Development Assistant for School and Center Annual Giving Support

Development Assistant for School and Center Annual Giving Support

University Overview

The University of Pennsylvania, the largest private employer in Philadelphia, is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation. This historic, Ivy League school consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Penn has 12 highly-regarded schools that provide opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and continuing education, all influenced by Penn's distinctive interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and learning. As an employer Penn has been ranked nationally on many occasions with the most recent award from Forbes who named Penn one of America's Best Large Employers in 2023.

Penn offers a unique working environment within the city of Philadelphia. The University is situated on a beautiful urban campus, with easy access to a range of educational, cultural, and recreational activities. With its historical significance and landmarks, lively cultural offerings, and wide variety of atmospheres, Philadelphia is the perfect place to call home for work and play.

The University offers a competitive benefits package that includes excellent healthcare and tuition benefits for employees and their families, generous retirement benefits, a wide variety of professional development opportunities, supportive work and family benefits, a wealth of health and wellness programs and resources, and much more.

Posted Job Title
Development Assistant for School and Center Annual Giving Support

Job Profile Title
Administrative Assistant B

Job Description Summary
The Development Assistant reports to the Senior Executive Director, School and Center Annual Giving (SACAG) and provides essential operational, administrative, and program support to advance annual giving activity across Penn's schools and centers. This role is a key partner in the Student Engagement Center, managing critical daily and monthly data workflows (including file retrieval, quality control, CRM updates, and pledge/gift tracking) to ensure accurate calling segments and
strong data integrity.

The position also supports SACAG's Annual Giving Partnership model by coordinating monthly unit meetings and annual planning sessions for 20+ units, executing the AGN weekly webinar series, and supporting a high volume of unit solicitations, pledge reminders, and digital outreach (email and texting). In addition, the role serves as a primary point of contact for donor inquiries and provides administrative and financial support for SACAG operations, including budgeting, purchasing, reporting, and office management.

In collaboration with the team, this position will need to exercise judgment, initiative, discretion and analysis in carrying out administrative and clerical duties. This position will handle complex and confidential materials. Must have the ability to meet deadlines in a fast-paced goal-oriented environment.

This position will also serve as part of the centralized administrative team for Annual Giving and will receive guidance from the Director of Penn Fund Strategy, Donor Participation and Stewardship under a dotted line for these responsibilities.

Job Description

Job Responsibilities

Student Engagement Center

• In collaboration with team, manage the data delivery and employ necessary quality controls between UPenn and Engagement Center data services units. This is an essential business function necessary for creating accurate calling segments for our students to call from.
• This position will retrieve the daily files from the Engagement Center SFTP site before 10:00AM Monday - Friday and comments distributed accordingly to the appropriate unit for action/follow-up.
• Perform basic research on prospect giving/prospect manager/CRM System actions when forwarding to the unit for follow-up
• Attend weekly conference call meetings with staff to coordinate and plan for student engagement center activity. Send weekly data files to Engagement Center Monday/Wednesday/Friday
• Retrieve the monthly files from the SFTP site to review, audit and prepare for CRM upload at the end of each month ensuring system data integrity.
• Deceased record research using Alumni Finder or other internet resources and updating CRM System accordingly.
• Manage and track the pledges/gifts: i.e. delayed; recurring; one-time etc. Retrieve monthly downloads from secure server and bring anomalies to the Assistant Director of Data Analytics attention.
• Actions, contact exclusions with end dates are added to CRM System accordingly.
• This position will be in regular communication with our Gifts Accounting staff to ensure timely and accurate processing of gifts.

Annual Giving Partnership

• Provide coordination and lead administrative support for the monthly annual giving meetings and the annual planning meetings (15-20 units). This includes the timely distribution of the comprehensive meeting notes and slides post-meeting.
• Maintain accurate accounting of meeting attendance.
• Create fiscal year action list based on action items agreed upon during the meeting
• Oversee and execute all components of the professional development AGN weekly webinar series.
• This includes marketing the webinars and collaborating with DAR Professional Development to promote the series. In addition, managing RSVP list, staffing the webinar, managing the technical aspects day of the webinar and distributing the slides after the webinar.
• This position will also track staff attendance on the SACAG shared drive and in Workday Learning.
• Interact and provide direction to individual units in the absence of the Senior Executive Director or other SACAG staff.
• In collaboration with team, manage and execute in-house unit solicitation and pledge reminders at any given time, often on short notice and with high degrees of importance/urgency.
• Support the infrastructure for broadcast email using the Salesforce Marketing Cloud email tool for annual giving units to support annual giving direct response activity. This is a weekly activity during the academic year.
• In collaboration with the team, this position leads and supports the deployment of texting for unit annual giving programs and supports unit requests for SACAG's deployed digital tools.
• Assist as a copy writer and proofreader for direct marketing solicitations and stewardship correspondence.
• Read and respond to all inquiries that come in through the penncalling@lists.upenn.edu email account. To ensure strong donor stewardship, all inquiries should be responded to within 24 hours during the business week.
• Add CRM System actions, contact exclusions, adjustments as needed
• Generate online reports routinely and on an as needed basis. Prepare and distribute management reports.
• Demonstrates a high level of comfort with technology usage and willingness to learn the functionality of new platforms.
• Communicate and support communication between all DAR Partner offices. Advancement Prospect Analytics (APA), Gifts/Records, Alumni Relations, Gift Planning.
• Run parameter reports and analyze data for units on an adhoc basis

Administrative

Financial

• Manage budget responsibilities by utilizing the University's Ben Financials system to create and maintain financial transactions and reports.
• Submit financial reimbursement forms through Concur, reconcile travel expenses. Maintain financial records/pay bills/track budget.

