Associate - Donor Relations

Akanksha is on a mission to build one of the largest and most innovative networks of schools in India, serving children from low-income communities, to maximize their potential. Our aspirational vision for students integrates academic excellence with life skills (including socio - emotional development), that will enable each child to live an empowered life. We believe an empowered citizen must possess a sense of mastery to pursue excellence, a sense of agency to make informed choices and a sense of purpose to serve their communities. Over the last 30 plus years, Akanksha has been at the forefront of proving what’s possible for children from low - income communities in Mumbai & Pune. Our 4,600 alumni are on the path to living an empowered life. Today Akanksha runs 26 schools in partnership with governments of Mumbai, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Navi Mumbai and Nagpur serving ~13,000 children in grades Jr Kg - Gr 10. **Position: Associate, Donor Relations** Team: Donor Relations and Communications Reports to: Director - Donor Relations **Position Summary**: The role will be responsible for supporting the Central Development and Donor Relations team to build the funding base in order to support Akanksha’s ambitious program goals. However, the role can go much beyond that including looking for creative and new avenues for funding. The assistant will be given some ownership of projects and work allowing for a lot of personal growth and satisfaction. **Overview of the Team**: The Development team is responsible for raising funds for the operations of the Akanksha Foundation. Development is one of the critical backbones of the organizations as the organization is completely dependent on donations in its current form. The development team needs to be abreast with everything happening in the organization and the education sector as a lot of time is spent in creating and maintaining relationships with external stakeholders The development team is divided into various work streams by different sources of funding that Akanksha receives. Some of these include Corporates, Foundations, Individual Giving, Retail Giving, Online, Events, among others. **What your role will entail**: **1. Funding support**: a. Lead generation to identify new prospect, vet them through research and setup preliminary conversations to be pursued by Director/ manager b. Support pursuit through proposal writing, coordination of school visits, building employee engagement plan and executing it. **2. Reporting**: a. Using netsuite software to run reports, creating development organization metrics dashboard, analyzing trends in donations, identifying gaps, etc. b. Liaising with Finance team to create donor reports in the formats suggested by the donors **3. Research**: a. Prospect Research to gauge the strength of the prospects being considered b. Support the manager/ director with additional research as and when required **4. Operations**: a. Coordinating the volunteering events with the school teams and corporates b. Managing gift operations for donors in each work stream 5. The assistant may also have the opportunity to manage interns working on specific projects under their work stream As a part of the development team, the assistant may make several external contacts. These should be appropriately shared with the Recruitment, Alumni & communications teams who also deal with external stakeholders **Knowledge and Technical Skills** - Strong analysis, research skills, statistical and mathematic expertise preferred - Strong Excel, Word and PowerPoint skills - Communication skills **Abilities/ Competencies** - Excellent time management and organizational skills - Relationship building - Commitment to excellence and accuracy **Education and Experience** - 1-2 years of work experience in same or similar domain - Bachelor’s degree in any discipline **Job Types**: Full-time, Permanent Pay: ₹38,000.00 - ₹41,000.00 per month **Benefits**: - Flexible schedule - Health insurance - Leave encashment - Paid sick time - Paid time off - Provident Fund - Work from home Schedule: - Day shift **Education**: - Bachelor's (required) **Experience**: - fundraising: 1 year (preferred) Work Location: In person