction, feedback, and project oversight to staff, interns, volunteers, consultants, or contractors as assigned.
• Delegate tasks clearly while ensuring quality, timeliness, consistency, and follow-through.
• Help build practical systems, templates, calendars, and workflows that allow staff and partners to work efficiently and consistently.
• Coordinate with outside vendors or consultants such as designers, printers, web developers, grant writers, marketing consultants, or mailing services.
• Balance supervisory responsibilities with hands-on work, including drafting, editing, proofreading, database updates, donor follow-up, mailing coordination, content creation, and deadline tracking.
• Promote a collaborative, accountable, and mission-centered team culture.

Project Management and Team Collaboration

• Manage multiple projects, deadlines, and details across fundraising, communications, marketing, and outreach.
• Create and maintain calendars for grants, appeals, newsletters, campaigns, sponsorship outreach, and donor stewardship.
• Coordinate with staff, board members, volunteers, consultants, vendors, and partners as needed.
• Delegate tasks where appropriate while remaining willing to handle hands-on work such as drafting, editing, data entry, mailing coordination, follow-up emails, CRM updates, and proofreading.
• Participate as a strong team member in a small organization where collaboration, flexibility, and follow-through are essential.
• Learn Child Find’s mission, programs, casework, history, and operating model well enough to communicate them accurately and compellingly.
• Support administrative and organizational needs related to development and communications as assigned.

Qualifications

Required

• Minimum of three years of experience in nonprofit development, fundraising, marketing, communications, or a closely related role.
• Demonstrated grant writing experience, including prospect research, proposal writing, and grant reporting.
• Excellent writing, editing, storytelling, and verbal communication skills.
• Experience creating donor, funder, partner, or public-facing communications.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Ability to manage multiple deadlines and projects independently.
• Ability to manage projects, coordinate people, and keep multiple workstreams moving at the same time.
• Comfort providing direction, feedback, and support to staff, interns, volunteers, consultants, or contractors.
• Ability to delegate appropriately while remaining willing to do hands-on implementation work.
• Comfort working in a small nonprofit environment where staff members must balance strategy with hands-on implementation.
• Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with professionalism and care.
• Commitment to Child Find’s mission and willingness to learn the organization’s programs, services, and approach in depth.
• Ability to work collaboratively with staff, board members, donors, funders, and external partners.
• Proficiency with common office, communications, and database tools such as Microsoft, Google Workspace, Canva, email marketing platforms, donor databases (DonorSnap), donor giving platforms, and social media platforms.

Preferred

• Five or more years of experience in development, marketing, and communications.
• Prior experience supervising staff, interns, volunteers, consultants, or contractors.
• Experience helping build a small development, communications, or marketing function within a nonprofit organization.
• Experience creating workflows, templates, calendars, or systems that support team accountability and consistency.
• Experience building or growing fundraising systems in a small or mid-sized nonprofit.
• Experience with corporate sponsorships, planned giving, donor stewardship, annual appeals, and individual giving.
• Experience marketing professional development programs, trainings, webinars, courses, or other fee-based educational offerings.
• Experience working with mission-driven organizations serving children, families, victims/survivors, vulnerable populations, or crisis-related issues.
• Experience supporting board fundraising, donor cultivation, or fundraising committees.
• Familiarity with website management, email marketing, social media analytics, and basic design tools.
• Experience developing messaging for multiple audiences, including donors, foundations, corporations, professional partners, and the general public.

The Successful Candidate

• A strong writer who can turn complex, sensitive work into clear and compelling messages.
• A relationship-builder who enjoys cultivating donors, funders, sponsors, partners, and colleagues.
• A detail-oriented implementer who follows through and keeps systems current.
• A strategic thinker who can help build fundraising and communications capacity over time.
• A flexible team player who is comfortable taking initiative while also working collaboratively.
• A collaborative team member who can support, guide, and coordinate others while also respecting the expertise and responsibilities of colleagues.
• Comfortable managing people and projects without losing sight of the detailed work required to get things done.
• Able to delegate clearly, follow up constructively, and step in directly when needed.
• A steady, practical leader who can help build capacity without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Someone who can delegate when appropriate but is also willing to do the “nitty gritty” work required in a growing nonprofit.
• Mission-driven, discreet, compassionate, and respectful of the sensitive nature of Child Find’s work.
• Curious and willing to learn deeply about missing children, family abduction, prevention, crisis intervention, and the needs of families and allied professionals.

Work Location and Schedule

This is a full-time position. A hybrid schedule is preferred, with regular time in Child Find’s Hudson Valley, NY office. Fully remote candidates may be considered depending on experience, fit, and ability to collaborate effectively with the team.

Occasional evening, weekend, or travel commitments may be required for meetings, events, conferences, donor cultivation, or training-related activities.

Competitive benefits package.