
Job Opportunities
We are looking for talented and passionate individuals to join us in our mission. Learn more about the job opportunities that are currently available at the Foundation.
Great Lakes Field Development Manager
Location: Cincinnati, OH, United States
The Great Lakes Field Development Manager is accountable for the revenue, volunteer management, and planned activities for 3- or 4-chapter communities in Ohio and Michigan. The Foundation chapter network brings people together across the country to join in fighting blinding retinal diseases. Our chapters focus on three key areas: revenue, resources, and education. The Field Development Manager will encourage, promote, and achieve successful volunteer engagement, community relations, and ambitious revenue goals.
This position is the “face” of our organization, the first point-of-contact for our chapter members within their communities. They forge strong relationships with individuals and organizations, provide information about local resources, and share scientific advancements that assist individuals through their personal journey.
Primary Responsibilities: The following are representative of the duties and responsibilities associated with this position and are not meant to be an all-inclusive list:
Fundraising
- Develop and implement innovative fundraising strategies to surpass the previous year’s financial achievements.
- Strengthen ties with corporate sponsors, volunteer committee members, event attendees, and honorees to secure sponsorships and sustained support.
- Active Committee Involvement: Lead, engage in and contribute to event committee meetings, ensuring successful coordination implementation of events.
- Proactively seek and connect with potential contributors for various organizational initiatives and campaigns.
- Partner with internal VisionWalk and Special Event teams to plan and execute significant events that meet or surpass fundraising goals and exemplify best practices.
- Establish and nurture a network of community relationships, representing the Foundation and uncovering new support opportunities.
Volunteer Leadership Engagement
- Elevate Volunteer Chapters: Cultivate and expand 3–4 volunteer chapters focused on fundraising, partnerships, and community education. Collaboratively craft a strategic plan with the Regional Director, outlining key milestones and success metrics.
- Recruit, guide, and activate a dedicated team of volunteer leaders for chapter activities and special events; Maintain dynamic membership and offering continuous volunteer opportunities.
- Host engaging chapter events both in-person and virtually to disseminate valuable information and foster community ties.
- Engage and steward volunteers and donors, prioritizing retention, recognition, and growth through effective moves management strategies.
- Build strong internal connections: Support peer initiatives and enhance donor involvement to achieve fundraising goals.
Administrative/Operational
- Proactively utilize the donor database for recording donor details, pinpointing engagement prospects, assessing philanthropic potential, and generating various reports.
- Recognize the distinct characteristics of the chapter community and offer tailored advice to leverage strengths and navigate obstacles, ensuring optimal outcomes.
- Manage the storage and distribution of community materials and collateral.
- Gain a solid understanding of relevant scientific concepts to effectively disseminate knowledge, share insights, and highlight the organization’s impact.
Essential Qualifications Include:
- Must have 3+ years of successful event fundraising, including collaboration with volunteers.
- Proven ability to recruit, lead, and motivate volunteer groups or non-profit organization chapters.
- Exceptional interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
- Proven ability to work effectively with individuals from diverse backgrounds and varying abilities.
- Willingness to travel (anticipated 20–25%).
- Ability to work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends.
- Highly organized and detail-oriented; Capable of managing multiple projects simultaneously with the flexibility to address and resolve issues efficiently.
- Enthusiastic, takes initiative, and demonstrates strong follow-up skills.
- Applied experience with budget preparation, budget management, and reporting.
- Familiarity with Microsoft Office products and databases (e.g., Salesforce, Virtuous, Raiser’s Edge).
- Deep commitment to the mission of the Foundation Fighting Blindness.
- Valid driver’s license with an acceptable driving record.
Position Specifics:
- Location: Cincinnati or Cleveland, OH: relocation not provided.
- Internal title: Great Lakes Community Manager.
- Alternate title: Great Lakes Territory Manager.
- Work from home with travel to communities, trainings, and meetings.
- HP or MAC laptop, monitor, printer, $120.00 monthly technology stipend provided.
- The budgeted starting salary Range: $70k–$75k. This range is what we reasonably expect to offer for this role and considers factors considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to: geographic market, skill sets, depth of experience, and salary equity to internal roles.
- Annual Incentive Bonus Eligible: up to 5%.
- Full-time, M-F with flexibility; some evening and weekends required.
