Development Operations Manager

About Us:

At the Humane Society of Southern Arizona (HSSA), we’ve been dedicated to compassionately serving pets and the people who love them for over 80 years. As the largest nonprofit animal welfare organization in Southern Arizona, we provide lifesaving services for thousands of animals in need each year.

The Development Operations Manager is a key operational and data leader on the Humane Society of Southern Arizona Development team, supporting the infrastructure that drives nearly $3.5M in annual philanthropic revenue. This role strengthens fundraising efficacy by ensuring data integrity, actionable reporting, and efficient systems that enable strategic, relationship-based donor engagement.

Serving as the administrator and subject matter expert for HSSA’s CRM, DonorPerfect, the Development Operations Manager oversees data governance, gift processing, and portfolio management, while conducting prospect research and maintaining accurate, comprehensive donor records. This work equips frontline fundraisers and leadership with the insights needed to prioritize and cultivate donor relationships.

As the team’s lead for direct response strategy, the Development Operations Manager leverages segmentation, performance analytics, and donor insights to optimize annual giving programs across mail and digital channels, with a focus on revenue growth, donor retention, and maximum return on investment.

The Development Operations Manager also leads project management for Development initiatives and campaigns, ensuring timely, coordinated execution aligned with organizational goals and fundraising best practices.

Essential Functions:

• Drive operations of the Development office, ensuring efficient processes that support the team’s annual fundraising goal of approximately $3.5M.
• Contribute to the strategy and execution of HSSA’s annual Development Plan.
• Drive an effective moves-management system by supporting portfolio management, tracking donor interactions and engagement, and ensuring accountability.
• Coordinate strategic donor outreach efforts for frontline fundraisers and leadership by conducting prospect research, preparing briefing materials, generating mailing and outreach lists, and drafting donor-facing communications.
• Apply data-driven segmentation, trend analysis, and donor insights to identify and engage the most receptive audiences for HSSA’s direct-response fundraising program, including direct mail and digital appeals.
• Serve as the primary administrator and subject matter expert for the donor database (DonorPerfect), leading data governance, system optimization, and user support.
• Establish and maintain standards, policies, and procedures for donor data management, including data entry, naming conventions, opportunity tracking, and record maintenance to ensure accuracy and consistency.
• Monitor and analyze key performance indicators, reports, and dashboards to track fundraising progress, inform strategy, and support decision-making.
• Lead end-to-end project management for major Development initiatives using Asana and other systems, establishing project timelines, managing dependencies, and coordinating cross-functional collaboration projects are completed on time and meet quality standards.
• Provide operational support across all fundraising activities, including annual giving, major gifts, planned giving, grant writing, donor stewardship, and donor recognition.
• Support the planning and execution of special events, donor tours, and other engagement activities.
• Provide high-quality customer service to donors across all giving levels via phone, written communication, and in-person interactions.
• Provide general administrative and team support, including serving as backup for other Development staff as needed.
• Represent HSSA in a professional and positive manner.
• Other duties as assigned.

Working Conditions:

Work is performed in an office within a modern animal shelter. Exposure to zoonotic diseases, loud noises, and outdoor weather conditions is common. Occasional evening and weekend work required to accommodate special events and seasonal giving spikes.

Include in all descriptions:

This job description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, skills, efforts or working conditions or qualifications associated with the job. While this is intended to be an accurate reflection of the current job, management reserves the right to revise or to require that other or different tasks be performed when circumstances change, for example, emergencies, changes in personnel, workload, rush jobs, or technological breakdowns in departments.