Your main duty as development assistant will be to assist the director in preparing and implementing a fiscal budget for the year. This process involves identifying and contacting businesses that may become sponsors of the organization. Cultivating giving campaigns with all types of businesses and individuals are often the main source of funding for some organizations. Since businesses can write off donations on their income tax returns, they are always involved in organizations as a way of giving back to the community. One example of this type of giving campaign could be permitting employees to wear denim jeans to work on Friday for a contribution and then matching the contribution of the employees.
A development assistant will document all the contacts made and keep records of the income through donations\. In the budgetary process, you and the director will like have a targeted amount of money that you want to raise through a particular event. It will be your responsibility to keep track of the progress of the donations and report on this progress on a regular basis. Knowledge of how to write grant proposals is important because this is often the source of major funding.
Making presentations to businesses and government agencies is also a part of the duties of the development assistant. Finding ways of marketing the organization so that more funding can become available means that you will have to spend a fair amount of time in the public eye, appearing at events where you can make contacts and even giving media interviews about the value of the organization you work with. You will need to develop a calendar of events that you want to attend as well as keep a calendar of speaking engagements so that you don’t have any conflicting dates.
You may not need to have a formal educational background to take the job of development assistant. However, most people in this type of job do have a Bachelor’s degree. It would also be beneficial to have prior experience in marketing, business and public relations. You will need to have exceptional public speaking skills as well as excellent interpersonal skills for developing and maintaining business relationships. You will have to work under pressure meeting deadlines and withstanding the pressures of finding sources of funding for your organization.
This is a position where you can expect to work after hours and on weekends. In fact you can expect to probably start your workday when the personnel from an ordinary job would be going home for the day. There will likely be many events that you should attend as a member of the personnel, such as benefits, concerts, parties and others.
