Summary
Description
Description
Development Operations Manager
Company Overview
The Colorado Outward Bound School (COBS) is a non-profit adventure-based education organization that emphasizes personal growth through challenge and experience. For over 60 years our wilderness courses have focused on inspiring responsibility, teamwork, confidence, compassion, and environmental and community stewardship. The Colorado Outward Bound School operates wilderness bases in Leadville, Colorado and Moab, Utah, delivering expeditionary learning programs across the Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions.
Position Summary
The Development Operations Manager serves as the operational anchor of the Colorado Outward Bound School’s development team, providing the systems, data, and grant management infrastructure that enable successful fundraising. This role oversees donor operations, manages data and reporting systems, coordinates fundraising communications, executes events, and leads grant writing and institutional grant management. The Development Operations Manager ensures accurate gift processing and acknowledgments, maintains development systems and revenue reporting, partners with Marketing to deliver effective fundraising appeals, and manages the full lifecycle of grants. This position is ideal for a highly organized, detail-oriented professional who thrives in a systems-focused role and enjoys building the operational infrastructure that supports a high-performing development function.
Roles and Responsibilities
Operations and Data Management
- Process all contributions and prepare timely acknowledgments and tax receipts.
- Maintain accurate donor and funder records in Salesforce; ensure data integrity and strong documentation practices.
- Generate recurring and ad hoc development reports, dashboards, event lists, and portfolio activity summaries.
- Serve as liaison for revenue-related systems ensuring accurate data flows, coordinated integrations, and smooth collaboration between Development and Marketing.
- Support development operations improvements, workflow documentation, and systems alignment across teams.
Grant Coordination & Writing
- Prepare and write grant proposals, letters of inquiry, and reports for institutional funders.
- Maintain and manage the institutional grants calendar, tracking deliverables, deadlines, reporting schedules, and submission workflows.
- Gather program, enrollment, scholarship, and financial information required for proposals and reports.
- Serve as the organizational lead for institutional grants, including coordinating timelines, ensuring compliance, and preparing attachments, data tables, budgets, and required documentation.
- Maintain primary responsibility for the full institutional grant lifecycle; partner with the Institutional Giving Manager on proposals related to their assigned Utah-based portfolio to ensure alignment and accuracy.
- Ensure coordinated and consistent information for institutional funders across Utah and Colorado.
Events
- Lead the logistics, planning, and execution of fundraising, stewardship, and alumni events.
- Manage event budgets, vendor coordination, sponsorship deliverables, registration tracking, and day-of operations.
- Support local and regional fundraising events and help develop scalable strategies for future event partnerships.
- Coordinate event-related communications, materials, and follow-up stewardship with Marketing.
Fundraising Communications & Appeals
- Partner with Marketing to ensure fundraising appeals, donor communications, and digital campaigns are accurately supported with the required data, timelines, and coordination.
- Manage segmentation lists, donor exports, and workflow preparation for fundraising appeals and email automation.
- Collaborate with Marketing by providing donor data and stewardship information that strengthens storytelling and event communications.
Cross-Department Collaboration
- Work closely with Program, Student Services, Marketing, and Finance teams to gather information, outcomes, and data for donor materials and grant submissions.
- Support the Development Director with meeting preparation, briefing materials, schedules, and follow-up tasks.
- Ensure alignment across the development function to support stewardship, revenue, communication, and event goals.
Qualifications
- Dedication to COBS’s core values of compassion, integrity, service, inclusion, and commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Strong writing, editing, and communication skills, including experience preparing grants or donor-facing materials
- High attention to detail with excellent accuracy in data entry, documentation and project tracking.
- Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects and deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
- Experience with CRM management (Salesforce highly preferred).
- Strong organizational, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
- Proficient in data management, reporting, analysis, and CRM constituent tracking.
- Skilled in the use of Salesforce and Microsoft Office Suite.
Education and Work Experience
- BA or BS degree preferred.
- Prior nonprofit work experience is a requirement, experience in an outdoor, educational, or youth-serving organization preferred.
- 3-5 years of experience in nonprofit development, grant writing, or development operations.
Compensation and Benefits
- Annual Salary Range: $64,000- $70,000 based on experience, education level and expertise. This is a full-time, exempt position. In alignment with our compensation philosophy, transparency, and pay equity across our team, a candidate with the minimum experience can expect to be offered in the lower third of the range.
- Benefits eligibility for medical, dental, and vision insurance, where COBS pays a significant amount towards health care premiums and provides employer-paid short- and long-term disability coverage and basic life insurance.
- PTO (approximately 20 days per year) and sick leave prorated by months worked.
- 401k eligibility available after one year of service.
- Pro-deal eligible.
- This position is remote in Colorado or Utah only.
Application Process
- Please visit our website to complete the online application and submit your cover letter and resume to Lila Todd, (she/her) Development Director by December 14th. https://www.cobs.org/connect/employment/.
**Colorado Outward Bound School is an E-Verify Employer**
Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Colorado Outward Bound School celebrates diversity and strives to create an inclusive environment for all employees. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, veteran status, or any other basis covered by applicable law. All employment is based on qualifications and business needs. Outward Bound has a zero-tolerance policy for incidents of child abuse and neglect and will report any suspected abuse or neglect.
Working at the Colorado Outward Bound School means joining a growth-minded community where we are actively creating a more inclusive organizational culture. Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion shows up at all levels of the organization – in our trainings, in our meetings, on our courses, and in our daily lives. This work can be challenging at times, and we are committed to navigating it together to create a supportive and inclusive environment for our staff and our students. To foster a more welcoming outdoor community for all, we are working to address barriers related to race, culture, socioeconomics, ability, gender identity, sexual orientation, geographic location, and mental health.
Salary Description
$64,000-$70,000
