Mission and Vision

Through the joyful art and practice of social dances, Dancing Classrooms cultivates engaged learners, collaborative leaders, and inclusive spaces. We envision a world that values social dance as foundational to every child’s well-being and joy, celebrates the beauty of diversity, and amplifies our shared humanity.

Organizational Overview:

Made famous by the acclaimed 2005 documentary “Mad Hot Ballroom,” DC has been an arts education leader for almost 30 years. We provide more dance instruction than any other nonprofit partner in NYC, serving over 15,000 students in 150 schools each year; predominantly in low-income communities. Since its founding, DC has danced with over 650,000 children globally and currently supports 10 affiliates across the U.S.

With a portfolio of standards-based K-12 grade in- and after-school residencies, we use social and partner dance to teach children the soft and “power” skills that will help them succeed in school and life such as collaboration, focus, listening, and perseverance. DC’s programs are gender inclusive, culturally responsive, and accessible to Students With Disabilities (both physical and neurological).

Emerging from the pandemic years, DC is uniquely positioned to meet the moment with a research-backed methodology that supports children’s social-emotional learning skills and mental health. With freshly articulated vision, mission, and value and new strategic plan in place, we are eager to build a highly motivated and effective internal development team to scale our programs to reach 50% more children over the next three years.

Our Culture:

Having worked remotely for several years pre-pandemic, DC team members are proactive and self-driven, but also thrive in a collaborative environment where flexibility, creativity and an entrepreneurial spirit are encouraged and celebrated. Kindness, compassion, empathy and respect are at the forefront of the way we treat each other, our students, our teaching artists, our school partners, and our supporters. We strive to embrace our role as life-long-learners and to embrace diversity, inclusion, and cross-cultural understanding.

The Development Manager is directly responsible for the grants calendar and overall operations of Dancing Classrooms fundraising efforts, including donor processing and acknowledgements, gift entry, grants tracking and reporting, SalesForce database, and support for special events and meetings of the Board of Trustees. This position will report to the Development Director and work closely with the programs team and Finance Manager to optimize processes, inform donors of our work and impact, and increase contributed revenue.

• Overseeing the foundation and government grants pipeline: tracking timelines and due dates, drafting applications, collaborating with the Development Director and programs team to submit compelling, accurate, and winning proposals and reports.
• Communicating with institutional funders, scheduling and attending site visits as needed.
• As the resident Salesforce “Power User” for fundraising, leading the department’s CRM daily operations and continued improvements by:
• Assuring the integrity of data and records, deleting duplicate records, ensuring appropriate coding, and monthly reconciliation with Finance Manager;
• Running reports and building new report templates;
• Identifying and championing various tech solutions that will support fundraising goals as needed; and
• Ongoing learning and growth through attending Trailblazer and other courses and talking with other nonprofit colleagues who use Salesforce.
• Documentation of development protocols and procedures as they are updated.
• Overseeing the organization’s online fundraising platforms, including GiveLively and GiveSmart, and all online grant-related portals.
• Building online donation and event campaigns.
• Working closely with the Finance Department to reconcile donor contributions via check, online platforms, ACH, Bill.com, and corporate matches.
• Supporting DC’s special events as needed, including attendee communications, in-kind auction donations, and other duties as assigned.
• Annual upkeep of giving profiles on charitable websites such as Guidestar and relationship management with platforms such as CharityNavigator.
• Additional administrative responsibilities as requested to support the Development Director and the organization.

Qualifications:

• 2+ years of grant writing and operations experience, preferably in an arts or educational nonprofit organization.
• Excellent writing skills
• Working knowledge of foundation and government grant submission processes.
• High attention to detail and knack for clean record-keeping and file organization.
• Confident, consistent, and capable facility with database management; Salesforce experience is a plus.
• Budget experience and familiarity with compiling financial information is a plus.
• Ability to multitask and work as a resourceful, self-motivated member of a small, fast paced non-profit team.
• Enthusiasm for dance, arts & culture, and education, and a commitment to Dancing Classrooms’ mission and vision.
• Commitment to advancing inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) in society at large, and within the realm of Dancing Classrooms’ work.
• Must be comfortable working remotely, with regular in-person meetings in Manhattan and site visits at schools across the NYC Metro area.

Schedule, Hours of Work:

40 hours a week (typically M-F, 9am-5pm), 5 days a week, remotely, with in-person meetings and site visits scheduled at least 2-5 times per month. Flex desk and meeting space is available for use in our midtown Manhattan subleased office as needed. On occasion, and leading up to fundraising events or meetings, staff members are expected to be available at times they are not usually scheduled to be online, including evenings and weekends. Schedules are subject to change.

Compensation:

$65,000-70,000, commensurate with experience, and a benefits package including health care coverage, commuter benefits, and generous paid time off.

Interested candidates should submit a resume and cover letter detailing your experience and expertise in the aforementioned qualifications no later than June 30, 2023. Please send application materials to jobs@dancingclassrooms.org, with the subject line “Development Manager.”