Careers

Description:

Who We Are: Founded in 2001, Cultivating Community (CC) is celebrating 20 years of food justice work throughout southern and central Maine. With school based programs, youth leadership opportunities, community gardens, and one of the nation’s largest land-based farmer training programs for new Americans, CC has led the work of building community resilience, food equity, and sustainable local agriculture. Our programs and organizational mandate are centered around our values - we are building a food system that embodies justice, equity, learning, relationship, and compassion. For a full description of Cultivating Community and all our programs, please go to www.cultivatingcommunity.org.

Manager of Development & Communications Operations: This newly created position is ideal for
someone who appreciates the role data and systems play in fundraising. As a small office, this job is designed for candidates who have experience both managing data and fundraising -- and who excel at both. As important, this position is part of a larger collaborative staff team advancing the food justice mission of Cultivating Community.

Specific responsibilities include the following:
Manages fundraising database (Network for Good)
● Enters and acknowledges gifts and pledges.
● Supports both direct mail and e-blast activities.
● Generates reports.
● Develops and documents written standards that meet state and IRS standards.
Develops and maintains systems that ensure on-time and consistent fundraising and communications operations and activities that meet the financial needs of the organization in a way that are consistent with the values and mission.
● Works with Director of Development and Communications to develop complementary
Development and Communications plans and calendars.
● Tracks grant and grant report deadlines and requirements.

Leads corporate relations strategy.
● Proactively reaches out to new and existing partners through email and phone contact.
● Ensures corporate partners are scheduled and have good on-site volunteer experiences in
collaboration with program staff if appropriate. This will involve travel in Southern ME.
● Follows up with appropriate recognition (drafts social media posts, press releases, and other
creative ways of recognition).

Contributes to the work of the small Development and Communications Department (currently a staff of two and subcontractors as needed) and the organization as a whole.
● As necessary, takes responsibility for drafting grant reports in collaboration with program staff
and Director of Development and Communications.

● As necessary, takes responsibility for drafting social media posts and other materials (e-blasts,
webcopy, etc.)
● Helps ensure quality in written materials by proofreading a variety of materials.
● Participates in staff meetings, trainings, and other activities of an organization that values shared
leadership, food justice, and dismantling white supremacy.

Supervision Received
Director of Development and Communications

Organizational Commitment and Values Alignment
We are a small organization composed of staff members with many different backgrounds and skills, committed to building equity through food justice for our communities. As a result, we are deeply committed to both the learning and skill-building required to shape our work to be truly in line with our stated values.

Location & Schedule
Cultivating Community offers a strengths-based collaborative staff team and flexible, positive work
environment. This position will be based primarily out of our Portland-based office, but will require some travel in the Southern Maine area. During COVID-19, all of our operations are remote, except for in-person farm and garden programming.

Benefits/Compensation
● Cultivating Community is committed to developing and implementing an equity-based
compensation schedule for all our employees - the salary for this position is $44,000 per year.
● Full-time, exempt position, working 35 hours per week. We believe in work-life balance, and are
committed to keeping the workload in alignment with the true hours worked.

● Travel compensation for driving between work sites.
● Cell phone reimbursement.
● Vegetable share during summer.
● 15 days of paid vacation, 17 days of paid holidays or sick time, and a flexible, family-friendly
schedule.
● We offer a competitive benefits package including health insurance plans for both employees
and employees’ families.

Desired Skills and Knowledge:
● Excellent communication skills, written and oral.
● Highly detail oriented with a critical degree of accuracy regarding data entry and analysis.
● Experience using a fundraising database; Network for Good experience is a bonus.
● Good problem solver with the ability to work independently but not afraid to seek our help or
ask questions when needed.
● Can prioritize tasks -- both attending to immediate needs while setting aside time to invest in
systems that will serve the organization in the long term.
● Awareness and understanding of systemic racism both locally and nationally, and a desire to
deeply understand and change structural inequity.

Desired Experience:
● 2+ years of experience in non-profit fundraising or similar environments that includes managing
databases.
● Volunteer management or customer service experience is a plus.
● Experience with Google Calender, Drive, Docs, Forms, Gmail, Sheets; Microsoft Word and Excel;
Facebook & Instagram. Experience with or willingness to learn Canva, Hootsuite, Asana, and
similar programs as needed.
● Experience in racially and culturally diverse workplaces and experience working across
differences.

OUR HIRING PROCESS & TIMELINE:
This position will be posted between April 26 and May 18, 2021
We intend to schedule interviews in late-May and offer a position by June 15 with a start date between June 28 and July 15 depending on a candidate’s availability. There is some flexibility in this schedule; please indicate if the timing poses a challenge to your application.

To apply, follow these instructions:
An application packet will include the following:
1. Cover letter including answers to the following two questions: 1) Why are you interested in
working at Cultivating Community? 2) Share an experience in which your attention to detail and
thoroughness made a difference in solving a problem.
2. Resume.
3. Three references. (We will not contact references without communicating with you first.)
Please email a single PDF or doc/docx labeled LastName_FirstInitial_Development to
hiring@cultivatingcommunity.org with the subject line Manager of Development & Communications
Operations

Questions
If you have questions about this position, about the application process, or about Cultivating Community - please direct them to Michelle Kweder michelle@cultivatingcommunity.org,

Cultivating Community is an equal opportunity employer. We will not discriminate and will take
affirmative action measures to ensure against discrimination in employment, recruitment,
advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other
conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran’s status, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.