Donor Database Information Specialist

About This Role

The Donor Database Information Specialist is responsible for ensuring the accuracy, integrity, and strategic use of donor data by managing and optimizing the organization’s fundraising database systems for Water For People’s Donor Impact fundraising team. This professional-level role leads the development of data governance practices for the donor CRM, gift processing and reconciliation, reporting, and prospect management support to enable effective fundraising, donor engagement, and financial accountability. The Specialist exercises independent judgment and discretion in designing and optimizing donor data processes, protocols, and strategies across Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge and integrated systems. By maintaining high-quality data, streamlining processes, and collaborating across development, engagement, and finance teams, the Donor Database Information Specialist ensures reliable insights, compliance, and an exceptional donor experience.

The successful employee demonstrates strong initiative, problem-solving, and a deep understanding of Water For People’s mission, values, and strategic priorities while fostering cross-functional collaboration and trust throughout the organization.

In This Role You Will

• Develop, troubleshoot, and maintain robust processes for collecting, evaluating, and recording donor biographical and gift data to Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge, ensuring compliance with organizational policies and accuracy across systems.
• Own the end-to-end process for recording, processing, and reconciling donor contributions, including all cash gifts, online donations, pledges, planned gifts, and grants, ensuring timely acknowledgements and compliance. This includes troubleshooting any found issues and identifying solutions.
• Design and implement streamlined procedures for reconciling gifts, gateways, and distributions with Finance partners, adapting to new payment methods and technologies.
• Serve as the primary point of contact and internal lead for the nonprofit’s caging/lockbox partner, overseeing daily operations, compliance, issue resolution, and relationship management related to donation processing.
• Reconcile donations monthly and annually with the finance department ensuring financial accuracy and accountability.
• Develop and deliver departmental data requests and reporting using complex querying from database view or NXT for internal and/or external use in compliance with data governance.
• Lead efforts to audit, clean and validate data by establishing data health protocols.
• Create and build processes to trace lost publicly available donor information.
• Audit and upgrade Power BI and RE NXT dashboards to ensure accurate and actionable insights for the Donor Impact team.
• Safeguard donor information in a high-volume data processing environment, maintaining trust and compliance.
• Spearhead initiatives to develop and refine coding protocols and database structures, ensuring streamlined operations and data integrity.
• Determine and assemble new procedures for data hygiene with the growth of prospect management within the donor database.
• Strategically partner with Major Gifts and Donor Engagement sub-teams on prospect management leveraging prospecting tools, iWave and GivingDNA, with RE donor data.
• Develop Raiser’s Edge Planned Gift module and establish best business practices for Water For People.
• Develop and lead departmental trainings on Raiser’s Edge NXT.
• Manage OmaticCloud to ensure seamless data synchronization.
• Identify and resolve biographical donor and gift record information gaps from RE database view to RE NXT for upcoming conversion to RE NXT.
• Develop protocols for donor inquiries and oversee implementation to ensure compliance and efficiency.
• Collaborate with Donor Email Marketing Manager on the creation and management of donation forms for online and fundraising marketing efforts.
• Design and implement data governance frameworks that align with organizational strategy and industry best practices.
• Act as a critical partner on cross-functional projects involving system integrations, data migrations, and process automation to improve efficiency and scalability.
• Create and maintain documentation of advanced data architecture and protocols for long-term organizational knowledge.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend adoption to enhance donor data management and reporting capabilities.
• Establish KPIs and performance metrics for donor data integrity and reporting accuracy, and present findings to leadership.
• Serve as subject matter expert on donor database systems, providing strategic guidance and training to staff across departments.
• Other duties consistent with the professional nature of this role.

You Will Excel In This Role If You Have

• Bachelor’s degree in information systems, computer science, business or related field or equivalent work experience.
• Experience in a nonprofit fundraising environment using Raiser’s Edge software.
• At least 3 years of experience managing a relational database including querying and reporting.
• At least 3 years of experience creating custom queries, building donor segmentation models and optimizing complex data architectures.
• Proficiency with Power BI and Microsoft Office programs including Word, Excel, Power Point and Outlook.
• Excellent written and oral communication, with a high level of sensitivity for propriety and confidentiality.
• English language fluency.
• Strong commitment to delivering strong donor service.

Bonus Points If You Have

• Experience with data integrations systems.

More About This Role

• Candidates must be citizens or legally authorized to work in the US.
• This position can be fully remote or can work from our office in Greenwood Village, Colorado
• Water For People will only seek candidates from the following states: CO, DC, FL, GA, IN, KY, MD, NE, NC, OH, OR, SD, TX or VA.  
• Ability to work outside regular business hours at times to meet with personnel located in other time zones.

Note: This job description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, or qualifications associated with the job.