Manager, Prospect Management & Research

XPRIZE Foundation

3d•Remote

About The Position

The Manager of Prospect Management and Research serves as a core driver of XPRIZE’s intelligence-led fundraising system, operating at the intersection of prospect strategy, fundability insight, and pipeline performance. This role is not a traditional research function. It is a strategic partner to fundraisers and leadership, responsible for building and managing a disciplined, prioritized, and insight-driven prospect pipeline that fuels Advancement’s funding priorities. The Manager will execute a structured prospecting and portfolio management model aligned to XPRIZE’s fundability-informed prioritization framework, ensuring that research effort is directed toward the highest-impact opportunities and that pipeline development is continuous, intentional, and measurable. This role sits within Integrated Strategy and works in close partnership with Advancement leadership, Strategic Philanthropy, and Community teams to ensure that prospect intelligence informs decision-making, not just reporting.

Requirements

5–8+ years in prospect research, strategy, or fundraising operations
Experience supporting major gifts, institutional fundraising, or complex sales cycles
Demonstrated ability to operate in a data-driven, performance-oriented environment
Strategic thinking with ability to translate insight into action
Strong understanding of pipeline management and moves management systems
Ability to synthesize complex data into clear, actionable intelligence
Experience with Salesforce (or similar CRM) and research tools (e.g., Wealth-X)
Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments

Responsibilities

Support the fundability assessment process by contributing prospect intelligence, market signals, and sponsor insights that inform prize prioritization (Priority vs. Conditional)
Align research and prospecting efforts to enterprise priorities, ensuring resources are focused on high-probability, high-impact opportunities
Continuously feed real-time market insight back into fundability and prioritization discussions
Execute continuous proactive prospecting across both fundraising engines, Strategic Philanthropy and Community
Lead and manage Prospect Discovery Waves
Deliver assignment-ready prospect pools (quality over volume), aligned with capacity and strategy targets
Monitor wealth creation trends, liquidity events, and emerging leaders to drive new pipeline growth
Own and manage Salesforce pipeline architecture
Enforce qualification criteria before prospect assignment
Partner with Advancement leadership on portfolio composition and rebalancing, prospect assignment recommendations, and recycling and acceleration decisions
Monitor pipeline health and velocity, including time in stage, conversion rates, and stagnation triggers
Lead bi-weekly moves management processes across Strategic Philanthropy and Community
Ensure conversations are data-informed and action-oriented, not status updates
Track and report on key performance indicators, including, but not limited to lead-to-conversation conversion, conversation-to-opportunity conversion, opportunity velocity, and close rates
Identify pipeline gaps and intervention points, triggering strategy reviews when needed
Activate executive travel prospecting strategy by identifying in-region prospects, preparing intelligence briefs, and mapping introductions and access pathways
Support event strategy through pre-event prospect intelligence and seating strategy and post-event conversion recommendations and follow-up prioritization
Ensure events drive measurable pipeline movement, not just engagement
Partner with the Manager of Advancement Systems & Analytics to maintain Salesforce as the single source of truth while ensuring research insights are captured and usable
Use tools such as Wealth-X and Salesforce to drive capacity modeling prospect identification and trend analysis