Office Management/Clerical

• Receive visitors, interact with suppliers/repair workers/messengers
• Order office supplies and materials
• Maintain SACAG shared calendar
• Word processing/correspondence/memos/lists/labels/mail merges
• Maintain and organize office files; create new systems as needed
• Compose routine correspondence and memos and proofread documents
• Handle and distribute office mail and intramural mail to campus
• Coordinate travel arrangements
• Incorporate a donor-centered approach to day-to-day activity: answer phones; respond to email and consistently respond in a timely and professional manner.
• Ability to generate mail merges and archive files in an organized manner
• Update biographical records on CRM system on a regular and timely basis.
• Handle gift transmittals and credit card processing
• In collaboration with team, manage and delegate work to student or temporary employees.
• Occasional weekend and evening hours are required

**Please provide a resume and cover letter in order to be considered for this role. Please upload all documents in the "Resume/CV" section of the application prior to submitting.**

Qualifications:

• High School Grad/GE Degree and 3 to 5 years of experience or equivalent combination of education and experience is required. Bachelor's degree preferred. Excellent organizational, communication/writing, interpersonal and technical skills. Ability to make sound judgments and meet deadlines. Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects and presentations simultaneously under tight deadlines required. Must have the ability to work as a team player and help provide support during events and/or activities when necessary. Comprehensive knowledge of office procedures, practices and methods. Demonstrated knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite (especially Excel) and project management systems. Salesforce knowledge is also desired.

Job Location - City, State
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Department / School
Development and Alumni Relations

Pay Range
$18.99 - $25.63 Hourly Rate
Salary offers are made based on the candidate's qualifications, experience, skills, and education as they directly relate to the requirements of the position, and in alignment with salary ranges based on external market data for the job's level. Internal organization and peer data at Penn are also considered.

Equal Opportunity Statement

The University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity employer. Candidates are considered for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, creed, national origin (including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics), citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status or any class protected under applicable federal, state or local law.

Special Requirements
Background checks may be required after a conditional job offer is made. Consideration of the background check will be tailored to the requirements of the job.

University Benefits

• Health, Life, and Flexible Spending Accounts: Penn offers comprehensive medical, prescription, behavioral health, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits to protect you and your family's health and welfare. You can also use flexible spending accounts to pay for eligible health care and dependent care expenses with pre-tax dollars.
• Tuition: Take advantage of Penn's exceptional tuition benefits. You, your spouse, and your dependent children can get tuition assistance here at Penn. Your dependent children are also eligible for tuition assistance at other institutions.
• Retirement: Penn offers generous retirement plans to help you save for your future. Penn's Basic, Matching, and Supplemental retirement plans allow you to save for retirement on a pre-tax or Roth basis. Choose from a wide variety of investment options through TIAA and Vanguard.
• Time Away from Work: Penn provides you with a substantial amount of time away from work during the course of the year. This allows you to relax, take vacations, attend to personal affairs, recover from illness or injury, spend time with family-whatever your personal needs may be.
• Long-Term Care Insurance: In partnership with Genworth Financial, Penn offers faculty and staff (and your eligible family members) long-term care insurance to help you cover some of the costs of long-term care services received at home, in the community or in a nursing facility. If you apply when you're newly hired, you won't have to provide proof of good health or be subject to underwriting requirements. Eligible family members must always provide proof of good health and are subject to underwriting.
• Wellness and Work-life Resources: Penn is committed to supporting our faculty and staff as they balance the competing demands of work and personal life. That's why we offer a wide variety of programs and resources to help you care for your health, your family, and your work-life balance.
• Professional and Personal Development: Penn provides an array of resources to help you advance yourself personally and professionally.
• University Resources: As a member of the Penn community, you have access to a wide range of University resources as well as cultural and recreational activities. Take advantage of the University's libraries and athletic facilities, or visit our arboretum and art galleries. There's always something going on at Penn, whether it's a new exhibit at the Penn Museum, the latest music or theater presentation at the Annenberg Center, or the Penn Relays at Franklin Field to name just a few examples. As a member of the Penn community, you're right in the middle of the excitement-and you and your family can enjoy many of these activities for free.
• Discounts and Special Services: From arts and entertainment to transportation and mortgages, you'll find great deals for University faculty and staff. Not only do Penn arts and cultural centers and museums offer free and discounted admission and memberships to faculty and staff. You can also enjoy substantial savings on other goods and services such as new cars from Ford and General Motors, cellular phone service plans, movie tickets, and admission to theme parks.
• Flexible Work Hours: Flexible work options offer creative approaches for completing work while promoting balance between work and personal commitments. These approaches involve use of non-traditional work hours, locations, and/or job structures.
• Penn Home Ownership Services: Penn offers a forgivable loan for eligible employees interested in buying a home or currently residing in West Philadelphia, which can be used for closing costs or home improvements.
• Adoption Assistance: Penn will reimburse eligible employees on qualified expenses in connection with the legal adoption of an eligible child, such as travel or court fees, for up to two adoptions in your household.

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To learn more, please visit: https://www.hr.upenn.edu/PennHR/benefits-pay


Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

The University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity employer. Candidates are considered for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, creed, national origin (including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics), citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status or any class protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.


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