Associate Director/Director, Client Services

About Us:

Aperio Philanthropy is a fundraising consulting firm that partners with nonprofits to realize their fundraising potential. We provide hands-on support that generates sustainable revenue growth and enables organizations to thrive.

Aperio was created for fundraisers by fundraisers. Every member of our team has successfully raised funds at leading nonprofits nationwide. With on-the-ground experience, we understand that the barrier to growth is rarely knowing what to do but rather how to get it done among competing priorities.

To simplify the path to growth, we’ve distilled proven approaches into a clear roadmap that any nonprofit can follow. Our services accelerate progress along that roadmap—unlocking new revenue at every step. We’re savvy strategists, but more importantly, we go beyond great ideas and work alongside fundraising teams to implement them.

The result is new, sustainable revenue for the missions that are changing our world.

About Our Team:

Every member of our team was drawn to Aperio by a craving to see nonprofits thrive—to escape the toxic ‘survival mode’ that holds back so many important missions and harms clients, staff, volunteers, and donors alike. We believe that nonprofits are vital to our society—that to create thriving communities, we need thriving nonprofits.

We believe that for any community, organization, or company to thrive, every individual in the community must have the space, resources, and support to thrive. For that reason, we work intentionally every day to create an environment with ample space for creativity, exploration, professional growth, and personal expression. We actively invest in anti-racism and anti-discrimination in our own company and our sector.

Our culture is relentlessly professional and rigorous, but simultaneously open and warm. We are collaborative, give each other honest feedback, and don’t micromanage each other. We engage each other, our clients, and our community members as people first, ensuring that we are supporting each other’s whole selves, not just the work at hand.

We value the combined power of:

• Results-orientation
• Creativity
• Simplification
• Authenticity

We believe that with a clear goal, a fresh set of eyes, a little bit of organization, and an infusion of confidence, every organization can be propelled to a new level of impact

About You:

You are inspired by what you’ve just read and driven to contribute what you’ve learned from on-the-ground fundraising to our vision of seeing nonprofits thrive. You believe that fundraising changes the lives of all involved—those served by the mission, the donors who fuel the work, and volunteers and staff.

You are adept at understanding people’s personal needs and motivations and uncovering alignment with your own objectives. You create win-win partnerships that leave people more confident and more capable of impact. You are ambitious on behalf of important causes, with a genuine desire to change the world.

You are authentic in your interactions with others. You build trust easily, communicate clearly, listen actively, ask good questions, and inspire loyalty. You maintain the highest standards of integrity at every step of the way.

About the Role:

The Director, Client Services serves as a leader in the nonprofit community, inspiring and supporting nonprofits to realize their full fundraising potential. About 80% of the Director’s time is spent supporting a portfolio of clients, in partnership with other Aperio team members. About 20% of time is spent on business development, serving as a thought leader in the community and proactively building relationships with a portfolio of prospective clients, referral sources, and other nonprofit leaders and fundraisers.

Client services responsibilities (80%)

The Associate Director/Director, Client Services provides thought partnership and hands-on support to a portfolio of nonprofit clients, in collaboration with other members of the Aperio team. In every project, the Associate Director/Director will position clients for sustainable revenue growth and fulfill client objectives. To that end, the Associate Director/Director will:

• Adopt a client-centric approach
• Continually seek to understand each client’s values, objectives, and expectations
• Leverage the Aperio approach of results-orientation, creativity, simplicity, and authenticity to create value for clients
• Cast a bold vision for each client’s fundraising potential, drawing attention to the full value of the client’s assets—mission impact, future vision, team strength, volunteer community, database potential, etc.
• Partner with clients to develop and articulate their strategy for realizing their fundraising potential
• Serve as a thought leader and subject-matter expert on the Aperio roadmap for revenue growth
• Translate strategies into concrete, actionable plans
• Convert plans into detailed project plans with clearly stated objectives, deliverables, timelines, stakeholders, and dependencies
• Project-manage the implementation of project plans, combining client-centric leadership with hands-on support to achieve objectives and complete deliverables in the expected timeframe
• Complete substantive portions of projects for clients to lessen the burden on staff
• Partner with the staff to build internal capacity for efficient and effective fundraising
• Seamlessly blend into the culture and workstyle of the client, building trust and working partnerships with a variety of stakeholders
• Use all available Aperio resources—expertise, experience, templates, tools, etc.—to seamlessly and efficiently advance project plans
• Contribute resources to the Aperio library through client work
• Contribute to Aperio’s efforts to fight racism and discrimination through client services
• Leverage the time, expertise, and experience of Aperio’s Expert Network to increase value for clients and accelerate service delivery
• Communicate progress against project plans to clients on a weekly basis
• Communicate results achieved to clients on a monthly basis

