Job Description

The Advancement Manager plays a central role in shaping how Neighborhood Defender Service (NDS) secures funding and communicates its work across a national organization with local offices. As part of NDS’s reimagined national infrastructure and ongoing organizational restructuring, this role is responsible for building and managing a unified advancement function that aligns fundraising and communications in support of both national strategy and local impact. This includes developing foundational advancement systems, including an individual giving program and a coordinated approach to institutional fundraising and advancement communications.

This is a department-building role with responsibility for guiding NDS’s fundraising and communications efforts across offices, ensuring that funder relationships, public messaging, and storytelling accurately reflect the scope, complexity, and impact of the organization’s work within an evolving national operating model. The Advancement Manager will work closely with Managing Directors to understand office- and program-level priorities and will be responsible for assembling this into a coordinated, organization-wide advancement strategy. In partnership with finance and program staff, the Advancement Manager will also collaborate on developing budgets and proposals that are both programmatically aligned and financially sustainable.

The Advancement Manager will work under the guidance of the Deputy Executive Director to implement the advancement strategy while building the systems, relationships, and internal infrastructure needed to support a growing, multi-office organization. Over time, this role is expected to assume increasing ownership of advancement strategy and execution. Based out of our Detroit office, this is a hybrid role with minimal to occasional travel.

Core Purpose of the Role

The Advancement Manager exists to build and manage a cohesive advancement function that expands NDS’s resources, strengthens institutional support, and ensures fundraising and communications work together as a coordinated system across a national organization with local offices. The role translates diverse programmatic priorities into clear advancement strategy, supporting sustainable growth and long-term organizational capacity.

Leadership Approach

The ideal Advancement Manager brings a thoughtful, coaching-oriented approach to leadership and operates with clarity, collaboration, and accountability. This role requires comfort navigating complexity, balancing multiple priorities, and coordinating work across offices, programs, timelines, and perspectives. As a trusted communicator and relationship builder, the Advancement Manager understands that effective advancement work requires credibility, sound judgment, and the ability to bring clarity and coherence to complex work by translating internal understanding of the organization’s work into clear, effective external engagement.

Responsibilities

Advancement Strategy & Department Leadership

• Build and manage a unified advancement function that aligns fundraising and communications across both national priorities and local office needs.

• Collaborate with the DED to shape advancement strategy, with the expectation of assuming primary ownership of strategy and execution as the department and work matures.

• Develop systems, workflows, and internal processes that support coordination, accountability, and clarity across advancement activities.

• Balance hands-on contribution with building team capacity and sustainable advancement operations.

• Strategically manage competing priorities, support teams in understanding timelines, expectations, and tradeoffs.

Fundraising & Funder Engagement

• Oversee institutional fundraising, including the development, management, and refinement of cases for support across programs and initiatives.

• Provide strategic information, research, and insight to the Deputy Executive Director and CEO to support proposal development, funder strategy, and cultivation.

• Partner closely with Finance and program leadership to develop accurate, compelling, and funder-ready proposals that align programmatic priorities with financial realities.

• Design and begin building an individual giving program, including donor engagement strategies, early major gift cultivation, and targeted campaigns, in alignment with organizational capacity and priorities.

• Establish processes to track fundraising pipeline, projects, and performance using data to assess progress and inform iterative improvements.

• Develop funder communications and materials, ensuring they are accurate, timely, and aligned with organizational strategy and values.

Communications, Storytelling & Brand

• Lead the organization’s storytelling function, translating complex, interdisciplinary legal work into clear, compelling narratives that convey impact and urgency.

• Supervise communications and digital engagement efforts, ensuring NDS’s voice remains bold, authentic, and grounded in its values across platforms.

• Collaborate with local and national leaders to articulate and elevate the value of NDS’s integrated model and ensure messaging reflects on-the-ground realities.

• Monitor communications reach and engagement, using data to assess effectiveness and refine strategy and content.

Team Building, Resourcing & Department Planning

• Build, manage, and mentor a small team of fellows, interns, and external vendors, emphasizing clarity of roles and outcomes, a collaborative culture, and a mission-centered approach.

• Develop short-term and longer-term staffing and resourcing plans in addition to goals for the advancement function.

• Assess and refine team structure and resource allocation over time to ensure the advancement function remains responsive, effective, and appropriately scaled.

Qualifications

Required

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in nonprofit advancement, fundraising, or a related field, including direct responsibility for managing a portfolio and meeting defined revenue goals.

• At least 2 years of experience supervising staff, fellows, or contractors, with responsibility for setting priorities, providing feedback, and supporting performance.

• Strong writing, editing, and storytelling skills, with the ability to translate complex programmatic work into clear, compelling funder- and public-facing materials.

• Experience managing advancement projects and timelines across multiple stakeholders, including close collaboration with program and finance partners.

• Working knowledge of nonprofit budgets and financial concepts, sufficient to support proposal development, budget alignment, and funder reporting in partnership with finance staff.

• Strong organizational and project-management skills, including the ability to manage multiple workstreams, competing deadlines, and evolving priorities.

• Experience working in or alongside interdisciplinary teams within a mission-driven organization.

• High emotional intelligence and a demonstrated ability to build trust and credibility with stakeholders across roles, offices, and backgrounds.

Preferred

• 7 or more years of experience building or leading advancement, fundraising, or communications functions in a mission-driven organization.

• Experience working within a national organization with locally based offices, programs, or affiliates, including coordinating advancement priorities across sites.

• Experience building or managing advancement systems, such as funder pipelines, grant calendars, CRM tools, reporting trackers, or internal proposal workflows.

• Familiarity with common nonprofit advancement and project-management tools (e.g., Salesforce, Airtable, Asana, Monday, Submittable, Fluxx, or similar systems).

• Demonstrated experience using data and analysis to inform fundraising strategy, pipeline management, and performance assessment.

• Demonstrated success managing institutional fundraising, including proposal development, reporting, and funder relationship coordination.

• Familiarity with public defense, legal services, or similarly complex justice-oriented nonprofits, including public or contract-based funding environments.

• Demonstrated commitment to racial justice, equity, and systemic change, and experience thoughtfully integrating equity considerations into advancement strategy and storytelling.

The Neighborhood Defender Service is committed to creating a diverse environment that reflects the community we serve. NDS is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. NDS encourages people with incarcerated loved ones, formerly incarcerated people, people of color, women, queer, transgender, gender non-conforming, and gender fluid people to apply. Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At NDS we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

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