Mercersburg Academy is a private, college-prep boarding school located in south-central Pennsylvania, about 90 minutes from the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. The school’s mission and core values guide our vision and direction. At Mercersburg, we value diversity and believe in cultivating a safe community where everyone is encouraged to be their authentic selves.

Job Classification

Full-Time, 12 Month, Exempt, Staff

Reports To

Director of Leadership Giving

Summary

The Manager of Prospect Research is an important strategic partner in the Advancement and Alumni Relations office and will hold a key role in building and expanding our knowledge of our most generous donors. The Manager will be responsible for the oversight and coordination of prospect research and prospect management for the office, focusing primarily on individuals with the ability to make gifts of $50,000 and higher to Mercersburg. Discretion and confidentiality with sensitive information is needed.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Interpret and synthesize hard and soft data to create a financial, biographical, and philanthropic picture of a donor, and assign accurate prospect ratings.
• Develop a systematic approach to identifying new major prospects from a variety of sources, including data mining of our database (Blackbaud) and analyzing results of yearly wealth screening.
• Collaborates with Advancement Services on matters related to analytics, data and data mining, and wealth screening.
• Oversees prospect management policies and procedures and makes sure they are correctly updated and entered into the database.
• Partner with the Chief Advancement Officer (CAO) and gift officers to help them manage their pipelines, including setting up a strong system of reminders and tracking moves management.
• Responsible for writing brief bios for nominations for alumni awards, volunteer organization membership nominations, small cultivation events, and preparing full-wealth profiles for the Head of School, the CAO, and top volunteers for individual meetings with our most affluent prospects and donors.
• Use data to inform portfolio composition and flow as well as to guide regional prospect assignments.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• A disciplined, results-oriented, self-starter, demonstrating initiative, proactiveness, and the ability to work independently with minimal supervision.
• Excellent technical and analytical skills, familiarity with databases, and knowledgeable about how to pull query and sort data.
• Highly organized, naturally curious, and detail oriented.
• Service oriented who believes in Mercersburg Academy’s mission and vision, and the case for support of its priorities.
• Ability to appropriately manage highly-confidential information and uphold the highest ethical and professional standards.

Physical Demands:

The conditions herein are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential job functions.

• Environment: Work is performed mostly in an indoor/office environment where the noise level is quiet.
• Physical: Primary functions require sufficient physical ability and mobility to stand or sit for prolonged periods of time; sufficient manual dexterity and eye-hand coordination to operate office machinery, specifically a computer and keyboard.
• Vision: See in the normal visual range with or without correction.
• Auditory: Hear in the normal audio range with or without correction.

Mercersburg Academy offers a competitive Total Compensation package with perks:

• Healthcare (medical, dental, vision plans offering)
• Health Savings Account Employer Contributions
• Paid Life Insurance, Short-term Disability, and Long-term Disability
• Education Assistance
• 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan, employer matching contributions of 11% to a minimum employee contribution of 5%.
• Paid Time Off
• Holiday pay, 4 observed holidays, plus week of Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day
• Designated half-day Fridays during summer break
• One meal offered during shift

This position has the opportunity to work remote up to two days per week after 90 day probationary period.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience.
• 3+ years of experience in identifying and assessing wealth in an advancement/development setting or similar background.