Director of Advancement Operations and Prospect Research
Maryville College
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Job summary
Maryville College in Maryville, TN invites applications for the Director of Advancement Operations and Prospect Research. This senior role leads data, technology, and analytics to support fundraising strategy, ensures CRM integrity, and builds a proactive prospect research program to strengthen donor engagement.
The successful candidate will manage governance of the advancement CRM (Raiser’s Edge NXT), develop reporting dashboards, collaborate with campus partners, and drive improvements in data
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
- 5+ years in advancement services, prospect development, or related field.
- Experience with Raiser’s Edge NXT or comparable CRM.
Responsibilities
- Lead Advancement Services, prospect research, and CRM utilization.
- Translate fundraising strategy into measurable, data-informed execution.
- Develop dashboards and recurring reports for leadership.
Skills
Education
Tools
Job description
Position Title: Director of Advancement Operations and Prospect Research
Department: Advancement
Title of Immediate Supervisor: Assistant Vice President for Advancement
Funded Term / Work Cycle: 12 months
Expected Daily Work Hours: 8 hours
Expected Weekly Work Schedule: 40 hours; occasional evening and weekend work may be required
Pay Grade: 12S
Starting Salary Expectations: $78,575.19 - $88,397.09 with starting salary determined based on relevant experience, qualifications, and demonstrated competencies.
Maryville College is a nationally ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges. For more than 200 years, we’ve educated students to be giving citizens and gifted leaders to study everything so that they are prepared for anything. Our graduates are equipped to address complex problems, engage with diverse communities, and launch meaningful careers.
Nestled in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville, our campus combines the beauty of a rural setting with the advantages of an urban center. With a wide range of academic programs and a strong tradition of career preparation, our alumni live “strong of mind and brave of heart,” carrying forward our Presbyterian founder’s charge to do good on the largest possible scale.
At Maryville College, we offer more than a mission—we offer support. Our employees receive a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision coverage; a generous paid time off program; a retirement plan with an employer match of up to 5%; tuition benefits for employees, spouses, and dependents; and the opportunity to grow in a collaborative community that values professional excellence and personal well-being.
“Maryville College prepares students for lives of citizenship and leadership as we challenge each one to search for truth, grow in wisdom, work for justice and dedicate a life of creativity and service to the peoples of the world.”
- Scholarship: We commit ourselves to lifelong curiosity and learning, to the search for knowledge, and to intellectual creativity.
- Respect: We commit ourselves to honor the worth, dignity, and freedom of ourselves and all creation, and to treat others as we wish to be treated.
- Integrity: We commit ourselves to truth, honesty, dependability, and responsibility in all our actions and relationships.
The Director of Advancement Services and Prospect Research provides strategic leadership for the data, technology, research, reporting, and operational infrastructure that supports Maryville College’s philanthropic program. The Director is responsible for maximizing the strategic use of the College’s advancement CRM; ensuring accuracy, integrity, accessibility, and appropriate use of constituent and philanthropic data; developing a comprehensive prospect research and management program; and providing actionable intelligence that strengthens fundraising strategy and donor engagement.
The Director transforms institutional data into fundraising intelligence by identifying philanthropic capacity and affinity, supporting portfolio development, tracking movement through the donor lifecycle, and developing reporting and analytics that allow Advancement and College leadership to make informed decisions. The position also establishes processes through which relevant relationship intelligence from across the College can appropriately inform prospect identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.
This position serves as the strategic owner of Advancement data and prospect intelligence and is a key partner to the Vice President, Assistant Vice President, frontline fundraisers, and campus leaders. The Director will help move Raiser’s Edge NXT beyond gift processing and recordkeeping toward a consistently used system for moves management, segmentation, pipeline analysis, portfolio strategy, institutional relationship mapping, and performance reporting. The Director will lead improvements in data governance, wealth screening, prospect research, CRM adoption, and cross-campus collaboration while maintaining strong Advancement Services operations.
Education required to ensure success in this position: Bachelor’s degree required. Advanced degree or relevant professional certification preferred.
Experience required to ensure success in this position: Five or more years of progressively responsible experience in advancement services, prospect development/research, fundraising operations, CRM/database management, analytics, or a related field. Higher education advancement experience strongly preferred. Demonstrated experience with Raiser’s Edge NXT or a comparable advancement CRM, reporting and analytics, data governance, and prospect management is strongly preferred.
