Business Development Representative

DonorsChoose makes it easy for anyone to help a teacher in need, moving us closer to a nation where students in every community have the tools and experiences they need for a great education.

Since 2000, more than 5 million people and partners have contributed $1 billion to support 2 million teacher requests for classroom resources and experiences. Projects range from art supplies to build the set for a school musical, to books and puzzles that affirm students’ identities, to bird seed for an at-home science project. We proudly serve all US public schools, public charter schools, and Head Start centers, and we combat systemic inequity by driving a majority of donations to schools that have been historically underfunded due to economic and racial inequity.

DonorsChoose has been recognized as a best place to work by GOOD Magazine and the Nonprofit Times, while Fast Company named DonorsChoose one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World—the first time a charity has made this list. Our dedicated team works from across the United States bring classroom dreams to life.

Team Overview

We are small but mighty! The Business Development Team works to engage top brands, major philanthropists, and large school districts and state departments of education. We get to introduce these prospective partners to our work and inspire them to support teacher projects on DonorsChoose.  This team is the right place for you if you want to be part of the work that: 

• inspired Robert F. Smith to fund projects in the cities where the majority of Black Americans live
• enabled PandaCares to fund projects near their thousands of locations
• motivated the Arizona Department of Education to devote $18 million to fulfilling teachers’ needs

This year, the Business Development team aims to raise $46M for public school classrooms through creative, collaborative partnerships - and we need your help. (More about our partnerships.)

Primary Responsibilities

The Business Development Representative (BDR) will be responsible for seeking and securing meetings with prospective partners. They will enable our team’s work by: 

• researching top prospects 
• finding contact information for those prospects or mutual DonorsChoose champions who can introduce us
• drafting communications to prospects using a multi-channel approach, including email, warm handoffs from leadership and board members, LinkedIn messaging, calling, and more. 
• building and maintaining a regular cadence of contact with prospects, including staying abreast of timely news related to prospects
• constantly evaluating and improving processes and workflows and sharing back lessons learned, as we build out this new part of our team’s work

In this role, you will:

• Research and work to connect to top prospects
  • Research prospects efficiently
  • Work to find contact information or mutual contacts with key prospect contacts
  • Draft highly personalized, motivating email and other communications in collaboration with the rest of the team
  • Manage leads in Salesforce

• Secure and prepare for first calls
  • Collaborate on determining measures of success and being accountable to those measures (one measure of success for this role will involve the number of calls and meetings the BDR is able to secure)
  • Prepare pitchers for meetings and smoothly transition to first calls

• Build and hone our inaugural outbound outreach program
  • Build and manage our first cadences for outreach using software like Salesloft
  • Iterate, experiment, and rapidly shift strategy based on successes and failures

• Help to drive the team forward
  • Build on tea