- Reporting to Regional Director; no direct reports.
How to Apply:
- Provide resume and cover letter to: HR@FightingBlindness.org.
- Please include Great Lakes within the email subject line.
Chicagoland Field Development Manager
Location: Chicago, IL, United States
The Chicagoland Field Development Manager is accountable for the revenue, volunteer management, and planned activities for this chapter community. The Foundation chapter network brings people together across the country to join in finding treatments and cures for blinding retinal diseases. Our chapters focus on three key areas: revenue, resources, and education. The Field Development Manager will drive, promote, and achieve revenue goals, volunteer engagement, and community relations.
This position is the “face” of our organization, the first point-of-contact for our chapter members within their community. Our Development Managers forge strong relationships with individuals and organizations, provide information about local resources, and share scientific advancements that assist individuals through their personal journey.
Primary Responsibilities: The following are representative of the duties and responsibilities associated with this position and are not meant to be an all-inclusive list:
Fundraising
- Develop and implement innovative fundraising strategies to surpass the previous year’s financial achievements.
- Strengthen ties with corporate sponsors, volunteer committee members, event attendees, and honorees to secure sponsorships and sustained support.
- Active Committee Involvement: Lead, engage in and contribute to event committee meetings, ensuring successful coordination implementation of events.
- Proactively seek and connect with potential contributors for various organizational initiatives and campaigns.
- Partner with internal VisionWalk and Special Event teams to plan and execute significant events that meet or surpass fundraising goals and exemplify best practices.
- Establish and nurture a network of community relationships, representing the Foundation and uncovering new support opportunities.
Volunteer Leadership Engagement
- Enhance Volunteer Chapters: Develop and broaden the chapters' influence, emphasizing fundraising, partnerships, and community education. Work together with the Regional Director to create a strategic plan that includes key milestones and success metrics.
- Recruit, guide, and activate a dedicated team of volunteer leaders for chapter activities and special events; Maintain dynamic membership and offering continuous volunteer opportunities.
- Host engaging chapter events both in-person and virtually to disseminate valuable information and foster community ties.
- Engage and steward volunteers and donors, prioritizing retention, recognition, and growth through effective moves management strategies.
- Build strong internal connections: Support peer initiatives and enhance donor involvement to achieve fundraising goals.
Administrative/Operational
- Proactively utilize the donor database for recording donor details, pinpointing engagement prospects, assessing philanthropic potential, and generating various reports.
- Recognize the distinct characteristics of the chapter community and offer tailored advice to leverage strengths and navigate obstacles, ensuring optimal outcomes.
- Manage the storage and distribution of community materials and collateral.
- Gain a solid understanding of relevant scientific concepts to effectively disseminate knowledge, share insights, and highlight the organization’s impact.
Essential Qualifications Include:
- Must have 3+ years of successful event fundraising, including collaboration with volunteers.
- Proven ability to recruit, lead, and motivate volunteer groups or non-profit organization chapters.
- Exceptional interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
- Proven ability to work effectively with individuals from diverse backgrounds and varying abilities.
- Willingness to travel (anticipated 20–25%).
- Ability to work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends.
- Highly organized and detail-oriented; Capable of managing multiple projects simultaneously with the flexibility to address and resolve issues efficiently.
- Enthusiastic, takes initiative, and demonstrates strong follow-up skills.
- Applied experience with budget preparation, budget management, and reporting.
- Familiarity with Microsoft Office products and databases (e.g., Salesforce, Virtuous, Raiser’s Edge).
- Deep commitment to the mission of the Foundation Fighting Blindness.
- Valid driver’s license with an acceptable driving record.
Position Specifics:
- Location: Chicago, IL: relocation not provided.
- Internal title: Chicago Community Manager.
- Work from home with travel to meetings, community partnerships, and trainings.
- HP or MAC laptop, monitor, printer, $120.00 monthly technology stipend provided.
- The budgeted starting salary Range: $70k–$85k. This range is what we reasonably expect to offer for this role and considers factors considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to: geographic market, skill sets, depth of experience, and salary equity to internal roles.
- Annual Incentive Bonus Eligible: up to 5%.
- Full-time, M-F with flexibility; some evening and weekends required.
- Reporting to Regional Director; no direct reports.
