Director of Development and Communications

Veggie Rescue is a food rescue nonprofit serving Santa Barbara County, with a mission to improve the nutrition of and quality of life for community members struggling with food insecurity by providing them with local produce and high-quality prepared food while having a positive environmental impact through the reduction of food waste. In 2022, Veggie Rescue delivered over 1.9M servings of nutritious rescued food to those living with housing and food insecurity in Santa Barbara County.

Director of Development and Communications

Full-time, exempt position with a flexible, hybrid-remote schedule

Veggie Rescue is a small nonprofit with five employees. This Development position will be the sixth employee, and the first focused on development, outreach and communication. This is a great opportunity for a development professional who would value a hands-on opportunity to develop and implement best practices while being responsible for coordinating all elements of our multi-year development plan. The area of focus for Veggie Rescue at this time includes growing our individual donor base, grant management, and outreach activities to grow awareness of our programs throughout Santa Barbara County. This position is a public face of Veggie Rescue. As an ambassador of the mission of Veggie Rescue it is expected that the values of Veggie Rescue are shared and communicated. These values include: placing a high priority on zero waste, considering the impact on the environment in all aspects of our work, having a focus on bridging access to healthy foods and influencing healthy lifestyles, and having a high-quality customer service approach in all our interactions with both food donors and recipient organizations.

Location – Veggie Rescue has an office in Santa Ynez. This position is considered to be a remote position, with a requirement to commute to the office on average four to six times per month, including attendance at monthly staff meetings and the three board meetings per year that are in-person. Some travel within Santa Barbara County is necessary periodically for outreach activities.

Responsibilities-

This hands-on Director of Development will work collaboratively with the Executive Director, effectively creating the Executive team. This position is considered a leadership position and will be expected to attend all board meetings to inform and collaborate with all board members, while also leading and facilitating our Board Development Committee.

Implementation of Strategic Multi-year Development Plan

In 2022 Veggie Rescue worked with a consultant to evaluate our strengths and opportunities in both fundraising and outreach, and developed a very focused development plan. Though elements of the plan were put into place late 2022, this role will take on the full implementation, working with ED and the board to set priorities. This position will lead the development, implementation and management of constituent cultivation, research and recognition.

• Execute moves management, while coordinating with board members as needed
• Donor cultivation and stewardship
• Help transition the board to embrace a culture of philanthropy
• Plan, and help to coordinate, a series of small donor events
• Encourage and support staff, volunteers and board members to recruit new donors
• Envision, document and implement development policies and procedures

 Donor Administration

With only six employees, this position will also be responsible for the data management for our newly implemented donor database, as well as our tracking of output that is our primary measure of our impact in the communities we serve. Responsibilities include:

• Process donations from initial receipt, to entering into the database, ensuring proper acknowledgement, and coordinating with bookkeeper for accounting entries.
• Maintain and update constituent records in Bloomerang, our CRM, adding details to donor records as they become known
• Help conduct research, analyze data, and track and report on current or prospective donors, mailing lists, events, and campaigns.
• Maintain electronic files relating to donations, as needed
• Support ongoing reconciliation of contributed revenue. Build, pull, and update queries, mailing lists, and exports as needed.
• Support direct mail and email campaigns as directed
• Make weekly updates to the database tracking pounds of food rescued and distributed

Events

• Work with executive director and development committee to organize 2-3 intimate, high level donor events each year
• Assist founder with a small, annual golf tournament
• Help secure sponsors, both monetary and in-kind, for events.

Grant Management

• Research and collection of information regarding local foundations, and other foundations that support SB County programs
• Provide project management for grant tracking through use of Bloomerang software, and supplemental tracking including a grants calendar addressing deadlines for applications, reporting and restricted use of funds
• Primary writer of grant applications, coordinating with others to assist in review and financial information
• Process grants received from initial receipt, to entering into the database, and ensuring proper acknowledgement and reporting

Outreach and Communications

This position will be responsible for ensuring consistent messaging, across all media and materials.

• Plan, write and post on all relevant social media outlets
• Coordinate production of outreach materials
• Volunteer coordination, growth of volunteer list and managing placement of volunteers to provide community members an opportunity to engage with Veggie Rescue.
• Lead initiatives to build, and then maintain, a library of videos and photos to use in our outreach.
• Initiate a quarterly email newsletter
• Lead website updates, assist is writing content to refresh our website, and make content updates on the website

Qualifications, Skills and Requirements

The successful candidate will have a track record of success in donor cultivation and stewardship, as well as grants management. Other expectations include:

• Prior experience with databases: entry, reports, maintenance
• BA preferred but relevant experience will be taken into consideration
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrates organizational and analytical skills, extreme attention to detail and ability to work both independently and as part of a team.
• Strong critical thinking, planning, execution, and multitasking skills and demonstrated ability to reprioritize duties.
• Able to be flexible and adaptable to accommodate a small team work environment where all team members contribute as needed.
• Demonstrated ability to be a team player, who is collaborative and self-motivated, needing minimal direction and supervision.
• Proficiency in all Microsoft Office applications as well as ability to learn new systems

Compensation:  $80,000 to $90,000 DOE

To Apply:  Please submit a resume and cover letter to Diana O’Connell at diana@veggierescue.org