The Role

The purpose of the Supporter Relationships Manager is to ensure the provision of excellent supporter relationships activities to the Fundraising team to support appeals, campaigns, virtual events, online lead generation and other programs designed to achieve fundraising revenue targets. The role manages a small team who nurture and grow relationships with our donors through best-practice care, engagement and retention initiatives.

The Supporter Relationships team process high volumes of donor data, and delivers high-impact donor care activities via inbound and outbound phone, email, mail and SMS. The Supporter Relationships Manager oversees the design, delivery and optimisation of these processes to ensure their efficiency and to enhance the value and lifetime of Black Dog Institute’s donor relationships.

Duties & Responsibilities

Supporter Relationships

• Oversee the efficient delivery of customer care to Black Dog Institute donors and supporters, ensuring the Supporter Relationships team provides professional and timely handling of inbound channels including phone, email, mail, and SMS.

• Establish customer care KPIs for the Supporter Relationships team, including measuring the financial impact of Supporter Relationships initiatives and overall community sentiment monitoring, regularly reporting on progress to the broader team.

• Design, implement and monitor proactive and reactive phone retention initiatives to reduce the cancellation and downgrades of regular gifts to Black Dog Institute. • Train, monitor and improve upon Supporter Relationships team members’ skills in persuasive communications.

• Lead initiatives that promote accurate recording of donor feedback in the fundraising database across PPF. Report on this for the broader Philanthropy, Partnerships and Fundraising team with relevant recommendations for improvements to fundraising initiatives.

• Oversee the complete and up-to-date documentation of Supporter Relationships procedures.

• Regularly monitor and coordinate updates of Supporter Relationships templates for donor communications, to ensure the latest mental health content is shared and the Black Dog Institute brand is consistently applied in all communications.

• Design and deliver organisation-wide efforts to acknowledge and thank donors on a regular basis, e.g. Annual donor thank-you calling.

• Own and administrate key Supporter Relationships technologies such as the inbound phone and email enquiry systems to ensure full coverage during business hours.

• Support the implementation and integration of third-party fundraising technologies to support a seamless donor experience.
• Identify and implement automation opportunities for regular Supporter Relationships tasks.

• Oversee all manual and automated donation processes handled by SR team, including receipting and invoicing to ensure accuracy and efficiency.

• Lead on Supporter Relationships’ contribution to achieving complete and accurate financial reconciliation.

• Oversee PCI compliance, data privacy and security in collaboration with PPF data team, for all Supporter Relationships activities.

• Ensure best-practice user experience, accessibility and cultural safety are prioritised and maintained across all Supporter Relationships activities.

Team Advancement

• Recruit, train and support the ongoing professional development of Supporter Relationships staff to meet individual and organisational goals.

• Train and support the Supporter Relationships team to leverage telemarketing techniques to retain and upgrade the support of existing donors, to meet financial targets.

• Support all team to advance in their understanding of key competencies which are relevant to team activities: mental health awareness, data security and privacy, and cultural competency.

• Drive wellbeing initiatives for high job satisfaction, work-life balance and staff retention.

General Duties

• Work towards achieving the overall objective and strategic direction of the PPF team and wider organisation.

• Build trust within the fundraising team and with key stakeholders across Black Dog Institute by demonstrating consistent communication and transparency.

• Demonstrate value by establishing benchmarks and regularly reporting on improvements.

• Oversee the comprehensive documentation of key processes to ensure consistent and sustainable delivery of regular team responsibilities.

• Collaborate with front-facing staff in other BDI teams (such as reception and the clinic) to ensure a seamless inbound contact experience for donors.

• Attend team and all staff meetings and team and Directorate-wide in office days

Skills & Experience Required 

Essential Criteria

1. Experience managing a customer service-focused team to meet revenue goals, preferably in a not-for-profit/fundraising context.

2. Minimum of 3 years experience in a customer service management role, with demonstrated delivery of analytical and creative projects

3. Proven experience managing service delivery to optimise return on investment in customer retention campaigns, preferably in a fundraising context

4. Strong understanding of how impactful digital content and telemarketing techniques can drive effective customer service campaigns

5. Experience leveraging CRMs (preferably Raisers Edge/NXT) to draw and act upon strategic customer insights

6. Experience optimising the flow of data between a primary database and other data sources including marketing or peer-to-peer third party fundraising platforms

7. Experience designing, automating and optimising customer communication journeys

8. Demonstrated experience training, mentoring or managing staff to deliver on KPIs

9. Advanced internal stakeholder management and relationship-building skills.

10. Highly organised approach to project management, with the proven ability to prioritise and deliver several projects at once

Desirable Criteria

1. Experience with the Raiser’s Edge/NXT donor database and affiliate

2. technologies including third-party fundraising platforms

3. Experience supporting the wellbeing of frontline customer service staff managing challenging subject matter

4. Understanding of best-practice PCI compliance, data security and privacy practices

5. Foundational knowledge in the field of mental health and suicide prevention

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
We actively welcome applications from candidates of underrepresented backgrounds and recognise that not all candidates will have had equal opportunity to gain experience in the past. If you’re excited about this opportunity but feel you don’t meet every requirement, we still encourage you to apply as your unique perspective and experiences matter.

How to Apply

To become a part of the Black Dog Institute team, follow the link to ELMO to apply and submit your most up to date resume. If you are shortlisted for the role, we will call you and let you know you are successful. Please do not respond to any suspicious emails requesting you to upload your ID or personal details. We are a 2022 Circle Back Initiative Employer and commit to respond to every applicant.