Here’s a job description for a major gift or legacy gift lead outreach associate

Greg Warner

February 19, 2018

Last summer I wrote a very thorough post titled: How To Structure and Staff Your Planned Giving Department for the 21st Century.

Ever since I’ve received quite a number of calls from major gift and legacy gift fundraisers and leaders about the post. Many of them decided to implement my recommendations. I should have mentioned back then that this structure works for major gift fundraising too.

Once they understand the concept they inevitably ask me to help them write a job description for the position. So, I thought I’d copy and paste the content I provide to them so you can benefit too.

If you didn’t read the article, go here first to check it out.

Finished reading that? Great! Let’s get started with the job description stuff noting that it is wise to invest in an entry-level lead outreach associate to open up lines of communication and dialogue. Here is the type of person you’ll want to find along with a loose job description:

Job description: Lead Outreach Associate

• The role of a Lead Outreach Associate involves calling and emailing (or messaging through social media) potential donors who have shown interest in making a gift. You will engage supporters (most of whom have completed a donor survey) in conversation, ask them questions about their lives and interests, provide them with content, information or engagement opportunities to help them build trust in you and our organization so they move themselves forward in their consideration process and, most importantly, want to meet with a philanthropic advisor (gift officer). Ultimately your job is to set up meetings with members of our staff so the potential donor can consider whether to work with them on a gift.

The following personality qualities are essential for a Lead Outreach Associate:

• Amiable, friendly, polite, warm and engaging yet persistent and tenacious
• Passionate about the mission of the organization as a result of family or friends
• Talkative and chatty but also has the ability to be inquisitive and listen to older people as they tell their stories and explain why they want to give to support our cause
• Inquisitive because they will need to qualify leads and find out their needs at a low level (the gift officer will qualify the lead further)
• Goal-oriented because they will be required to set a certain number of appointments each week/month/year
• Computer literate because they will need to use email in addition to the telephone and will need to record their efforts in the CRM while also using the MarketSmart dashboard
• Beginning your career as a Lead Outreach Associate can take you places; there is much that you can learn about fundraising for worthy causes and a long-term career in the nonprofit sector.

Your duties will include:

• Call and email supporters who have filled out a donor survey or engaged with the organization in some other way
• Express gratitude for past giving and/or involvement
• Ask questions to expand on their answers in the survey and understand why they care, their program interests and consideration level for making a gift
• Provide information about happenings with the organization while providing opportunities for further engagement and involvement
• Take notes and enter them into a database
• Set appointments for interested supporters to talk to and/or meet with a representative of the organization to discuss giving
• Follow-up to ensure that the appointments that you set actually occur by sending reminders to the supporters
• Work with others on-staff to ensure that appointments fit their schedules and get on their calendars
• Provide progress reports including numbers of calls, appointments set, success ratios and other metrics
• Achieve quotas for numbers of calls made and appointments set

Some last words on this:

• The most expensive member of the team will be the major gift officer or the planned gift technician because they are highly skilled and very experienced.
• The administrative support will only be needed when the volume of activity becomes excessive.
• The stewardship outreach associate will only be needed when the legacy society is large enough to require such a person.

I hope that helps you!

Related Posts:

>>You’ve got leads (identified major donor prospects) but are they ‘outreach-ready’?
>>How to structure and staff your planned gift shop for the 21st century

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