Development Coordinator

Reports to: Director of Development 

Status: Full-time; Exempt with benefits: Blue Cross Medical/Dental/Vision, 403(b) retirement plan, Holidays, 4 weeks Paid Time Off, 10 weeks paid Parental leave 

Salary: $61,880

Alternatives Inc. Overview

Since 1971, Alternatives has been a leading provider of youth development programs, social justice initiatives, and school and community-based clinical services. Our mission is to facilitate personal development, strengthen family relationships, and enhance the community's well-being.  We serve youth in some of Chicago’s most vulnerable communities on the far north and south sides.  Our highly trained staff foster resilience, insight, and self-advocacy in the youth in our care through a comprehensive approach of crisis management, behavioral therapy, and youth development. 

Alternatives provides emergency response for youth in crisis, at all hours of every day, mediating familial conflict and relocating vulnerable children to a safe environment. We work with Chicago Public Schools to provide behavioral health and restorative justice programming, a practice that we pioneered more than 20 years ago, facilitating the very first high school peer jury in 1996.  Our Behavioral Health team offers school based clinical hours helping youth develop healthy habits while addressing substance abuse and other destructive behavior. We also provide youth programming during the summer and after school including our social justice program, Girl World, and career training through our summer internship program.  

We create culturally responsive environments in which young people build knowledge, skills, and abilities through positive youth development, trauma-informed counseling, leadership development, and community-based healing. 

Alternatives seeks an exceptional, high performing development professional.  The successful candidate will be an engaging, creative professional who is the consummate team player and has a demonstrated track record of success in raising funds across a spectrum of donors.  

The ideal candidate is detail oriented, with strong writing and oral communication skills, they are  driven and excited about the opportunity to bring resources to intersectional movements for social change. This full-time position is responsible for soliciting and stewarding donors, writing public and private funding proposals and related narrative reports; and managing a database of private grants and reports submissions and deadlines. The position reports to the Director of Development.

Responsibilities

Perform the following from a racial, gender, sexuality, and ability equity lens: 

• Develop and implement fundraising initiatives for foundations, corporations and government sources including tracking and oversight of grant opportunities, proposal inquiries reports, and donor relationship-building meetings
• Oversee foundation grant calendar by tracking due dates and deadlines,
• Collaborate and coordinating with the appropriate staff to ensure grant applications, renewals, and reports are submitted in a timely fashion;
• Ensure contact database (Donor Perfect) is up to date, maintain fundraising data and pipelines, analyze data, and produce reports for the board and senior staff;
• Develop stewardship opportunities for funders by engaging them funder appreciation and engagement in organizational activities and relationships to promote funder retention;
• Develop and implement systems to compile information for use in proposal submissions through meetings with program managers and program evaluation staff, including success stories, program activities, and outcome statistics;
• Plan and coordinate funder site visits to compellingly communicate the impact of Alternatives’ programs and services;
• Support program-related and fundraising events to raise awareness of Alternatives’ work and build relationships with corporate funders;
• Other duties as assigned. 

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent education/work experience) minimum 2-3 years professional experience in a non-profit or social-good setting;
• Previous public and private grant writing experience with proven record of success;
• Outstanding writing, editing, and interpersonal communications skills;
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office suite, Outlook, and donor database systems, preferably DonorPerfect; 
• Highly organized, comfortable managing multiple projects at once, and attention to detail is a must;
• Proven ability to meet deadlines and work both independently and in a collaborative team environment;
• Demonstrated commitment to and competency around diversity, equity, and inclusion;
• Excellent research, organizational, and time management skills;
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically;
• Flexible schedule outside of typical working hours, with the ability and willingness to work occasional nights or weekends as necessary. 
• The COVID vaccine is mandatory for all employees to the full extent permissible under applicable law.

 Alternatives, Incorporated is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities.