Description
The Institute of International Education (IIE) is hiring a Prospect Research Officer for our Philanthropy department. We invite you to join a team united by a single goal: to transform our interconnected world into a network of more peaceful and equitable societies. IIE’s team members share a belief that when education transcends borders, it opens minds, enabling people to go beyond building connections to solving problems together.
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Job Summary:
This position will work with the Philanthropy team. The Philanthropy team helps support, expand, and deepen the impact of IIE’s programs, including our key signature initiatives: Emergency Student Fund, Odyssey Scholarship, Scholar Rescue Fund, and the Artist Protection Fund. We accomplish this by securing resources, elevating our visibility, and communicating the impact of our programs to supporters who are as passionate about our mission and vision as we are.
The role will manage the prospect research and development program, maximizing the potential of IIE’s overall prospect pipeline and expanding our donor base. The Officer will provide fundraisers, senior staff, and board members with high-quality research and strategic input for prospect meetings, events, portfolio optimizations, and tactical planning. The Officer will play a critical role in empowering our fundraisers and leadership to make effective, donor-centric decisions. The Officer will be a key member of a tight-knit, collaborative, can-do Philanthropy team. We take the donor experience seriously and are committed to grounding our fundraising in racial and social justice.
Essential Functions:
• Help implement proactive strategies to execute capacity, affinity, and propensity reviews, discover new major gift pipeline prospects, and identify new sources of funding for priority initiatives and regions.
• Collaborate with Philanthropy Operations and front-line fundraisers to strengthen the prospect pipeline. Utilize industry best practices to enhance strategies and processes to rate, identify, assign, and track leadership, major, principal, and planned gift prospects. Provide fundraisers with strategic information and recommendations to move prospects through the fundraising cycle and optimize prospect portfolios.
• Conduct in-depth research on current and prospective donors by using a wide variety of internal and external resources and tools. Synthesize information into insightful and accurate prospect research products, including biographies, brief or full profiles, meeting or event briefings, and peer screening lists.
• Perform regular wealth screenings, validate wealth screening data, and update donor and prospect records as needed.
• Provide management with due diligence for prospect qualifications and gift acceptance.
• Monitor and disseminate news on major donors and prospects.
• Manage a suite of prospect research tools based on needs and effectiveness, and provide access and training to colleagues.
• Support benchmarking to evaluate effectiveness and efficiency of research recommendations and products. Regularly report on progress to goals and metrics for prospect research and development.
• Adhere to recognized fundraising and prospect research ethics, policies, and standards. Keep abreast of industry trends and developments to inform Philanthropy Office practices.
Requirements 