- Serve as the strategic leader for Advancement Services, prospect research, prospect management, CRM utilization, and fundraising intelligence.
- Partner closely with the Assistant Vice President and Vice President to translate fundraising strategy into measurable, data-informed execution.
- Establish clear service standards, workflows, documentation, and accountability for Advancement data, research, reporting, and operational processes.
- Provide training, consultation, and support to Advancement staff so the CRM is used consistently as the system of record for donor strategy and moves management.
- Participate in regular portfolio, pipeline, prospect strategy, and fundraising performance meetings and provide analysis that informs decisions.
- Serve as the functional owner and subject-matter expert for Raiser’s Edge NXT and associated Advancement technologies.
- Develop and maintain CRM governance standards, including required fields, standardized coding, constituent and relationship standards, action/contact-report protocols, proposal tracking, prospect stages, assignments, interests, ratings, and next actions.
- Partner with Business, Financial Aid and related departments to ensure data integrity and reporting are accurate
- Conduct regular data audits and establish corrective processes to address duplicate records, incomplete fields, inconsistent coding, historical data gaps, and other issues that reduce confidence in reporting.
- Develop dashboards and recurring reports that provide visibility into fundraising revenue, portfolio size and quality, meaningful contacts, visits, proposals, solicitations, pipeline value, donor retention, prospect movement, and progress toward goals.
- Strengthen use of CRM segmentation, queries, lists, analytics, and reporting to support proactive fundraising and strategic prioritization.
- Partner with Information Technology and Blackbaud or other vendors as appropriate to evaluate integrations, system enhancements, security, permissions, and technology needs.
- Ensure Advancement data practices comply with College policies, donor privacy expectations, applicable regulations, gift documentation standards, and appropriate CASE reporting practices.
- Build and lead a proactive prospect research and identification program for individuals, corporations, foundations, and other potential philanthropic partners.
- Lead or coordinate comprehensive wealth screening and ensure screening results are appropriately reviewed, validated, rated, documented, and incorporated into the CRM.
- Develop and maintain consistent capacity, affinity, inclination, and prospect-status methodologies to support qualification and prioritization.
- Analyze the College’s constituent base to identify previously unrecognized high-capacity and high-affinity prospects among alumni, parents, friends, trustees, volunteers, corporate partners, and other constituents.
- Prepare timely prospect profiles, briefings, relationship maps, philanthropic histories, and strategy summaries for fundraisers, the President, trustees, and senior leaders.
- Partner with Advancement leadership to maintain strategically balanced portfolios, identify prospects for qualification or reassignment, and ensure portfolio decisions are documented in the CRM.
- Monitor pipeline health and identify gaps, stalled prospects, unassigned high-capacity prospects, and opportunities for increased engagement or solicitation.
- Develop a cross-campus prospect referral and relationship-intelligence process that enables appropriate philanthropic information to flow into Advancement.
- Build collaborative relationships with the President’s Office, Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Athletics, Admissions, Career Services, Finance, the Clayton Center for the Arts, Marketing and Communications, and other areas to identify meaningful constituent and organizational relationships.
- Maintain relationship mapping in the CRM to document connections among prospects, alumni, trustees, faculty, staff, volunteers, corporations, foundations, and community partners.
- Support coordinated engagement when multiple College representatives have relationships with the same individual or organization.
- Develop practical tools and protocols for campus partners to share prospect referrals and relationship intelligence without requiring broad, unnecessary CRM access.
- Provide leadership with accurate, timely briefings and data for donor meetings, travel, events, institutional priorities, and fundraising planning.
- Provide oversight for gift and pledge processing, constituent records, fund/designation coding, acknowledgments, documentation, database integrity, and related Advancement Services workflows.
- Ensure timely and accurate recording of gifts, pledges, soft credits, matching gifts, planned gift information, donor restrictions, and other relevant philanthropic activity.
- Partner with Finance to maintain reliable reconciliation processes and alignment between Advancement and financial records.
- Maintain written procedures and documentation for core Advancement Services functions to ensure continuity, consistency, and audit readiness.
