Senior Director of Strategy and Analysis

Senior Director of Strategy and Analysis

Amherst Campus
Full Time
JR3784

Amherst has taken a leadership role among highly selective liberal arts colleges and universities in successfully diversifying the racial, socio-economic, and geographic profile of its student body. The College is similarly committed to enriching its educational experience and its culture through the diversity of its faculty, administration and staff.

Job Description:

Amherst College invites applications for the Senior Director of Strategy and Analysis position. The Senior Director of Strategy and Analysis is a full-time, year-round position, starting at $125,000 - commensurate with experience. Given Amherst's distinction as one of the most diverse liberal arts colleges in the country, the successful candidate will demonstrate the ways in which they bring value to and will work towards supporting a broadly diverse community.

Reporting to the Chief Advancement Officer (CAO), the Senior Director of Strategy and Analysis is the key analytics and strategic planning expert responsible for analyzing data and providing strategic information and direction to Advancement stakeholders ensuring that fundraising and engagement efforts are focused on and in alignment with overall Advancement and College goals. A member of the Advancement leadership team, the Senior Director serves as a strategic advisor to the CAO and the leadership team in achieving fundraising and engagement objectives and maximizing results. The Senior Director is a proactive and intelligence-driven expert who leads a team of two focused on using data and analysis to impact significant growth of fundraising revenues and increased levels of engagement with the most promising prospective donors for Amherst, to manage resource and staffing allocation, recommend metrics for assessing our diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) goals, and to maximize the impact of Advancement efforts on college priorities. The Senior Director will analyze data and make recommendations based on analysis to ensure we are maximizing fundraising potential across annual, leadership, major and principal giving. They will collaborate with senior managers across Advancement to develop strategies, annual work plans and metrics, and manage team performance toward the achievement of fundraising and engagement goals. They provide timely, relevant, and high-level intelligence and analysis of donors, prospects, programs and systems to inform and support the College's fundraising strategies and institutional goals. The Senior Director will provide high level analysis and recommendations in support of the CAO reports to the Board of Trustees and to the President and Senior staff in support of shared initiatives across the campus. The person in this role will manage two direct reports of existing positions that will be realigned under this Senior Director.

The person in this role is expected to work as part of a collaborative and inclusive team including taking appropriate actions to support a diverse workforce and participating in the College's efforts to create a respectful, inclusive, and welcoming work environment. In addition, all Advancement staff members support and staff key events such as Reunion, Homecoming, and Family Weekend. These events may require occasional evening and weekend hours.

Summary of Responsibilities:

Strategic planning through the lens of data analysis, research and assessment

• Provides Advancement with information and actionable recommendations on prospect management, engagement measurement, pipeline development, key performance indicators, activity forecasting, benchmarking and budget and staff allocation.
  
• Assesses quality of Advancement data and ensures that data is optimized for reporting and analysis.
  
• Fosters a culture of data literacy within Advancement, educating and informing producers and consumers of data.
  
• Analyzes data to inform data based decision making on topics including donor behaviors, fundraising capacity, allocation of staff time, engagement measures, marketing results, and pipeline forecasting.
  
• Develop metrics and support a process which enables strategic prospect management of all major and leadership gift prospects through the moves management cycle.
  
• Monitor and track prospect activity while also increasing the size and quality of the qualified prospect pool.
  
• Leverages advanced data analysis skills to proactively assess fundraiser portfolios to ensure they are robust, contain strong, viable prospects, and are supported by a continual flow of newly identified and effectively rated prospective donors.
  
• Develops, manages and measures activity dashboards for all departments in Advancement.
  
• Oversees and builds complex data queries, manipulating and retrieving data from Slate database and Tableau and delivers data to internal stakeholders with clear action items and takeaways.
  
• Evaluates and assesses the impact of Advancement activities including programs, events, volunteer support and fundraising efforts with a focus on creating and recommending strategies to increase productivity and impact.
  
• Manage strategic Advancement initiatives and our diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts including tracking progress toward goals.
  
• Develops targeted engagement lists for key priorities including philanthropic women in advance of the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Amherst, leadership annual giving, industry lists and more.
  
• Supports budgeting and financial projections planning process.
  
• Integrates with and complements the work of Institutional Research.
  
• Builds effective working relationships with key stakeholders across the college- partnering on strategic data projects/collection as relevant.
  

Supervision & training

• Supervise staff of two.
  
• Manage data request queue and workflow, distribute assignments to team members and ensure deadlines are met.
  
• Identify industry best practices and proactively share with stakeholders.
  
• Develop and provide training to a diverse group of frontline staff.
  
• Lead robust and action oriented data/metric review sessions.
  

Qualifications:

Required

• Master's Degree
  
• 10 or more years of Institutional research, or data analysis experience with a strong preference for Advancement/Fundraising expertise
  
• Strong sense of collegiality and ability to establish collaborative professional relationships
  
• Exceptional ability to analyze data and to clearly articulate findings and translate that to a strategy to expert and non expert analysts
  
• Experience developing or leading comprehensive strategic planning
  
• Excellent written and verbal communication, and interpersonal skills
  
• Strong organizational, analytical and problem-solving skills
  
• Ability to take initiative, and work both independently and collaboratively
  
• Discretion with highly sensitive and confidential information
  
• Expertise working with databases and building reports
  
• Ability to synthesize information and suggest recommendations
  
• Proficient in office productivity solutions such as Google Workspace, Microsoft Office, Workday, and Zoom and able to learn new technologies
  
• Occasional weekend and evening hours required to staff on-campus events
  
• Commitment to working with diverse communities
  

Preferred

• Doctoral Degree
  
• Experience working in a sophisticated development environment
  

Amherst College offers many opportunities for professional growth and development, continued learning, and career advancement.

Amherst College requires all employees to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 (medical and religious exemptions may apply).

Amherst College is pleased to provide a comprehensive, highly competitive benefits package that meets the needs of staff and faculty and their families. Benefits are an important part of our overall compensation, so it is critical that you review all of the options to ensure it meets your total compensation requirements. Click here for Benefits Information.

Interested candidates are asked to submit a resume and cover letter online at https://amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Amherst_Jobs. Please be sure to upload all requested documents prior to clicking Submit. Applications cannot be revised once submitted. (Current employees and students should apply by clicking on the Career icon from their Workday home screen) Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled.

To find information about job group and level (JGL) follow this link.


To apply, visit https://amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Amherst_Jobs/job/Amherst-Campus/Senior-Director-of-Strategy-and-Analysis_JR3784


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