How to Apply:
- Provide resume with a cover letter to: HR@FightingBlindness.org.
- Please include Chicagoland within the email subject line.
Gift Processing Specialist
Location: Remote; United States
Purpose: The Gift Processing Specialist is an essential member of the Finance team responsible for the recording and processing of contributions, and ensuring all donations are promptly and accurately entered and acknowledged. This position collaborates closely with internal teams as well as volunteers from our chapter communities.
Primary Responsibilities: The following are representative of the duties and responsibilities associated with this position and are not meant to be an all-inclusive list:
- Accurately process a high volume of varied gift types from a range of sources into the database in a timely and efficient manner
- Ensure donor profile accuracy, research, and update gift records, and create new donor profiles as needed
- Coordinate with Walk and Event teams on pre/post event requirements to ensure fair market values of events and auction items are accurate and properly applied to donations
- Verify information for Automated Clearing House (ACH), matching gifts, stock, and employee giving programs.
- Respond to donor inquiries via phone, email, and/or mail in a timely manner
- Assist with gift tax receipts in alignment with IRS tax guidelines
- Reconcile weekly bank deposits and gifts in general ledger; ensuring accuracy and alignment of information in all systems
- Ensure accuracy of reclassification and refund requests; process adjustments as required
- Collaborate with internal teams to assure integrity of data within donor database
- Help gather materials and provide assistance as needed for annual audit
- Update coding information for monthly credit card sustainers
- Serve as backup to other finance team members as needed and perform duties as assigned
Essential Requirements:
- 1–3 years prior non-profit gift processing experience
- Solid knowledge of gift coding processes, including identifying and processing multiple types of contributions from varied types of donors and to multiple revenue channels
- Financial data entry experience is required, including gift data imports
- Experience updating and maintaining complex data in a relational database
- Detail oriented with a critical degree of accuracy and analysis
- Ability to work independently as well as a team player
- Must be fully proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook), with experience using Excel’s advanced features, such as conditional formatting, VLOOKUP, and pivot tables
- Organized, dependable and able to effectively prioritize workload
- Strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills
- Strong interpersonal and customer service skills, including verbal and written communication are required
- Occasional overtime may be required
Position Specifics:
- Home-based, located in United States, Eastern or Central time zone
- Salary range: $52,000–$60,000 annually
The range is what we reasonably expect as a starting offer for this position and considers factors such as: geographic markets, business or organizational needs, skill sets, depth of experience, and internal equity.
- Annual Bonus Eligibility up to 3%
- Full-time, exempt
- Reports to Gift Processing Manager
To apply: Please send resume with cover letter explaining your interest in this position HR@fightblindness.org . Within the subject line of your email please include GiftProcessing.
New England Field Development Manager
Location: Boston, MA, United States
The New England Field Development Manager is accountable for the revenue, volunteer management, and planned activities for 3 or 4 chapters communities. The Foundation chapter network brings people together across the country to join in fighting blinding retinal diseases. Our chapters focus on three key areas: revenue, resources, and education. The Field Development Manager will encourage, promote, and achieve successful volunteer engagement, community relations, and ambitious revenue goals.
This position is the “face” of our organization, the first point-of-contact for our chapter members within their communities. They forge strong relationships with individuals and organizations, provide information about local resources, and share scientific advancements that assist individuals through their personal journey.
Primary Responsibilities: The following are representative of the duties and responsibilities associated with this position and are not meant to be an all-inclusive list:
Fundraising
- Develop and implement innovative fundraising strategies to surpass the previous year’s financial achievements.
- Strengthen ties with corporate sponsors, volunteer committee members, event attendees, and honorees to secure sponsorships and sustained support.
- Active Committee Involvement: Lead, engage in and contribute to event committee meetings, ensuring successful coordination implementation of events.
- Proactively seek and connect with potential contributors for various organizational initiatives and campaigns.
- Partner with internal VisionWalk and Special Event teams to plan and execute significant events that meet or surpass fundraising goals and exemplify best practices.
- Establish and nurture a network of community relationships, representing the Foundation and uncovering new support opportunities.
Volunteer Leadership Engagement
- Elevate Volunteer Chapters: Cultivate and expand 3–4 volunteer chapters focused on fundraising, partnerships, and community education. Collaboratively craft a strategic plan with the Regional Director, outlining key milestones and success metrics.
