Director of Partnerships

Job Purpose

This position will play an integral role in helping to drive revenue growth and helping to us to put ideas into action. This position requires a highly motivated individual with a strong sales acumen and relationship building skills as well as a passion for the mission of Filene—changing lives through innovation, truth, and cooperation.

This role will be responsible for recruiting new donor relationships; coordinating account management activities including renewals; and collaborating with the Marketing and IT teams to ensure the fulfillment of membership engagement plans. This position will play a key role in meeting and exceeding Filene’s annual fundraising goal and collaborating with other market-facing team members to foster strong relationships with existing funders and partners.

Role Responsibilities

• Model Filene values and play a key role in maintaining the culture of the organization through personal and cross-functional accountabilities
• Actively support the achievement of Filene's strategic objectives, plan, and metrics in a manner consistent with Filene’s mission, values, and brand
• Provide extraordinary service to Filene’s staff, members, and stakeholders
• Understand and engage in Filene’s complete body of work including research and impact programs to connect member needs with programming that can best meet those needs.
• Prioritize and manage workload to aggressive deadlines. Represent Filene to external audiences and immerse in Filene’s entire body of work to convey and engage the market in the “story” of Filene Research Institute regularly and consistently.
• Grow and foster relationships with Filene members.
• Develop and prioritize strategies for the acknowledgement, reporting and ongoing cultivation of donors. Works with team members to ensure details of engagement plans are communicated to all involved parties and that plans are documented, implemented, and recorded in Sales Force.
• Lead membership model and ensure consistent execution with benefactors across Filene
• Own, develop, coordinate, and lead account management across Filene Research Institute.
• Responsible for assigned senior level account management relationships with Filene donors.
• Partner consistently with account managers and market-facing team members to create a “one-team” Filene experience.
• Uncover, incubate, and develop leads for benefactor commitment and participation in Filene’s full body of work.
• Identify, contact, and persuade current and prospective members and benefactors (even reluctant, hesitant, or time-starved) to engage more deeply with Filene’s full body of work. This entails calling (including "cold" calls) and coordinating ongoing communication with prospective members and disengaged members to build relationships and set up both virtual and in-person meetings.
• Execute on Membership team strategies for the acknowledgement, reporting and ongoing cultivation of donors. Works with team members to ensure details of engagement plans are communicated to all involved parties and that plans are documented, implemented, and recorded in Sales Force.
• Meet with prospective clients in phone conferences, online meetings, and face-to-face to assess their needs, propose solutions, address possible concerns, and persuade such clients to join and more deeply engage with Filene.
• Discern possible objections of prospective members quickly, and then clearly and articulately address those concerns in a way that puts the potential member or benefactor at ease, overcomes objections, and leads the prospect to join or more deeply engage with Filene.
• Perform the necessary tasks to follow Filene’s sales process and ensure robust tracking and reporting, including but not limited to: Analyzing growth and providing accurate, complete, and timely submission of required progress reports, forecast, and status of opportunities in Salesforce.
• Identify potential cross-organizational dependencies to provide project status reports.
• Continue to develop sales, business, and leadership competencies.

The above statement of duties is not intended to be all inclusive and other duties will be assigned from time to time.

Job Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Knowledge of CRM systems and process.
• Experience working for or with credit unions required.
• 5 years of experience required.
• Prior experience in business development and/or sales.
• Demonstrates entrepreneurial competencies and dexterity.
• Basic knowledge of financial services industry and credit union experience. Strong interpersonal and communication skills that contribute to overall organizational performance and a positive, creative work environment.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Strategic critical thinking skills.
• Self-directed and comfortable working in entrepreneurial environments.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects at once.
• Confident speaking in front of large audiences. Ability to sell innovative ideas, programs, advisory services, and processes to a sometimes-reluctant audience.
• Up to 10% travel required, including:
  • Attending various conferences relevant to innovation or select projects.
  • Presenting key findings in presentations on a wide latitude of Filene’s findings

EEO Policy Statement

The Filene Research Institute (Filene) provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Filene complies with applicable state and local laws governing non-discrimination in employment. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

Filene expressly prohibits any form of unlawful employee harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of Filene employees to perform their expected job duties is absolutely not tolerated.