Donor Organizing Manager

Job Description

Donor Organizing Manager (DM)

Reports to: Director of Resource Mobilization

Direct Reports: None

Works with: Leadership Giving Manager, Development Operations Manager, Communications Director, 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: $101,475 to $110,495 annually

Position Summary: The Donor Organizing Manager (DM) works closely with the Director of Resource Mobilization (DRM) to grow and steward Groundswell’s community of individual donors and philanthropic partners. This leader will be the primary driver of Groundswell’s donor stewardship and engagement work, including annual campaigns, donor communications, events, and community offerings throughout the year. The DM will have demonstrated success in directly building strong relationships with donors and funders and utilizing multi-channel, multi-medium tools to share impact and deeply engage donors in meaningful work. This role will help support the long-term sustainable growth of Groundswell and will have a deep personal and professional connection with our core values. 

The Donor Organizing Manager will be joining the team while another team member is on parental leave. As such, this role will be asked to support a mix of tasks that are connected to the regular, ongoing responsibilities of that position for the first six (6) months of employment. Those accountabilities are outlined below.

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.

The ideal candidate is proactive, driven, equal parts relational and detail-oriented, and has the ability to work collaboratively with diverse staff, external partners, and stakeholders in a fast-paced remote environment; is self-motivated and highly organized, with exceptional attention to accuracy; is flexible and can manage multiple deadlines simultaneously; and exercises good judgment in handling confidential information. The candidate will demonstrate their ability to write persuasively and have excellent interpersonal communication skills to engage a wide range of donors.

Accountabilities:

Donor Engagement + Stewardship

• Spearhead the strategy for donor engagement at Groundswell to deepen relationships with our donor community.
• Drive the arc of ongoing donor communications, including designing and executing biannual direct mail and digital campaigns and ongoing stewardship touchpoints, with a focus on donor retention and acquisition.
• Lead the planning and execution of Groundswell's in-person and virtual events strategy, in partnership with the full Resource Mobilization team.
• Lead the planning and execution of Groundswell's offerings for donors, in collaboration with the Movement Solidarity (program) team, including political education, potential giving circles, and more.
• Draft compelling donor-facing materials, including concept notes, webpages, and forms, memos, updates, reports, proposals, and more, for activating our donor community and inspiring new donors to take action.
• Design and drive moves management, meeting calendar, and other touchpoints for donors giving under $5,000, ensuring Groundswell can deepen relationships with our donor-activist community.
• Drive the strategy to retain and upgrade grassroots and mid-level donors by conducting an analysis of the broader donor pool and cultivating key prospects to funnel into the Leadership Giving pipeline.
• Design Groundswell’s monthly sustainer strategy and manage stewardship of this growing community.
• Personally hold a portfolio of donors and lead external donor meetings. Represent Groundswell in meetings with external funders, partners, and allies. In partnership with the Director of Resource Mobilization, develop and execute the strategy for engaging with peer donor networks and collaboratives.
• Conduct and present research on individual donors, donor networks, and other allies, and prepare leadership and colleagues for partner meetings. Make regular progress reports to the management staff and Board, in collaboration with the Leadership Giving Manager (LGM).
• Partner with the Leadership Giving Manager to engage the board in the Donor Relations team's work.
• Set annual goals for donor engagement and grassroots and midlevel giving, in consultation with the LGM and DRM. Develop, monitor, and adjust short- and long-range plans, consistent with best practices, that support those goals and grow our donor community.
• Work to enhance donor acknowledgment and communications standard operating procedures, in partnership with the Development Operations Manager and Communications Team.
• Develop a data-driven understanding of current donors and prospects to identify opportunities for growth, enhancement of the program, income diversification, and reporting for the board and leadership.
• Support the DRM with annual revenue projections as well as mid-year revenue reforecasting.

Parental Leave Coverage

• Design and drive moves management, annual meeting calendar, and other personalized touchpoints for donors giving over $5,000, ensuring Groundswell can deepen relationships with our donor-activist community.
• Drive prospect research strategy to lead the expansion of the pipeline for major donor acquisition and upgrades.
• In partnership the DRM, steward Groundswell's board members to support major donor fundraising efforts.

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 five (5) years of experience in donor relations, funder organizing and/or fundraising, preferably within nonprofit or philanthropic organizations.
• Proven success in securing 4-to-6 figure gifts and donors from prospect to supporter.
• Knowledge of prospect research, donor communications, and special events.
• Demonstrated experience working managing consultants and high-level deliverables across dotted reporting structures.
• Outstanding organizational and project management skills, including the ability to strategically handle competing priorities and deadlines in a changing environment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively via phone, video, and email.
• Ability to write clearly and concisely for multiple audiences, as well as edit copy for clarity and grammatical accuracy.
• 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.
• 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.
• Experience translating vision into concrete goals with actionable project plans.
• Ability to create powerful, compelling communications and convey complex concepts in an accessible way.
• Detail-oriented without losing sight of the broader vision.
• Familiarity with nonprofit fundraising practices.
• Experience working with CRM’s (Neon strongly preferred).
• Experience working at a fully remote organization.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team with members across several time zones.
• Impeccable judgment and discretion in dealing with sensitive and confidential information.
• Strong public speaking skills and experience serving as an organizational ambassador.

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.

Application Review & Timeline: Applications will be reviewed on an ongoing basis beginning Oct 28th and continuing until the position is filled. If selected for consideration, the interview process will entail a phone conversation, then a panel interview. Top candidates will then be advanced and invited to complete a brief exercise, and final panel interview. With this process in mind, we anticipate an early December start date.

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 five times a year for overnight events and donor meetings across the U.S. Travel needs will be evaluated and determined on an ongoing basis with an eye toward staff safety.

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 english; speaking, reading, writing, and auditory listening.