- Recruit, guide, and activate a dedicated team of volunteer leaders for chapter activities and special events; Maintain dynamic membership and offering continuous volunteer opportunities.
- Host engaging chapter events both in-person and virtually to disseminate valuable information and foster community ties.
- Engage and steward volunteers and donors, prioritizing retention, recognition, and growth through effective moves management strategies.
- Build strong internal connections: Support peer initiatives and enhance donor involvement to achieve fundraising goals.
Administrative/Operational
- Proactively utilize the donor database for recording donor details, pinpointing engagement prospects, assessing philanthropic potential, and generating various reports.
- Recognize the distinct characteristics of the chapter community and offer tailored advice to leverage strengths and navigate obstacles, ensuring optimal outcomes.
- Manage the storage and distribution of community materials and collateral.
- Gain a solid understanding of relevant scientific concepts to effectively disseminate knowledge, share insights, and highlight the organization’s impact.
Essential Qualifications Include:
- Must have 3+ years of successful event fundraising, including collaboration with volunteers.
- Proven ability to recruit, lead, and motivate volunteer groups or non-profit organization chapters.
- Exceptional interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
- Proven ability to work effectively with individuals from diverse backgrounds and varying abilities.
- Willingness to travel (anticipated 20–25%).
- Ability to work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends.
- Highly organized and detail-oriented; Capable of managing multiple projects simultaneously with the flexibility to address and resolve issues efficiently.
- Enthusiastic, takes initiative, and demonstrates strong follow-up skills.
- Applied experience with budget preparation, budget management, and reporting.
- Familiarity with Microsoft Office products and databases (e.g., Salesforce, Virtuous, Raiser’s Edge).
- Deep commitment to the mission of the Foundation Fighting Blindness.
- Valid driver’s license with an acceptable driving record.
Position Specifics:
- Location: Boston, MA: relocation not provided.
- Alternate title: New England Community Manager.
- Work from home with travel to communities, trainings, and meetings.
- HP or MAC laptop, monitor, printer, $120.00 monthly technology stipend provided.
- The budgeted starting salary Range: $80k–$85k. This range is what we reasonably expect to offer for this role and considers factors considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to: geographic market, skill sets, depth of experience, and salary equity to internal roles.
- Annual Incentive Bonus Eligible: up to 5%.
- Full-time, M–F with flexibility; some evening and weekends required.
- Reporting to Regional Director; no direct reports.
How to Apply:
- Provide resume with cover letter to HR@FightingBlindness.org.
- Please include New England within the email subject line.
South Florida Field Development Manager
Location: Miami, FL United States
The South Florida Field Development Manager is accountable for the revenue, volunteer management, and planned activities for 3- or 4-chapter communities. The Foundation chapter network brings people together across the country to join in fighting blinding retinal diseases. Our chapters focus on three key areas: revenue, resources, and education. The Field Development Manager will encourage, promote, and achieve successful volunteer engagement, community relations, and ambitious revenue goals.
This position is the “face” of our organization, the first point-of-contact for our chapter members within their communities. They forge strong relationships with individuals and organizations, provide information about local resources, and share scientific advancements that assist individuals through their personal journey.
Primary Responsibilities: The following are representative of the duties and responsibilities associated with this position and are not meant to be an all-inclusive list:
Fundraising
- Develop and implement innovative fundraising strategies to surpass the previous year’s financial achievements.
- Strengthen ties with corporate sponsors, volunteer committee members, event attendees, and honorees to secure sponsorships and sustained support.
- Active Committee Involvement: Lead, engage in and contribute to event committee meetings, ensuring successful coordination implementation of events.
- Proactively seek and connect with potential contributors for various organizational initiatives and campaigns.
- Partner with internal VisionWalk and Special Event teams to plan and execute significant events that meet or surpass fundraising goals and exemplify best practices.
- Establish and nurture a network of community relationships, representing the Foundation and uncovering new support opportunities.
Volunteer Leadership Engagement
- Elevate Volunteer Chapters: Cultivate and expand 3–4 volunteer chapters focused on fundraising, partnerships, and community education. Collaboratively craft a strategic plan with the Regional Director, outlining key milestones and success metrics.
