Advancement Associate

Advancement Associate

Reports to: Communications Director

Direct Reports: None

Works with: Content Manager, Advancement Operations Manager, Director of Resource Mobilization, Movement Solidarity (program) team

Location: This is a full-time, telecommuting position

FLSA/Classification: Non-Exempt, Full-time, Regular

Union Classification: Bargaining Unit position

Salary Range: $75,000.00 - $80,149.30

Position Summary:

The Advancement Associate works closely with the Communications Director to provide key administrative support across Groundswell’s fundraising and communications functions housed under the Advancement Department. An organized and detail-oriented team player, the Associate maintains accurate data for core constituencies, coordinates departmental workflows, and ensures smooth execution of Advancement activities. The Associate will be the first point of contact for gift and grant entry and acknowledgements, updating foundation login portals, and collating data from email campaigns. The Associate will also play a key role in maintaining the communications/advancement calendar, scheduling fundraising and communications meetings and events, scheduling content across owned platforms, coordinating assets, events planning support, and supporting internal and external requests.

Our workplace is proudly a unionized environment. The terms of employment are governed by our handbook and the collective bargaining agreement between Groundswell Fund and Groundswell Workers United, Communication Workers of America (CWA) local 9415. This position is a union-eligible role, and membership is a condition of employment.

Accountabilities:

Fundraising Operations 40%

• Lead data entry—including gifts, grants, contacts, communications, and activities— in the CRM to ensure data integrity and proactively provide analysis and information that effectively support decision making.
• Acknowledge all donors in a timely, accurate, and compliant manner, executing a process designed collaboratively with the Donor Relations staff. Ensure acknowledgment copy is updated regularly to maintain current language, narrative, and talking points, in collaboration with Donor Relations and Communications.
• Support the Foundation Relations staff in maintaining funder portals, contact information, and streamlining data across platforms.
• Serve as the first point of contact for donor inquiries, ensuring timely triage and relational follow-up by the appropriate staff member.
• Collaborate with the Operations team to manage Advancement mail, including processing gifts and ensuring compliance in documentation and recordkeeping.
• Provide support to frontline fundraisers by pulling donor and funder reports, preparing lists, and assisting with basic prospect research as needed.
• Assist with monthly data reconciliation and maintenance of donor segmentation lists and campaign records.

Communications Operations 40%

• Support Communications Director in creating and maintaining an annual communications/advancement calendar that aligns key funding milestones with content schedules.
• Schedule and post content across owned digital platforms; pull and organize basic analytics from email, web, and social channels.
• Maintain evergreen text-based collateral and templates, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and timely updates.
• Coordinate with staff and partners to capture and organize photos, videos, stories, and other digital assets.
• Support intake and tracking of internal communications requests, ensuring follow-up and alignment with departmental priorities.
• Maintain media tracking lists of Groundswell Fund (501(c)(3)and Groundswell Action Fund 501(c)(4), as well as monitor activities of grantees, former grantees, and movement leaders on social media.

Departmental Administration 20%

• Provide scheduling support for Advancement team meetings, funder and donor-related calls, communications meetings, and cross-departmental coordination.
• Prepare agendas, take meeting notes, and track follow-up tasks for Advancement-related meetings.
• Maintain shared Advancement files, process documents, and organize systems for easy departmental access.
• Support event and campaign logistics, including RSVPs, material preparation, and other administrative tasks.

The above job description is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of duties and standards of the position. Incumbents will follow any other instructions and perform any other related duties, as assigned by their supervisor.

Qualifications:

Essential:

• At least 1-3 years of experience in a communications or fundraising support position, preferably in a not-for-profit organization.
• Proven ability to keep organized and manage project inputs across multiple teams and deliverables.
• Experience working with CRM’s (Neon strongly preferred).
• Demonstrated experience collaborating with a team of specialists across functional expertise.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively via phone, video, and email.
• Demonstrated ability to understand, represent, and contribute effectively to Groundswell’s mission, vision, and values.
• Strong experience, understanding, and skill in applying social lenses of race, class, gender, and decolonization in verbal and written communications.
• Impeccable judgment and discretion in dealing with sensitive and confidential information.
• Fluent in spoken and written English.

Strongly Preferred:

• Experience working at social justice organizations, with experience with 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) fundraising.
• Familiarity with reproductive and gender justice.
• Detail-oriented without losing sight of the broader vision.
• Familiarity with nonprofit fundraising practices.
• Experience working at a fully remote organization.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team with members across several time zones.
• Strong public speaking skills and experience serving as an organizational ambassador.