Direct project support varies by client. It can include, but is not limited to:

• Conducting assessments
• Producing reports summarizing assessment findings, recommendations, and strategies
• Interpreting data analyses
• Creating major gift, foundation, and corporate portfolios
• Supporting clean-up and SOP-development for databases and operational processes
• Creating governance models, dashboards, and trainings to implement/enhance metrics management
• Conducting moves management strategy sessions
• Preparing plans and materials for donor calls, meetings, and solicitations
• Creating fundraising toolkits
• Engaging leadership and boards in philanthropy
• Conducting qualification outreach to donors (emails, phone calls, meetings, etc.) for ad hoc donor lists or a defined qualification portfolio
• Developing and writing collateral
• Developing and writing custom proposals and stewardship reports
• Facilitating workshops
• Providing 1:1 coaching

Business development responsibilities (20%)

The Associate Director/Director, Client Services serves as an ambassador for Aperio in the community to grow Aperio’s client portfolio and support nonprofits broadly in their efforts to thrive. The Associate Director/Director builds and engages a targeted portfolio of prospective clients, referral sources, and other key relationships. In addition, the Associate Director/Director educates, equips, and inspires other nonprofit leaders and fundraisers about what it takes to thrive. To fulfill this role, the Associate Director/Director will:

• Build and engage a portfolio of 50-100 strategic relationships, sourced from personal networks and cold outreach
• Actively network to grow and strengthen the portfolio, achieving monthly activity metrics
• Leverage portfolio engagement resources provided, such as templates, scripts, segmented lists, and cold outreach prospect lists
• Approach conversations with curiosity to learn from experience on the ground
• Contribute to Aperio’s efforts to fight racism and discrimination, especially in nonprofits, fundraising, and philanthropy
• Present/facilitate and participate in conferences, workshops, and webinars hosted by Aperio and other industry groups
• Create articles and videos that educate, equip, and inspire nonprofit leaders and fundraisers
• Promote and engage with Aperio content across social media channels

Qualifications:

• 5+ years’ experience in relationship-based fundraising (major gifts, foundations, or corporate partnerships), including 3+ years’ experience focusing full-time on generating philanthropic revenue from a portfolio of individuals, foundations, and/or companies
• Demonstrated ability to efficiently manage a portfolio of relationships and grow revenue from that portfolio year-over-year
• Experience soliciting $100,000+ gifts
• Experience managing complex projects to successful completion
• Outstanding organizational and time-management skills and ability
• Ability to inspire and hold accountable diverse internal and external stakeholders
• Experience partnering with volunteer and staff leadership on donor relationships and/or projects
• Ability to analyze and interpret data and apply insights to strategy
• Demonstrated ability to leverage metrics to improve the donor experience and fundraiser performance
• Superb relationship management, interpersonal, and communication (written and oral) skills
• Strong storytelling and public speaking skills
• Strong understanding of technology systems pertinent to major gifts (Salesforce and Raiser’s Edge a plus)
• Openness to the ever-changing, dynamic environment of a start-up company
• Eagerness to learn new knowledge and skills
• Ability to travel for assignments, as needed, up to 50% of time

Location

This role combines remote work-from-home and on-site client support requirements, which can vary by project from no onsite support to daily support.

To facilitate work-from-home, Aperio provides essential technology equipment and:

• A $250 home office set-up stipend at 90 days
• A monthly mobile phone reimbursement of $75 per month

Compensation

Aperio is pleased to offer competitive compensation and benefits, as well as accelerated career development opportunities.

Base compensation for this role is $75,000 - $120,000 commensurate with experience in portfolio-focused, relationship-based fundraising. Bonus and promotion opportunities available.

Benefits include:

• Flexible scheduling
• Paid time off (PTO) starting at 4 weeks per year
• 10-15 holiday days per year, including closure over the year-end holidays
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401K with company matching of 100% of employee contributions up to the first 3% of pay and then 50% of employee contributions on the next 2% of pay