Director of Events

Director of Events

The Director of Events for the Philadelphia/Delaware region is responsible for raising funds through large-scale community walk-a-thon and racing events in the Philadelphia/Delaware region. The Director of Events is ideal for an experienced development professional with strong special events, fundraising, corporate partnership/marketing experience and excellent organizational and leadership skills. The Director of Events will maximize the fundraising potential of each event by growing those that are sustainable and significantly increasing revenue. This position reports directly to the Director of Development - Events.

The Director of Events will have proven success managing large-scale community walk-a-thons and racing events in a non-profit fundraising environment and will enjoy cultivating relationships through interaction with corporations, high-level volunteers, individual major donors, and other organizations. The Director of Events will primarily focus on developing and building strong event committees, securing sponsorships and in-kind donations, fundraising through the teambuilding structure, and increasing brain tumor awareness through each community event and event online presence.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Creates and implements fundraising strategies for walk-a-thon and racing events - includes overall logistics, volunteer committee leadership, and development of supports systems to dramatically increase revenue of events.
• Evaluates, develops recommendations, and implements processes to continually improve each event.
• Provides customer service support to event participants and Team Captains by responding to telephone and email communications about events (non-money related inquiries).
• Contacts prior year Team Captains to proactively encourage participation and fundraising.

• Builds strong, dynamic committees for each event.
• Focuses on corporate Team recruitment in an effort to achieve aggressive growth in corporate Team participation and fundraising revenue.
• Maximizes family/friend and community Team recruitment efforts and fundraising activities.
• Works one-on-one with Team Captains to build a fundraising plan, ensures plan implementation and adds value to both Team and Walker efforts.
• Educates and supports committee chairs and event committees to increase participation and revenue.
• Trains and supports committees to target and solicit local sponsors and in-kind donations, and solicit key target sponsors as required.
• Organizes all Internal Event support gatherings (kick-off meetings, orientations, receptions, debriefing meetings, committee recruitment events, etc).

• Identifies major gift prospects and teams/participants with significant growth potential.
• Monitors companies contracted for event logistics - includes registration and volunteer training, delivery of sponsor benefits, securing sites, finalizing routes, and staging.
• Develops and monitors event budgets and finances in accordance with approved procedures.
• Becomes familiar with event procedures, and develops programs and materials that empower committees to serve as points of contact for general event inquiries.
• Recruits and supervises internal and external event volunteers.
• Increases professional expertise through professional development activities.

• Other duties as assigned by the Director of Development - Events

Our ideal candidate will be/have:

• An experienced fundraising and development professional who has 4+ years experience in successfully implementing special event 'pledge-a-thon' fundraising programs.
• A proven track record of planning and implementing fundraising and sponsorship strategies for events, and meeting and exceeding revenue goals.
• Available and willing to travel approximately 10%+ of the time and work nights and weekends, as needed.
• A results driven self-starter who works well both independently and as part of a team.
• An ability to juggle multiple projects and priorities, meet deadlines and work well under pressure.
• Incredibly detail oriented and highly organized, while maintaining perspective and understanding the big picture.
• Accountable to themselves, their colleagues and the relationships under their management.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, able to connect with, articulate the National Brain Tumor Society mission to and work with constituents at all levels and from various backgrounds.
• Creative and willing to think out of the box.
• Adept at leveraging and building networks for outreach and fundraising initiatives.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, Power Point.
• Experience working with Luminate, TeamRaiser and Salesforce Common Ground or a related donor database.
• Bachelor’s degree preferred, or equivalent combination of education and expertise.
• Previous experience with a grassroots walk/race fundraising program is preferred.