Overview of the Organization: Since its inception in 2003, Groundswell Fund has put intersectional grassroots organizing led by women, transgender, and gender-expansive people of color at the center of our giving. It is a channel into which individual donors and foundations pour resources to reach vital work at the grassroots, serving as an irrigation system for growing reproductive, racial, and social justice movements. Our staff are from the very movements we fund, and we deeply understand grassroots impact with long-term investment.

We do this work with our sibling organization, Groundswell Action Fund, founded in response to the first Trump Administration. Groundswell Action Fund was founded on a simple but revolutionary premise: those most excluded from our democracy should be at the center of transforming it. Both organizations work to revolutionize philanthropy through grantmaking, capacity building, and organizing within philanthropy itself to inspire more giving to the types of organizations we support – whether or not those resources come through our doors.

While we fund nearly every major social justice movement in the United States, we are a long-term funder of the U.S. Reproductive Justice (RJ) Movement. Since the start of our grantmaking, we have moved more than $180 million (across both our c3 and c4) to the field in grants and capacity-building support, increased the giving of dozens of national and local foundations, and helped bring thousands of new individual donors into the RJ Movement. Our grantees have been instrumental in the passage of hundreds of pro-RJ policies at the state and local level and in blocking many regressive policies, and they have built a growing grassroots base of support for RJ across the U.S.

Groundswell is a fully remote, highly collaborative, pro-worker, pro-union organization working across the four continental U.S. time zones. We believe that the best ideas emerge when diverse perspectives come together, and are committed to creating an inclusive and flexible work environment where employees can thrive. We’ve embraced remote work as a core aspect of our culture since 2017 and celebrated our first union contract with Groundswell Workers United in 2024.

Fundraising and Organizational Vision: Groundswell is committed to cultivating a vibrant and engaged, multiracial and multigenerational community of donors and funders who connect their values to their resources. We believe generosity and intention go hand in hand with the success of the RJ movement and intersectional grassroots organizing. Giving at every level empowers individuals, families, and entire communities to create a better world. Groundswell’s values around authentic and respectful partnerships undergird our relationships with grantees, donors, and funders. Our mission to support grantee organizations as they build their grassroots power mirrors our fundraising mission, supporting the power of our donors through learning about the issues our grantees face and collaborating for greater collective impact and liberation for all people.

In 2025, Groundswell closed out its 5-year blueprint to move over $100M to the field from 2020–2025, and has been focused on developing our next strategic vision and restructuring the organization to respond to what the reproductive and gender justice movement needs right now. From rising authoritarianism, attacks on our communities and institutions, and a retraction in philanthropy to movements and organizing, we don’t deny this is a challenging moment. We see immense opportunity in launching our new vision and will spend late 2025 and 2026 generating support in our existing funder community, and inspiring new people and institutions to stand with our grantees. This fundraising moment at Groundswell is all about hustle, creativity, new ideas, and experimentation paired with diligence and relationship-driven best practices.

Virtual Organization: Groundswell is a completely virtual organization. We are committed to building a strong identity and thriving culture that is exemplary in the nonprofit world and in the greater landscape of fully remote organizations. To succeed as remote workers, applicants should have a dedicated workspace, a commitment to clear and frequent communication, and comfort utilizing technology to increase collaboration and connection. Those with previous remote work experience are preferred, but we also welcome those who are new to remote work and understand the requirements of working in a thriving virtual organizational culture.

Work Schedule: Groundswell is currently operating on a 4 day, 32 hour work week, Monday - Thursday. We are a completely virtual organization, allowing for flexibility in work schedules for our staff across differing U.S. time zones. While work can usually be completed during standard business hours of the applicant's time zone, there may be times where early morning, evening, and weekend work may be needed to ensure organization-wide collaboration, to staff or attend events, and/or to meet organization workload needs during busy times over the year. Staff whose jobs require travel can expect longer hours, as travel may happen outside of business hours and on weekends.

Computer Skills: To perform this job successfully, the candidate should be proficient with Google Suite, web browsers, and conferencing software (Zoom). Experience with database software and CRMs, basic web platforms, Slack, Asana, and other project management tools is also desired.

Travel: Must be available to travel up to six times a year for overnight events and funder and donor meetings across the U.S. Travel needs will be evaluated and determined on an ongoing basis with an eye toward staff safety as we continue navigating COVID-19.

Equal Employment Opportunity: Groundswell Fund is looking for talented, experienced individuals eager to join a collaborative team that’s working to organize resources to back up the brilliant leadership of our grantee partners. We encourage applications from all qualified individuals, but without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, veteran status.

Fluent in spoken and written English, including ability to edit or review others writing for accuracy.