- Recruit, guide, and activate a dedicated team of volunteer leaders for chapter activities and special events; Maintain dynamic membership and offering continuous volunteer opportunities.
- Host engaging chapter events both in-person and virtually to disseminate valuable information and foster community ties.
- Engage and stew.ard volunteers and donors, prioritizing retention, recognition, and growth through effective moves management strategies.
- Build strong internal connections: Support peer initiatives and enhance donor involvement to achieve fundraising goals.
Administrative/Operational
- Proactively utilize the donor database for recording donor details, pinpointing engagement prospects, assessing philanthropic potential, and generating various reports.
- Recognize the distinct characteristics of the chapter community and offer tailored advice to leverage strengths and navigate obstacles, ensuring optimal outcomes.
- Manage the storage and distribution of community materials and collateral.
- Gain a solid understanding of relevant scientific concepts to effectively disseminate knowledge, share insights, and highlight the organization’s impact.
Essential Qualifications Include:
- Must have 3+ years of successful event fundraising, including collaboration with volunteers.
- Proven ability to recruit, lead, and motivate volunteer groups or non-profit organization chapters.
- Exceptional interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
- Proven ability to work effectively with individuals from diverse backgrounds and varying abilities.
- Willingness to travel (anticipated 20–25%).
- Ability to work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends.
- Highly organized and detail-oriented; Capable of managing multiple projects simultaneously with the flexibility to address and resolve issues efficiently.
- Enthusiastic, takes initiative, and demonstrates strong follow-up skills.
- Applied experience with budget preparation, budget management, and reporting.
- Familiarity with Microsoft Office products and databases (e.g., Salesforce, Virtuous, Raiser’s Edge).
- Deep commitment to the mission of the Foundation Fighting Blindness.
- Valid driver’s license with an acceptable driving record.
Position Specifics:
- Location: Miami, FL or Orlando, FL: relocation not provided.
- Alternate title: South Florida Community Manager.
- Work from home with travel to communities, trainings, and meetings.
- HP or MAC laptop, monitor, printer, $120.00 monthly technology stipend provided.
- The budgeted starting salary Range: $80k–$85k. This range is what we reasonably expect to offer for this role and considers factors considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to: geographic market, skill sets, depth of experience, and salary equity to internal roles.
- Annual Incentive Bonus Eligible: up to 5%.
- Full-time, M-F with flexibility; some evening and weekends required.
- Reporting to Regional Director; no direct reports.
How to Apply:
- Provide resume with cover letter to HR@fightingblindness.org.
- Please include South Florida within the email subject line.
Vice President, Development
Location: United States; #LI-REMOTE
Position Overview: The Vice President of Development oversees a team of development professionals and engages a select portfolio of key donors to support the organization’s long-term sustainability and growth. The Vice President is responsible for leading the cultivation and solicitation of major gifts from individuals, corporations, and foundations, while accelerating our pipeline of prospective donors. This involves ensuring the effective implementation of policies, operational processes, and procedures to execute strategic growth plans, build capacity, and achieve annual fundraising goals.
Primary Responsibilities The following are representative of the duties and responsibilities associated with this position and are not meant to be an all-inclusive list:
Team Leadership and Culture:
- Foster an innovative, engaging, and accountable team culture to drive fundraising engagement and giving, supporting a meaningful employee experience in alignment with the Foundation’s mission and values.
- Manage a national team composed of multiple departments, including planned giving, foundations, major gifts, mid-level giving, and prospect research.
- Provide direction and feedback, allocate responsibilities, tasks, and projects, ensure projects stay on track and goals are met, and maintain sensible workloads.
- Recruit, create training plans, and proactively manage staff performance and productivity; manage conflict between staff members, provide feedback, and conduct annual performance reviews.
- Ensure role descriptions are up-to-date and reflective of the work and outcomes being managed and evaluated.
- Support staff development through training and providing development experiences.
- Facilitate strategic planning and team retreats.
Fundraising Strategy and Execution:
- Partner with the Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer to design and implement a comprehensive strategy for successful and sustainable development programs.
- Lead the fundraising process, ensuring efficient and effective use of resources. Analyze fundraising data trends, identify opportunities for improvement and growth, and implement the mechanics, measurements, key performance indicators, and associated business intelligence to manage a high-performing team of development professionals.
