Company description

At Sweet Freedom Farm (SFF), we grow culturally relevant, nourishing foods for communities impacted by food apartheid & mass incarceration. We are a majority Black and Black-led team working within a multi-racial community of collaborators to grow and distribute 15,000 - 20,000 lbs of locally and sustainably grown produce each year. Our food currently moves through mutual aid programs, traditional food banks and institutions serving working families, and at a free farm stand outside of Sing Sing Correctional Facility. We are in demand and growing quickly, with a broad network of supporters, funders, and collaborators.

Sweet Freedom is the primary project of a grassroots network called the Freedom Food Alliance, created by Black farmers, food justice organizers, and incarcerated elders in the visiting room of Sullivan Correctional Facility. While our vegetable farm is just a few years old, we stand on more than a decade of experience organizing grassroots programs that nourish justice-impacted families and connect them to food and land. We envision a world free from prisons and from food apartheid, and a food system that truly nourishes Black and Brown communities. In the traditions of our elders and ancestors, we are working to bring that world about by building regional systems for Black and Brown food and land sovereignty.

Job description

What we’re looking for:

In this new role, the Development Manager will collaborate with the Executive Director (Jalal Sabur) and Administrative Director (Sara Black) to grow our grassroots giving program and design strategies for meaningful donor engagement and resource mobilization that are aligned with our values. Across this three-member fundraising team, our goal is to raise between $150,000 - $300,000 by early 2025 from grassroots donors, major donors, and new foundation relationships. We feel confident about this goal, and have many resources, relationships, and opportunities ready for activation. We envision that the Development Manager will lead strategies focused on grassroots donors who give between $1-$1000, and will partner with the Executive Director and Administrative Director on collaborative strategies to engage major donors who give between $1000-$10,000+. These strategies may include social media and email campaigns, fundraising events and partnerships, and targeted outreach. Depending on their skills and experience, the Development Manager may also work with the Administrative Director on foundation relationships. The structure of this position can be adjusted to reflect our candidate’s unique skills and qualifications. The Development Manager will work most directly with the Administrative Director and will join a team that includes the Executive Director and other members of the staff, board, and community who can support fundraising campaigns and events.

Compensation & Benefits: $65,000 annual starting salary; plus $400 per month QSEHRA (flexible reimbursement toward healthcare costs); 20 flexible paid days off. We support a flexible schedule and are focused more on projects moving forward than hours spent at the desk.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Designing and implementing Sweet Freedom Farm’s individual giving and overall donor relations strategy in collaboration with the Administrative Director and Executive Director
• Providing creative thought partnership and executing individual donor cultivation, stewardship, and solicitation strategies
• Drafting donor communications materials and appeals
• Building meaningful relationships with grassroots donor base of about 200 donors and bringing a community-centric approach to donor engagement
• Designing and executing 2 grassroots fundraising campaigns per year
• Coordinating donor stewardship and fundraising events in partnership with the social media lead
• Maintaining accurate donor records in a CRM
• Lead planning and execution of 1 major fundraising event and 2-3 grassroots cultivation events per year
• Planning and supporting the major donor engagement cycle, including supporting the Executive Director and Administrative Director to cultivate donors and make asks
• Researching and identifying donors with major giving capacity and developing strategies to increase their commitments
• Preparing, finalizing, and submitting grant proposals and reports, including drafting narratives, gathering required materials from Administrative Director, and updating funder portals with ample time for review and revision
• Researching prospective funding opportunities, qualifying prospects, and preparing Letters of Inquiry

QUALIFICATIONS

• At least 2 years of experience in grassroots fundraising or community organizing. Experience with community-centric fundraising and resource mobilization approaches is a plus.
• Track record of maintaining and growing an individual donor base or of executing organizing campaigns
• Strong commitment to social justice. Working knowledge about food apartheid, food systems, mass incarceration, racial justice, and economic justice issues is valued.
• Demonstrated ability to build relationships and trust across diverse life experiences and backgrounds
• Experience using donor management systems and/or maintaining accurate records. The ideal candidate will be able to take leadership in building out our CRM for donor management
• Strong written and oral communication skills. The ideal candidate will be able to write or edit clear and compelling copy, represent SFF in a variety of settings, and articulate our nuanced frameworks about abolitionist food justice, Black land sovereignty, and prison abolition to donors and partners.
• Strong project management skills and attention to detail, combined with the ability to let things be good enough rather than perfect when needed.

Additionally valued skills and qualifications:

• Design skills, including Canva
• Experience living or working with communities of color, including fluency in Black, Indigenous, and/or Latinx cultural reference points; with low income/low financial wealth communities; and with communities inside prisons and those returning from incarceration.

Compensation

this position is: salaried, $50,000 - $75,000

Location

job can be done remotely

Application instructions

Deadline

no deadline