Director of Development & Communications

Since 1968, Brooklyn A has provided free legal services for low- and moderate-income individuals and families throughout New York City. Our clients live in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods where many residents and small business owners have been displaced or are facing displacement and harassment. For over half a century, Brooklyn A has provided high-quality, low-barrier neighborhood-based legal services to individuals, families, nonprofit community-based organizations, community development corporations, coalitions, and small business owners, interested in developing and sustaining vibrant, healthy communities. Brooklyn A has three core departments —Preserving Affordable Housing (PAH), Consumer & Economic Advocacy (CEA), and Community & Economic Development (CED)—each of which has unique initiatives and plays a vital community role to ensure basic needs are met and fundamental rights affirmed.

The Director of Development and Communications will be responsible developing and implementing the strategic direction for all development and communication activities. By managing a small team, you will oversee and manage government and private grant procurement and management, major donor cultivation and solicitation and special events management. In addition, you will oversee and manage communication activities will include but not be limited to managing the organizations website, social networks, media outreach and public information initiatives to engage prospective clients, donors and external constituents.

This will entail:

• Oversee government and private foundation grants to ensure contract compliance, accurate and timely reporting on deliverables, renewal applications and grant proposals to expand and diversity government, foundation, and corporate partnership giving;
• Creating and implementing fundraising strategic plan with a focus on government and private foundation grants, major gifts from individual donors to garner unrestricted and restricted support and corporate giving programs;
• Leading, motivating and supervising a development staff to include establishing departmental and individual goals, effectively coaching and managing the development team to achieve both annual and long-term financial goals;
• Supervising a team of 3, manage donor pipelines through identification, cultivation, solicitation of major gifts and stewardship stages and support Executive Director in board development and solicitations;
• Developing and implementing annual communications, marketing and outreach plan to support overall BKA goals, in coordination with the Executive Director;
• Overseeing production, distribution and editorial content of newsletters, annual report, case for giving, newsletters, fact sheets, brochures, press releases, etc.;
• Providing training and direct assistance to all staff in conveying their accomplishments, initiatives and positions to both internal and external audiences through a range of communications media, and ensuring that all such communications are consistent with overall organizational messages and brand positioning;
• Creating strategies to draw appropriate traffic levels, including online advertising, web optimization, social networking and blogging; and
• Analyzing key traffic metrics and make recommendations based on analysis to executive leadership team and program managers.

If you are:

• A goal driven leader with exceptional strategic thinking, relationship development, and communication skills;
• Someone who understands that working with a small team requires passion, savvy and a doer’s attitude;
• Has had successful experience securing and managing government grants and ensuring high quality and timely reporting and contract compliance;
• A minimum of eight (8) plus years of combined development and marketing/communications experience in a nonprofit organization;
• Successful project supervision and management taking a project from design through implementation and evaluation;
• Experience directly supervising staff to include organizing teamwork, providing clear directions and team priorities, setting and measuring team and individual goals/targets and ability to separate and combine tasks into efficient workflows to deliver project outputs according to clear timeframes;
• Comfort and experience engaging with diverse stakeholders and partners with diverse backgrounds, including elected officials, government agencies, individual and corporate donors, community-based organizations, coalitions and clients;
• Data management skills to create reports from client database and collate and synthesize reports from team for weekly, monthly and quarterly reporting requirements using a variety of databases, including Donor Perfect, Microsoft Dynamics; Brooklyn A’s case management system and various funder platforms and portals
• High ethical standards and values with a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging principles; and
• Demonstrated passion and commitment to providing legal services to our communities most vulnerable individuals, families and small businesses;

We want to hear from you!

If you are interested in this position, you must submit your resume and a cover letter telling us why your experiences would make you a good fit for this role. This is a hybrid in-office/remote position based in Brooklyn, NY.

Compensation & Benefits

Annual salary $165,000-175,000 dependent on years of experience. Benefits highlights - 27 days vacation; employer paid health, dental and vision insurance; employer contribution to 401(k); and paid parental leave.

Brooklyn A is a diverse team that is committed to recruiting, supporting, retaining, and promoting talented staff with diverse backgrounds and experiences that share the organization's commitment to racial, economic and social justice. At Brooklyn A, diversity encompasses a variety of characteristics, lifestyles, and perspectives, including race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, education, disability, socio-economic status, and family status. We firmly believe that a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment is essential to both the quality of our client services and the personal satisfaction of our staff.

We encourage applicants of diverse backgrounds to apply, including women, people of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, LGBTQ people, people from low-income backgrounds, and with lived experiences in the communities we serve. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age, physical disability, or length of time spent unemployed.