- Drive fundraising performance in major gifts from individuals, corporations, foundations, and minor gifts feeder programs, leveraging IT, processes, data, and prospect research.
- Implement data-driven thought leadership to elevate team execution and accountability. Use data science and analytics to make decisions, leverage data, business intelligence, constituent relationship management, and other software tools for decision-making and communications.
- Meet quarterly and annual development fundraising goals consistently in planned giving, foundations, major gifts, mid-level gifts, and prospect research.
Budget and Resource Management:
- Manage budget processes and performance cycles. Analyze data and trends to identify opportunities for improvement and growth within short, mid-term, and strategic budget cycles.
- Accountable for budgets, forecasts, and projects, as well as accurate and timely plans consistent with the strategic plan.
- Provide budget data, business analytics, and decision-making support to the development team, executive leadership, and board of directors.
- Relationship Building and Stewardship:
- Forge positive, effective relationships internally and externally with a wide-ranging assortment of individuals, boards, volunteers, donors, external partners, and the communities at large.
- Foster the practice of Moves Management through stewardship, proactive personalized fundraising, including regular face-to-face donor meetings, and building outstanding one-on-one relationships. Incorporate wealth screening and other research information to develop strategies and build the portfolio.
- Continually explore new and creative marketing strategies that broaden the Foundation’s base of support.
- Achieve increased retention rates and donor satisfaction year over year. Assess current engagement and activities to determine which efforts have the greatest business impact.
- Collaborate with marketing and communications to integrate fundraising messages into all development communications.
- Collaborate with peers across the organization to coordinate resources and align goals.
- Demonstrate learned retinal and eye health care science through presentations, proposals, and other development fundraising engagements.
Essential Qualifications Include:
- 10+ years of fundraising experience in a non-profit organization, with a demonstrated history of soliciting 5 and 6-figure gifts; experience working on 7-figure gift strategies is desired.
- Minimum 5 years of leadership experience in major gifts, mid-level, or planned giving; experience assessing the philanthropic community and identifying and cultivating new sources of support is required.
- Exceptional interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills; proven ability to work and communicate effectively with individuals from different backgrounds and of varying physical abilities.
- Proficient in fundraising practices and policies; strong fundraising ethics with discernible respect for the confidentiality of donor information.
- Highly organized, detail-oriented, and able to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
- Demonstrated track record of setting, achieving, and exceeding aggressive goals on a sustainable basis.
- Proven ability to establish and execute strategic plans in a highly dynamic, fast-paced environment.
- Enthusiastic, takes initiative, and has strong follow-up skills.
- Fully proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, and Outlook) with expert experience with donor databases.
Position Specifics:
- Home-office based position with up to 20% estimated travel
- Annual Incentive Bonus Eligibility up to 10%
- Full-time, exempt, with occasional evenings and weekends
- Budgeted Salary Range: $175k–$200k This range is what we reasonably expect to pay for this role. The range considers a wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to: geographic markets, skill sets, depth of experience, and internal equity to comparable roles
- Reports to Chief of Strategy and Innovation
- Direct Reports: Yes
How to Apply:
- Provide resume with cover letter to HR@FightingBlindness.org.
- Please include VP Development within the email subject line.
Southern Cal Field Development Manager
Location: Remote; Los Angeles, CA; San Diego, CA; United States
About this position: The Southern Cal Field Development Manager is responsible for all chapter activities in our Southern California territory. This includes:
- Revenue Management: Achieving revenue goals through fundraising and other activities
- Volunteer Management: Engaging and managing volunteers
- Community Relations: Providing information and promoting community engagement.
About our chapters: The Foundation Fighting Blindness volunteer chapters are local groups that bring people together to support our mission of finding treatments and cures for blinding retinal diseases. These chapters focus on three main areas:
- Education: Providing the latest information on retinal disease research.
- Resources: Connecting members with local community resources and specialists.
- Revenue: Raising funds through events like VisionWalks, dinners, and DIY fundraisers.