- Support gift agreements, fund establishment, donor intent documentation, stewardship tracking, annual reporting, and institutional or external reporting as assigned.
- Evaluate Advancement workflows and recommend process or technology improvements that reduce manual work and increase strategic capacity.
- Support accurate philanthropic revenue reporting and reconciliation and provide data needed for budgeting, forecasting, and institutional planning.
- Assist Advancement leadership in evaluating technology, screening, research, data enrichment, and vendor investments based on strategic value and return.
- Monitor assigned technology and service expenditures and participate in annual budget planning for Advancement Services and prospect development
- Develop and maintain a multi-year roadmap for CRM optimization, prospect research, data governance, analytics, reporting, and Advancement technology.
- Establish measurable standards for CRM adoption and data quality and report progress regularly to Advancement leadership.
- Use data to help Advancement evaluate donor acquisition, retention, movement between giving levels, pipeline development, solicitation activity, and long-term philanthropic opportunity.
- Support implementation of the College’s 2026 Development Audit recommendations related to wealth screening, prospect management, CRM utilization, reporting, data governance, and Advancement infrastructure.
- Continuously evaluate emerging advancement-services and prospect-development practices and recommend improvements appropriate to Maryville College.
- Complete or lead implementation of comprehensive wealth screening and establish a process for validating and integrating results into Raiser’s Edge NXT.
- Conduct a comprehensive CRM data-quality and coding review and implement standardized data-entry, required-field, and audit practices.
- Establish consistent prospect stages, ratings, portfolio assignments, contact-report expectations, proposal tracking, and next-action standards.
- Develop executive and frontline fundraising dashboards that provide reliable visibility into activity, pipeline health, portfolio performance, solicitation, and revenue.
- Establish a regular portfolio-review and prospect-management process in partnership with the AVP and frontline fundraisers.
- Create and launch a cross-campus prospect referral and relationship-intelligence process.
- Develop a multi-year CRM and Advancement technology roadmap, including training, analytics, integrations, data enrichment, and reporting priorities.
- Maintain documented data-quality standards and demonstrate measurable improvement through routine CRM audits.
- Ensure 100% of managed prospects have an assigned fundraiser or owner, prospect stage/status, and document next action according to established standards.
- Deliver accurate monthly Advancement dashboards and quarterly portfolio/pipeline analyses to Advancement leadership.
- Complete comprehensive wealth screening integration and establish an ongoing process for prospect identification, research, qualification, and prioritization.
- Achieve consistent frontline fundraiser adoption of established CRM moves-management and contact-reporting standards.
- Establish defined turnaround/service standards for prospect research, executive briefings, gift processing, reporting, and data requests.
- Track and report prospects and opportunities originating from cross-campus referrals and institutional relationship intelligence.
- Provide regular recommendations for portfolio optimization, including qualification, reassignment, removal, and newly identified prospects.
- Perform other responsibilities and special projects assigned to advance the College’s mission and maintain a respectful, collaborative learning environment.
- Advanced knowledge of advancement CRM systems, preferably Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, and the ability to translate system functionality into fundraising strategy.
- Strong knowledge of prospect research, wealth screening, prospect management, moves management, portfolio strategy, and donor lifecycle practices.
- Demonstrated skill in data governance, database administration, reporting, analytics, segmentation, and data visualization/dashboard development.
- Ability to synthesize complex information into concise, actionable prospect intelligence for fundraisers and senior leaders.
- Strong analytical judgment and attention to accuracy, confidentiality, donor privacy, and data integrity.
- Ability to build collaborative relationships across organizational boundaries and translate campus relationships into appropriately managed philanthropic intelligence.
- Strong project-management, documentation, process-improvement, and training skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to explain technical or data concepts to non-technical colleagues.
- Ability to manage multiple priorities, meet deadlines, exercise sound judgment, and work independently in a fast-paced environment.
No specific license required. Relevant Blackbaud, Jenzabar (SIS), CASE, Power BI, Tableau, data analytics, or prospect development credentials are preferred but not required
- Must be able to lift/move up to 10 pounds.
- Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
- Ability to travel between campus buildings or off-campus locations as needed
- Standard office equipment and computer systems. Valid driver’s license may be required for occasional College-related travel.
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