Digital Special Events Manager - Pet Partners (Remote)

Pet Partners, a leading non-profit in the therapy animal space, is seeking a talented, goal-oriented fundraising professional to join our Development team. The Digital Special Events Manager serves a crucial role in mission delivery, helping to expand our reach in sharing the human-animal bond to improve the physical, social, and emotional lives of those we serve. 

In this role, you will be responsible for significant revenue generation through Pet Partners’ national signature events and through fundraising engagement with community partners, corporate partners, and groups. The Digital Special Events Manager will manage, implement, and evaluate all aspects of signature development initiatives including but not limited to World’s Largest Pet Walk, Treats & Sweets Day, National Therapy Animal Day, Pet of the Year, and CYO opportunities. The Manager will also assist in launching and then managing new national fundraising initiatives. This role will be responsible for building community partner, corporate and group engagement in fundraising through development support, guidance, and communication.

We are looking for an energetic, collaborative and effective team player both within the department and across the Pet Partners organization, exemplifying our core values of being Accountable, Agile, Determined, Positive and Solution-Focused.

Role Core Competencies:

1. Demonstrated ability to hit financial goals for special events, with an emphasis on virtual events involving geographically dispersed participants.
2. Demonstrated ability to identify and effectively execute, including personal recruitment of sufficient fundraising participants to hit or exceed fundraising goals.
3. Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain positive relationships with Community Partners, corporate partners, facility representatives, and other volunteers to successfully engage them in event fundraising.
4. Demonstrated ability to identify, secure and retain corporate event sponsors.
5. Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate verbally and especially in writing, consistent with the role’s expectations:

• To write in a compelling manner about programs or the position’s area of expertise and responsibility
• To write in an effective manner about organizational initiatives to contribute to specific recruitment and fundraising goals
• To write effectively to summarize data or incorporate as a foundation for strategy recommendations, consistent with expectations of the position

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• In coordination with cross-departmental leadership, oversee execution of national events and implement short and long-term signature event strategies to enhance their role as an efficient and effective platform for revenue generation.
• Work in collaboration with the Chief Development Officer to launch new national fundraising opportunities and strategies, which may include but are not limited to live-streaming fundraising, virtual events, school and youth-based events, title/recognition based fundraising competitions, and in-person flagship events.
• Provide ongoing guidance and education to community partner/group volunteer leaders on our ongoing critical fundraising needs.
• Involve and leverage the CEO, CDO, CMO, and Board Members in the signature event promotion and participant recruitment process when helpful or necessary.
• Increase corporate participation in signature events through sponsorship, employee engagement, and workplace team participation.
• Develop and implement methods and procedures for monitoring projects and key benchmarks such as preparation of progress reports to inform CDO, CMO, and CEO of current status of each initiative.
• Work with Marketing & Communications team on PR efforts in support of signature events and to develop comprehensive communication plans for participant recruitment, cultivation, fundraising guidance, and retention.
• Be the point of contact for new volunteer leaders of community partners and groups to support their fundraising efforts.
• Curate and collect editorial and photographic content to be utilized in Pet Partners PR and communications channels, including digital platforms.
• Evaluate the ongoing technology needs of Pet Partners to support growth with peer to peer fundraising and identify a suitable technology partner to support our revenue growth goals for signature events.
• Perform work on weekends and evenings as needed to meet applicable deadlines.
• Other Duties: This is not a comprehensive listing of all activities, duties or responsibilities that may be required of the employee for this job at any time.

Supervisory Responsibilities: This position does not have supervisory responsibilities.

Qualifications: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

• Strong organizational skills and detail-orientation.
• Ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously and keep momentum on each and manage to project due dates.
• Ability to work effectively as an individual contributor, team member and as a project lead.
• Strong interpersonal, verbal (including phone work) and written communication skills, including customer service and disciplined follow-up.
• Ability to work effectively and efficiently with minimal direction.

Education/Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree preferred with two to three years of related experience or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Knowledge of and ability to use a relational database (Salesforce), email and peer to peer platforms (Engaging Networks, OneCause), including reporting tools, query applications, exporting/importing.
• Demonstrated success stewarding volunteers, partners, and sponsors.
• Experience in event planning, brand development and building.
• Proven record of developing successful internal and external relationships with volunteers, staff, donors, and community partners.
• Proven record of successful management of volunteers.

Certificates and Licenses: Must have a valid driver’s license and reliable car to transport event supplies and go to external meetings/events.

Travel Requirements: Domestic travel up to 10% of the time including overnight travel.