Primary Responsibilities: The following are representative of the duties and responsibilities associated with this position and are not meant to be an all-inclusive list:
Fundraising
- Develop and implement innovative fundraising strategies to surpass the previous year’s financial achievements
- Strengthen ties with corporate sponsors, volunteer committee members, event attendees, and honorees to secure sponsorships and sustained support
- Active Committee Involvement: Lead, engage in and contribute to event committee meetings, ensuring successful coordination implementation of events
- Proactively seek and connect with potential contributors for various organizational initiatives and campaigns
- Partner with internal VisionWalk and Special Event teams to plan and execute significant events that meet or surpass fundraising goals and exemplify best practices
- Establish and nurture a network of community relationships, representing the Foundation and uncovering new support opportunities
Volunteer Leadership Engagement
- Elevate Volunteer Chapters: Cultivate and expand 3–4 volunteer chapters focused on fundraising, partnerships, and community education. Collaboratively craft a strategic plan with the Regional Director, outlining key milestones and success metrics
- Recruit, guide, and activate a dedicated team of volunteer leaders for chapter activities and special events; Maintain dynamic membership and offering continuous volunteer opportunities
- Host engaging chapter events both in-person and virtually to disseminate valuable information and foster community ties
- Engage and steward volunteers and donors, prioritizing retention, recognition, and growth through effective moves management strategies
- Build strong internal connections: Support peer initiatives and enhance donor involvement to achieve fundraising goals.
Administrative/Operational
- Proactively utilize the donor database for recording donor details, pinpointing engagement prospects, assessing philanthropic potential, and generating various reports
- Recognize the distinct characteristics of the chapter community and offer tailored advice to leverage strengths and navigate obstacles, ensuring optimal outcomes
- Manage the storage and distribution of community materials and collateral
- Gain a solid understanding of relevant scientific concepts to effectively disseminate knowledge, share insights, and highlight the organization’s impact
Essential Qualifications Include:
- Must have 3+ years of successful event fundraising, including collaboration with volunteers
- Proven ability to recruit, lead, and motivate volunteer groups or non-profit organization chapters
- Exceptional interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills
- Proven ability to work effectively with individuals from diverse backgrounds and varying abilities
- Willingness and ability to travel (anticipated 20–25%)
- Ability to work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends
- Highly organized and detail-oriented; Capable of managing multiple projects simultaneously with the flexibility to address and resolve issues efficiently
- Enthusiastic, takes initiative, and demonstrates strong follow-up skills
- Applied experience with budget preparation, budget management, and reporting
- Experience with Microsoft Office products and databases (e.g., Salesforce, Virtuous, Raiser’s Edge).
- Deep commitment to the mission of the Foundation Fighting Blindness
- Valid driver’s license with an acceptable driving record.
Position Specifics:
- Alternate title: Cal Community Manager
- Location: Los Angeles or San Diego, CA: relocation not provided
- Work from home with travel to communities, trainings, and meetings
- Home Office Supplies Provided: HP or MAC laptop, monitor, printer, $120.00 monthly technology stipend
- The budgeted starting salary Range: $78,000–$85,000. This range is what we reasonably expect to offer for this role and considers factors considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to: geographic market, skill sets, depth of experience, and salary equity to internal roles
- Annual Incentive Bonus Eligible: up to 5%
- Full-time, M–F with flexibility; some evening and weekends required.
- Reporting to Regional Director; no direct reports
How to Apply:
Provide resume with cover letter to hr@fightingblindness.org. Please include SoCal within the email subject line.
Foundation Accessibility, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (AIDE) Commitment
The Foundation Fighting Blindness is committed to providing and advancing accessibility, inclusion, diversity, and equity in all aspects of our work. We believe that everyone deserves equal access to resources and opportunities regardless of their disability, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, religion, socioeconomic background, or any other characteristics that makes us unique, such as diverse cognitive skills and individual talents.
We recognize that everyone deserves the opportunity to participate fully and equally in all aspects of society and that accessibility is not just about physical barriers, but also about social, economic, and cultural barriers. We offer resources, information, and community to individuals and families affected by vision loss, and we strive to do so in a way that is inclusive and respectful of their unique experiences and identity. We are dedicated to ensuring that our programs, resources, and events are accessible to all individuals.
We understand the importance of promoting diversity and equity within our organization and in the broader community. We embrace and celebrate the diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities of our community, actively working to remove barriers and foster an inclusive environment. And through this commitment we will continue to educate ourselves on matters related to accessibility, inclusion, diversity, and equity, and we will collaborate with other organizations, experts, and advocates to promote these values and advance progress towards a more inclusive society.