Senior Gifts and Records Analyst

Job Summary

The Senior Gifts and Records Analyst performs advanced, highly complex administrative, analytical, and technical duties under broad direction to ensure comprehensive data integrity, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency of the university’s philanthropic gift processing and constituent records infrastructure. The incumbent serves as the department’s operational lead and subject matter expert on advanced gift processing, proactive data quality management, and CRM workflow optimization and is accountable to results associated with these business standards.

The position assesses, formulates, and evaluates the impact of implemented policies from an operational perspective, administering highly non-standard and complex charitable contributions in strict accordance with IRS regulations, Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Global Reporting Standards, Association of Advancement Services Professionals (AASP) guidelines, and California State University (CSU) system-wide policies. This role translates strategic division initiatives into tactical program procedures, manages system validations, designs robust quality assurance protocols, and serves as a consultative liaison to internal and external campus stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Evaluate, interpret, and independently execute the recording of highly complex, non-standard philanthropic contributions, including but not limited to stock transfers, real estate gifts, corporate matching programs, donor-advised funds (DAFs), complex planned giving commitments, and cryptocurrency
• Audit legal document frameworks, complex memoranda of understanding (MOUs), and donor gift agreements to verify, code, and execute donor intent while enforcing strict adherence to CASE campaign counting rules, IRS guidelines, and CSU auxiliary standards
• Participates in the planning and development of activities with the Tower Foundation Finance team and the Director to monitor and execute monthly financial reconciliation metrics between CRM gift data, online transactional giving gateways, and financial ledger accounts to meet departmental operating goals
• Review and finalize auditable adjusting journal vouchers, batch corrections, and transaction modifications
• Oversee the secure categorization of source documentation to maintain flawless internal controls and complete audit readiness for annual foundation and State Administrative Manual (SAM) evaluations
• Actively monitor the university clearance accounts, tracking matching eligibility and collaborating with colleagues to successfully resolve conditions for formal institutional acceptance
• With the Advancement IT and Advancement Analytics and Insights teams, design, schedule, and execute deep-dive diagnostic data quality audits to systematically discover and repair anomalies, structural tracking omissions, duplicates, broken biographical, relational, and employment attributes across stakeholder records
• Track and evaluate systemic operational metrics (e.g., historical error rates, data completeness gaps, throughput bottlenecks) to diagnose patterns in data entry errors and deliver actionable analytical summaries to division leadership
• Champion and enforce strict multi-tier data governance rules to protect constituent privacy, data security, and systemic confidentiality in compliance with FERPA, PCI-DSS, and university information security policies
• Continuously evaluate core gift recording and records management workflows to identify programmatic inefficiencies; research, engineer, and implement research-backed optimization strategies in collaboration with the Director and the Advancement IT and Advancement Analytics and Insights teams
• Independently lead the development, structural revision, and deployment of comprehensive Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the Analyst team to preserve institutional knowledge, solidify compliance standards, and stabilize data handling consistency
• Partner with the Advancement IT team to drive user acceptance testing (UAT), script validation rules, build automated gift tracking scenarios, and manage validation cycles for new feature rollouts and CRM and platform system integrations

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• General awareness of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), and a willingness to develop skills in their appropriate, responsible, and ethical use in a higher education environment, consistent with institutional policies and practices
• Expert-level command of charitable giving laws, asset valuation rules, and comprehensive counting standards established by the IRS, CASE (2024 Global Updates), AASP, and the CSU Chancellor's Office
• Thorough, deep knowledge of