Database and Advancement Services Manager

About Oakton College :

Educate. Empower. Transform At Oakton College, we know education changes lives - and that starts with the people who make it happen. For more than 50 years, we've built a welcoming and inclusive community where students from all backgrounds and experiences thrive. We're looking for passionate educators, professionals and leaders to join our team. Whether in the classroom, student support, or behind the scenes, your talents and expertise will make a difference and shape the future. We provide dynamic learning environments that empower students and employees alike with campuses in Des Plaines and Skokie and a Health Careers Education Center in Evanston. As a proud institution accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, Oakton is more than a college - it's a place where innovation, equity and lifelong learning drive everything we do. We value diverse perspectives and embrace new ideas and are dedicated to fostering an inclusive and student-centered culture.

Job Description:

Basic Function and Responsibility:

Serves as primary manager and technical subject matter expert for the Foundation's constituent relationship management database. Establishes and documents data protocols, providing ongoing training for team members to ensure data health and integrity. Strategic partner with the development and alumni relations team, conducting prospect research and collaborating to curate lists and reports that support relationship building, fundraising and stewardship initiatives.

Characteristic Duties and Responsibilities:

As the subject matter expert and lead for the Foundation's constituent relationship management (CRM) system, Blackbaud's Raisers Edge, oversees data accuracy, system optimization, and training to maintain data accuracy and health, and support on-going operational process design and improvements. Sets up new funds, events, and online giving appeals to ensure reliable gift processing and, in coordination with the Foundation's financial leader, financial posting to the Financial Edge accounting system. Provides online appeal and event registration web coding to the College's marketing team to embed in website pages as needed. Sets standards for gift processing, including gift splits and payment installments to support accurate timing for pledge reminders. Monitors the timeliness and efficiency of gift processing and assures all corresponding links to the database are maintained as gifts are processed. Serves as gift-processing backup to the Advancement Services Coordinator. Responsible for producing standardized and complex reports, queries, constituent lists, exports, and imports to the database. Utilizing strong communication skills, translates technical requirements and constraints into business-related terminology, assisting team members with the effective and efficient use of the CRM and other systems that support relationship building and fundraising. Imports data from registrar and other sources as needed to add constituents to the database in alignment with coding standards. Responsible for data integrity and health updates for NCOA, duplicate identification, returned mail, and merging as needed. Conducts continuous database clean-up, including reconciling constituent codes, table cleanup, removing/combining duplicate records, standardizing addresses/addressee/salutations, and adding relationship codes and attributes to support the needs of development and alumni functions. Runs quarterly database health tools to update addresses, phone and email records, and deceased information. Leads set-up and refresh of system-generated gift receipt/acknowledgement letters. Provides stewardship information needed for pledge reminders, honor rolls, consecutive years of giving, named space, and fundholder stewardship reporting. Responsible for the Foundation's prospect management systems, researching, benchmarking, and tracking. Identifies and qualifies major gift prospects. Creates prospect profiles for Foundation staff, Board members and volunteers and stores in donor database. Manages vendor relationships with Blackbaud and other systems vendors (including The Raiser's Edge, Target Analytics, Blackbaud Merchant Services and Omatic). Evaluates new software solutions, manages upgrades and adopts new modules as they become available and are aligned with business needs. Resolves system support issues and escalates software support questions. Leads the Foundation's participation in the annual Volunteer Survey of Education (VSE) for benchmarking. Utilizes CASE's data miner tool to generate resulting reports for peer comparison. Supports Foundation staff in committee meetings with preparation of reports and data requested. Attends Foundation Board meetings and events to provide execution support. Attends other committee meetings as requested. Serves as Foundation's liaison to Information Technology. Trains and manages department student workers related to database support projects, such as address updates from returned mail. Exercises discretion in handling confidential materials. Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

Supervision Received:

Functional supervision is received from the Sr. Manager of Foundation Finance and Operations. Administrative supervision is received from the Chief Advancement Officer.

Supervision Exercised:

Functional supervision of student workers as needed.

Requirements:

Qualifications and Working Conditions:

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, Communications or related field or an equivalent combination of education and experience is required. Five (5) years of experience with donor-related constituent management software required, with two (2) years as database manager. Competency with Blackbaud's Raisers Edge, Financial Edge, and a Blackbaud Pro Certification preferred. Knowledge of computer-based prospect research tools and methods. Fundraising experience and/or experience in an academic setting preferred. Requires the ability to mentally attend and visually concentrate on a significant amount of detailed work. Strong interpersonal skills to interact collaboratively, professionally and tactfully with colleagues, Board members, and community members. Ability to work evenings and weekends as needed and travel between campuses and to off-campus events.

Physical Demands:

Mobility to move from building to building on-Campus and to visit off-Campus entities. Work is performed in a general office environment and is sedentary in nature. Little or no exposure to adverse working conditions.

Additional Information:

HOURS:

Monday - Friday 8:15 am - 5:00 pm Ability to work evenings an weekends as needed and travel between campuses and to off campus events.

SALARY:

$68,620 Based on the needs of the college and with Administrator approval, some positions at the college may have a hybrid schedule option available after 30 working days. For information regarding employment eligibility, please visit our employment at Oakton web page .

Equal Opportunity Employer Application Instructions:

Please be sure to have a current resume, cover letter, and list of, at least, three (3) professional references with contact information prepared to submit with your application. Oakton College conducts background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer of employment. Convictions are not a bar to employment. Background checks will be performed in compliance with state and federal law and in accordance with the Illinois Department of Human Rights Conviction Record Protection Act of March 2021. Posted positions may be removed from the Oakton website without notice when it is determined that no additional applicants are required. Oakton College does not utilize E-Verify for employment eligibility verification.