Development and Communications Manager

We are an equal opportunity organization. We welcome qualified applicants of all races, physical abilities, ethnicities, genders, gender identities or expressions, national origins, sexual orientations, creeds, religions, and ages. We also welcome qualified applicants who are pregnant, have veteran status, have a history of union membership or activism, and who have been previously incarcerated or system involved.

Texas Defender Service (TDS) seeks an experienced, motivated Development & Communications Manager. This is an exciting opportunity to join a vibrant, growing team dedicated to serving people harmed by incarceration in the State of Texas.

The salary range for this position is up to $90,000 depending on experience, withopportunities for rapid advancement to a director-level position. Texas Defender Service offers an excellent, fully employer-paid benefits package. This position reports to the ExecutiveDirector. The location of this opportunity is Austin or Houston, Texas.

Our Mission

At Texas Defender Service, we fight for the end of mass incarceration and excessive punishment in Texas through direct representation, policy reform, and public education. We champion the dignity and humanity of people harmed by mass incarceration, and advocate for a reimagined legal system that is just, humane, and free from racism and cruelty.

History

Texas Defender Service is dedicated to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in Texas through direct representation, policy reform, and public education. For over a quarter century, we have fought for justice for the most disadvantaged people impacted by Texas’s criminal-legal system.

Since 2018 alone, Texas Defender Service has saved 57 lives from execution or a death sentence. We have given voice to the humanity of our clients, their families, and their communities, and led transformative policy initiatives for people facing serious sentences, including help create a statewide public defender office to represent capital defendants in their state habeas proceedings, and achieving passage of a law, among the first of its kind, to permit new trials for defendants whose convictions were premised on junk science. Texas Defender Service has argued and won five cases before the United States Supreme Court, and achieved countless victories for clients who faced serious punishments because of their mental illness, intellectual disability, or race.

Today, TDS represents people sentenced to mandatory life without parole as children, advocates for second chances for people seeking to return home on parole so they can be reunited with their communities, and champions the cases of people who are innocent and were wrongfully convicted. TDS leads important research and policy-reform efforts that expose the fundamental need to build a more humane, evidence-based legal system, including reports on Texas's disturbing shortcomings in freeing the innocent and racial bias in Harris County's use of the death penalty. In 2024, we launched our pro bono program to match deserving candidates seeking parole with pro bono attorneys to advocate for their return to their communities and families.

Our legal advocacy and research is frequently profiled in the New York Times, the TexasTribune, the Houston Chronicle, the Houston Landing, Texas Monthly, the Associated Press,People magazine, and many other publications.

This position is full time and the location of this opportunity is Houston or Austin, Texas. Ability to travel throughout Texas to meet with team members, funders, and partners will be required. The salary range for this position is up to $90,000 depending on experience.

The ideal candidate for this position will:

• Demonstrate passion for our mission and for serving incarcerated people and thei families and communities; show enthusiastic support for our new vision.
• Be highly organized, entrepreneurial, motivated, and creative.
• Demonstrate a drive to meet fundraising goals.
• Have excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Be eager to join a diverse and inclusive team.
• Have the ability and drive to develop strong knowledge of Texas Defender Service’s work, and mass incarceration and excessive punishment in Texas.

Responsibilities will include:

• In collaboration with the Executive Director and the Board of Directors, supporting the Executive Director in the execution of our annual development plan;
• Cultivating current prospects and identifying and connecting with new prospects;
• Facilitating the Executive Director’s ongoing relationships with current donors andrelationship-building with new donors;
• Managing our donor database, tracking incoming individual donations, regularly measuring progress against our goals, and reconciling donations quarterly;
• Continually connecting with and maintaining relationships with current donors;
• Organizing three donor and outreach events per year and assisting the Executive Director in organizing TDS’s annual Light of Justice Luncheon in Houston, Texas;
• Developing strong knowledge of the legal system, mass incarceration, and excessive punishment in Texas so that they can communicate our vision to funders.
• Supporting the Executive Director and the Board in the annual budget process;
• Drafting and sending emails to our listserv of 25,000 and overseeing the implementation of our strategy on TDS’s social media accounts;
• Developing and overseeing strategic communications with current and potential funders;
• Assisting the Executive Director in researching grant opportunities, tracking grant due dates and reporting requirements, and drafting proposals and reports;
• Managing the Office Manager’s current development responsibilities.

The Development & Communications Manager will work closely with and report to the Executive Director. Texas Defender Service cultivates a supportive workplace, with generous sick and vacation leave and an office closure for the last two weeks of the year.

Texas Defender Service cultivates a supportive workplace, with generous sick and vacation leave and an office closure for the last two weeks of the year.Texas Defender Service provides 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees, 50% coverage for dependents, and offers a 401(k) plan beginning after the first year of employment.