Philanthropic Research Specialist

Royal Ontario Museum•Toronto, ON

2d•Onsite

About The Position

Are you passionate about culture, the arts, natural history, and science? Are you keen on how these elements aesthetically come together to tell the many stories of humanity? Join our team at ROM and consider a fulfilling career as a Philanthropic Research Specialist. ROM Governors is a strategic partner to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), passionate about its role in advancing ROM’s mission through inspired philanthropic and sponsorship relations. ROM Governors is committed to being the country’s top cultural foundation because of its success in building highly engaged, impactful donor and other community relationships. Reporting to the Associate Vice President (AVP), Philanthropic Research, and working closely with a counterpart on the research team, the Philanthropic Research Specialist plays an integral role in advancing ROM Governors’ fundraising and sponsorship priorities. The Specialist delivers high-quality prospect research, analysis, and intelligence to support major gift fundraising, sponsorship development, leadership engagement, and long-term pipeline growth. This role requires strong analytical judgment, intellectual curiosity, and sector knowledge to identify, assess, and contextualize individual, corporate, and foundation prospects. The Philanthropic Research Specialist synthesizes complex information into clear, actionable research products that inform fundraising strategy, guide relationship development, and strengthen donor engagement across ROM Governors.

Requirements

A University degree, preferably a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) or similar.
A minimum of three (3) years of professional experience in prospect research.
Experience working with a CRM database, preferably Raiser’s Edge NXT or another Blackbaud product.
Experience using prospect research tools such as iWave (Kindsight), CharityCAN and GrantConnect.
Exceptional online research skills, including proficiency with Boolean search techniques.
Strong analytical, communication, and organizational skills

Responsibilities

Proactively identify and evaluate individual, corporate, and foundation prospects to support targeted fundraising initiatives and sustained pipeline development. Lead prospecting for projects as requested by Philanthropy, Corporate and Executive Leadership team.
Conduct in-depth biographical and financial research and apply analytical judgment to assess capacity, affinity, and engagement potential and create concise and informative prospect profiles.
Produce strategic briefings, relationship mapping, and background materials for board and committee meetings, fundraising events, and planning discussions. Fulfill other specific research requests as needed for staff and volunteers.
Produce strategic prospect research on corporations to identify key business objectives, financial capacity, potential risk management, and the most appropriate contact for outreach. Proactive and creative ideation to help develop new sponsorship opportunities if applicable throughout the research process
Work collaboratively with fundraisers and executive leaders to clarify research objectives, advise on prospect strategy, and manage research projects through completion.
Provide ongoing media and business intelligence, including daily news and obituary monitoring, to identify developments relevant to donors, prospects, and institutional priorities.
Use tools such as Meltwater and Google Alerts along with superior knowledge of metadata tagging and Boolean search terms to effectively scan news for articles critical to ROM Governors.
Monitor trends and best practices in prospect research and philanthropy, introducing tools, approaches, and insights that strengthen team effectiveness.
Maintain an understanding of fundraising and the philanthropic sector to contribute to strategy discussions.
Ensure research data integrity and accuracy within the CRM, applying best practices for documentation, sourcing, and updates. Maintain accurate information in donor records as updates are identified.
Contribute to the creation of SOPs and other training documents for users of RE NXT.
Support the AVP, Philanthropic Research with prospect management, portfolio development and CRM implementation as needed.