Development Lead – Prospect Research & New Business Development

RMI; United States; Remote; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

RMI seeks a Development Lead – Prospect Research and New Business Development to advance unrestricted and general operating revenue growth. You will oversee prospect development, data capture, and reporting in Salesforce, driving smarter fundraising decisions with AI tools and governance.

The role emphasizes mature prospect discovery across individuals, foundations, corporate philanthropy, and public-sector revenue streams, reporting to the Director of New Initiatives & Partners.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• 5 years of dedicated experience in prospect research, prospect development, fundraising operations, or related nonprofit function.
• Familiarity with Apra standards and ethical research practices; Apra membership/training preferred.
• Experience identifying and qualifying prospects across fundraising verticals; individual giving preferred.
• Experience with prospect research tools such as Salesforce, DonorSearch, WealthX, or related platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead prospect research and development work across revenue portfolio, maintaining centralized prospect lists and pipelines.
• Identify, evaluate, and prioritize prospects across streams for unrestricted or general operating support.
• Apply Apra-informed analysis, relationship mapping, and due diligence in research.
• Own cross-vertical new business development workstreams and provide concise briefings with next steps.
• Manage program-specific and cross-program pipelines, tracking status and actions.

Skills

Prospect research

Data fluency

Project management

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Salesforce

DonorSearch

WealthX

Foundation Directory

Relationship Science

Job description

About RMI

RMI is an independent nonprofit, founded in 1982 as Rocky Mountain Institute, that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5°C future and secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all. We work in the world’s most critical geographies and engage businesses, policymakers, communities, and NGOs to identify and scale energy system interventions that will cut climate pollution at least 50 percent by 2030. RMI has offices in Basalt and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; Oakland, California; Washington, D.C.; Abuja, Nigeria; and Beijing.

Position Overview

The Development Lead – Prospect Research and New Business Development leads funder research, prospect development, active pipeline management, and research operations across fundraising verticals, including individuals, foundations, corporate philanthropy, corporate fee-for-service engagement partners, and the public sector.

This is an experienced Lead / senior individual contributor role for a candidate who can assess RMI's current state, strengthen standards, and help mature the prospect development function. The role supports unrestricted and general operating revenue growth by improving how prospects are identified, prioritized, tracked, and advanced; how prospect data is captured and surfaced in Salesforce or related data warehouse/reporting environments; and how AI, automation, and prospect intelligence are used responsibly to support better fundraising decisions.

The ideal candidate brings dedicated prospect development practice, data fluency, Apra-informed standards, and experience supporting prospect discovery across individual, foundation, corporate, and public-sector revenue streams. Individual/HNWI research experience is especially valuable given RMI’s unrestricted giving goals.

This role is part of RMI's Development & Strategic Engagement team and reports to the Director of New Initiatives & Partnerships (Strategic Services).

Key Responsibilities

Prospect Research and New Business Development

• Lead and evolve RMI's prospect research and prospect development work across the revenue portfolio, maintaining centralized prospect lists and pipelines that incorporate inputs from new business development efforts, Program teams, Development staff, events, executive engagement opportunities, and shifts in the broader funding landscape.

• Identify, evaluate, and recommend U.S. and global prospects across revenue streams, with emphasis on action-ready opportunities that have clear capacity, inclination, access, timing, and strategic fit for unrestricted, flexible, general operating, or priority program support.

• Apply Apra-informed best practices in capacity, inclination, affinity, and readiness analysis; relationship mapping; ethical research; due diligence; reputational judgment; and privacy-conscious documentation.

• Own cross-vertical new business development workstreams, including research delivery, reporting, meeting facilitation, accountability tracking, process improvements, and concise prospect briefings with clear next steps.

Pipeline Strategy and Cross-Functional Partnership

• Actively manage program-specific and cross-program prospect pipelines, tracking opportunity status, prospect movement, owner accountability, next steps, and action follow-up.

• Conduct pipeline analysis, reporting, and financial pipeline reviews to identify funding gaps, high-potential opportunities, prospects ready for outreach, and actions needed to move prospects forward.

• Partner with Relationship Managers and program colleagues to prioritize prospects, identify engagement gaps, support follow-up, and elevate recurring or unresolved barriers to Development leadership when needed.

• Translate prospect and pipeline data into clear recommendations for where RMI should focus limited relationship-building time and senior leadership attention, separating useful intelligence from action-ready opportunities.

Systems, Data, Automation, and Operational Excellence

• Serve as a steward of high-quality prospect and pipeline data in Salesforce, including relationship data, ratings, attribute coding, opportunities, tasks, moves management, prospect status, and next steps.

• Partner with Development Operations and data/technology colleagues to strengthen the prospect research data model in Salesforce or related data warehouse/reporting environments, including fields, tagging, data standards, dashboards, and data-quality checks.

• Develop standardized capacity, inclination, affinity, and readiness rating practices; evaluate research resources, datasets, AI applications, automation tools, data enrichment services, and vendor relationships to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of RMI's prospect research system.

• Use AI and automation responsibly to reduce duplicative manual work, improve prospect discovery, increase reporting speed, and support prioritization while maintaining human judgment, documentation quality, privacy safeguards, and ethical review.

• Identify, streamline, document, and improve internal processes across research requests, qualification, outreach handoffs, data flow, reporting, and knowledge management.

Training, Standards, and Resource Coordination

• Promote knowledge-sharing and consistent adoption of prospect research and new business development processes across collaborators, making tools and workflows practical, easy to use, and tied to fundraising decisions.

• Train Development, Strategic Engagement, and Program colleagues on prospect research tools, data practices, and effective partnership with Development; guide staff, contractors, interns, or vendors on repeatable research or data tasks as needed.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.

• 5 years of dedicated experience in prospect research, prospect development, fundraising operations, donor services, advancement services, or a related nonprofit development function.

• Familiarity with the Apra Body of Knowledge, Apra-informed ethical research standards, and current prospect development practices; Apra membership, training, or equivalent professional development preferred.

• Experience identifying and qualifying prospects across fundraising verticals, including individuals/HNWIs, family offices, family foundations, donor-advised fund holders, institutional foundations, corporate philanthropy or fee-for-service partners, and public-sector funders; individual giving experience preferred.

• Experience with prospect research tools and methods, including DonorSearch, WealthX, Foundation Directory/Foundation Center, Relationship Science, Salesforce, screenings, relationship mapping, public records, due diligence, and moves-management support.

• Strong data fluency, including Salesforce reports/dashboards, segmentation, data mining, database overlays, data hygiene, pipeline reporting, and comfort partnering on Salesforce or data warehouse improvements.

• Experience using or evaluating AI-enabled research tools, workflow automation, data enrichment tools, or vendor systems to improve research speed, accuracy, and decision-making.

• Demonstrated analytical, project management, writing, collaboration, and stakeholder-management skills, including sound judgment with sensitive information; disciplined prioritization; due diligence and judgment; and ability to build shared ownership of next steps across a matrixed team.

• Experience working in the environmental, climate, clean energy sector, or adjacent mission-driven sector is preferred but not required.

Visa Sponsorship

Please note: At this time, RMI is not able to sponsor employment visas or hire candidates who require visa sponsorship to work in the United States. All candidates must have current, independent authorization to work in the U.S. without present or future sponsorship from RMI. We will update our hiring pages if this status changes.