Advancement Services Specialist

Job Posting Location:

Claremont, CA

Job Posting Title:

Job Description:

ABOUT POMONA COLLEGE: 

Located near Los Angeles, California, Pomona College is widely regarded as one of the nation's premier liberal arts colleges. Established in 1887, Pomona College is known for small classes, a challenging curriculum, close relationships between students and faculty, and a range of student research and leadership opportunities. Pomona is a member of The Claremont Colleges.

JOB PURPOSE: As an Advancement Services Specialist, you will play a pivotal role in supporting our fundraising efforts and donor experience. You will work closely with Gift Services and Data Integrity, serving as a generalist and problem-solver. You will also collaborate with these departments to ensure accurate and efficient gift processing, donor database management, reporting, and donor experience. The Advancement Services Specialist will also serve as an internal auditor for gift, recognition membership, solicitation/communication preferences and constituent bio-demographical data. This role offers an opportunity to contribute to the success of our division and organizational mission by maintaining essential systems, processes and solutions that enable us to engage with our constituents and donors effectively and meaningfully.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS: Reporting directly to the Gift Manager, Advancement Services, the Advancement Services Specialist performs the following essential duties and responsibilities:

Gift, Pledge and Adjustment processing tasks:

• Receive, record, and receipt all gifts and written pledges with accurate and timely fashion in accordance with gift acceptance policies and industry standards.
• Record gifts (cash, gift-in-kind, grants, stock transfer, imports, pledges, planned gifts) and adjustments into the database.
• Oversee the processing of matching gifts and wires from corporate donors, ensuring accuracy and completeness.
• Verify eligibility and requirements for matching gift programs and ensure compliance with each company's guidelines.
• Collaborate with donors and corporate representatives to facilitate the matching gift process efficiently.

Advancement Services Projects:

• Provide project management support, execution, and delivery for Advancement Services projects.
• Engage in user acceptance testing for systems, processes and procedures.
• Aid the Data Integrity team with completing simple list pull requests and reporting projects.
• Research and enter information on lost alumni and other constituents, including current addresses, phone numbers, and other relevant data, ensuring a high degree of accuracy and adherence to business processes and procedures.
• Partner with Gift Services and Stewardship on fund establishment for endowed and current use funds
• Manage the generation and tracking of appeals/packages in the database.

Quality Assurance

• Monitor audit query results and other tools designed to ensure maximum data integrity on a consistent and routine basis. Make all corrections in a timely and accurate manner as needed.
• Support the development of metrics by the Data Integrity team to track the success and quality of data and gift processing.
• Audit all gifts receipts and records and written pledges with accuracy and timeliness in accordance with gift acceptance policies and industry standards.
• Audit the holding account to ensure gifts are moved to the appropriate designation in a timely fashion.

Donor Experience and Client Support:

• Assist the Gift Manager in answering inquiries and requests from auditors and staff members as requested.
• Support the Assistant Director of Data Integrity with processing and responding to bio-demographic updates and inquiries from staff, alumni, and other campus partners.
• Manage the donor phone line (Support Sagehens) and answer/route donor questions appropriately.
• Support the new donor welcome process in collaboration with the Office of Annual Giving.
• Manage gift troubleshooting and associated donor outreach and support (GiveCampus/Double the Donation notifications).

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Education: High School Diploma or GED is required, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. Bachelor’s degree in the areas of business, marketing, statistics, or computer science is preferred.
• Experience: A minimum of 2 years’ experience with increasing responsibility in the areas of Gift and data management. Experience using a CRM for a major academic or nonprofit institution is required.

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE AND CRITICAL SKILLS: The Advancement Services Specialist must possess the knowledge, skills and abilities to be able to successfully perform the essential functions of the position or be able to demonstrate how the essential functions will be performed, with or without reasonable accommodation, using other skills and abilities not listed below.

• Demonstrated effectiveness and clarity of verbal and written communication with excellent interpersonal communication and phone manners.
• Must handle all activities and highly confidential information with discretion, patience, tact, and a keen eye for detail while working with individuals from a wide variety of audience levels, backgrounds, and roles.
• Must be proficient in operating computers with basic Microsoft Office software (such as Word, Excel, Outlook), associated professional software (such as Cognos, Raiser’s Edge, Salesforce, constituent research tools, Internet research, menu-driven databases) and social media networking.
• Demonstrated understanding of the use of technology in assessing and improving Advancement division systems and processes to achieve annual goals and maintain confidentiality.
• Must be proficient in generating queries, reports and lists from various systems.
• Able to handle multiple tasks, meet deadlines, and work both independently and as a collaborative member of the College in support of the College’s strategic vision and the division’s annual goals with a high standard of integrity, ethics, and accountability.
• Must have excellent analytical, organizational, and project management skills; able to perform well in a fast-paced, high-volume, multi-task office with dynamic priorities and firm deadlines while remaining self-motivated and creative to complete work with completeness, accuracy and exceptional attention to detail; and able to maintain accurate basic record keeping and gift accounting for the division.
• Proactive and solution oriented, able to reverse engineer business processes, and able to work independently or collaboratively.
• Must have excellent time management and task prioritization skills.
• Must engage with others in an inclusive and respectful manner, contributing to a culture that fosters a sense of belonging.
• Engaged in ongoing learning and knowledge sharing.
• Must understand the mission of the College’s liberal arts environment.

REQUIRED HOURS: The regular hours for this full-time position are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday – Friday, except during the designated summer period when office hours end at 4:30 p.m. Overtime, holiday, weekend and evening work hours may be required. Regular hours may vary due to needs of the College or division.

RATE:

The hourly rate for this role is between $24.03 - $26.84 with a competitive benefits package. The specific factors that the College will consider when offering a salary to an individual will include, but not be limited to: education, training, relevant prior experience, and performance in prior roles.

ADA/OSHA: This job description defines the essential job duties of this position.  The College expects that employees hired for this position can perform the essential functions of this job without imposing risk of substantial harm to the health or safety of themselves or others.  It may also include marginal functions, generally defined within Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

DISCLAIMER: This job description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification.  It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities and qualifications required of employees assigned to this position.  When duties and responsibilities change and develop, the College will review this job description and make changes of business necessity