Slate Consultant (Advancement)

Human Capital Education•Chicago, IL

4d•$100,000 - $140,000•Remote

About The Position

We are seeking a well-rounded Slate for Advancement Consultant to join our growing team. This role focuses on leveraging Slate to enhance donor engagement, fundraising outcomes, and strategic advancement initiatives. As a consultant, you will lead engagements across a portfolio of client accounts, specializing in Slate for Advancement implementations, major gift pipeline tracking, campaign management, and ongoing system optimization. You will apply your Slate expertise, knowledge of best practices in Advancement, and experience in donor lifecycle management to guide clients toward optimal configurations, sustainable processes, and data-driven decision-making. Our consulting approach is highly collaborative, prioritizing teaching and empowering clients, rather than simply executing tasks on their behalf. We aim for sustainable transformation, ensuring that clients feel confident in their Slate environments to enhance prospect development, donor stewardship, and engagement tracking long-term. This is a role for someone who is both a technical problem-solver and a strategic thinker, passionate about using CRM technology to maximize philanthropic success. The ideal candidate excels in project management, data-driven decision-making, and advancement operations.

Requirements

Experience in higher education advancement operations, alumni engagement, major gifts, or fundraising analytics.
Deep understanding of donor lifecycle management, including prospect identification, solicitation strategies, and stewardship best practices.
Strong analytical skills with an ability to interpret donor data and translate it into actionable fundraising insights.
Ability to communicate both technical and advancement concepts to fundraisers, gift officers, and leadership teams.
Highly organized with an aptitude for working in a constantly changing environment and adapting changing priorities. This means being able to take on multiple projects, prioritize effectively, manage your time to meet deadlines, and eagerly tackle work that ranges from in-depth projects to ad-hoc help and support.
Demonstrated project management experience. You are able to move projects forward even when time is limited and opinions differ.
Accountable with strong attention to detail. Able to balance working independently with the good judgement to decide when to update stakeholders or escalate a problem.
Experience with and/or belief in the importance of customer service as a foundational aspect of business success. You enjoy going the extra mile to make things right and people happy.
Posses a client-centric attitude to listen with empathy and the ability to explain both technical and non-technical concepts and issues
Well-rounded Slate knowledge and abilities, including several areas of mastery
Technical Slate skills necessary to conduct root cause analysis, including relational database understanding, and a problem-solving mindset
Experience with, or desire to learn, HTML, CSS, Javascript, and front-end frameworks
Bachelor's Degree, plus 5 years of professional work experience or 7-10 years + of professional work experience in higher education Advancement
3+ years of advanced Slate use or Slate administrator experience

Responsibilities

Client Engagement & Relationship Building
Develop trusted partnerships with advancement professionals (VPs of Advancement, Major Gift Officers, Annual Giving, Alumni Relations teams, etc.) to understand their fundraising strategies and donor engagement goals.
Lead strategic conversations on how to align Slate capabilities with institutional advancement priorities, including donor pipeline management, gift tracking, event participation, and engagement scoring.
Slate Implementations for Advancement
Lead full-cycle Slate implementations for Advancement teams, ensuring the CRM aligns with best practices for fundraising, donor relations, and campaign management.
Work across advancement teams to integrate gift processing, prospect management, stewardship, and alumni engagement tracking into a seamless Slate experience.
Utilize project management skills to ensure implementations are strategic, effective, and aligned with institutional fundraising goals.
Advancement System Audits & Optimization
Conduct advancement-focused Slate audits, diagnosing system configurations, data structures, and workflow effectiveness.
Recommend enhancements that support fundraising strategies, such as moves management tracking, donor segmentation, and predictive analytics.
Optimize existing client processes to improve major gift prospect tracking, volunteer management, and donor outreach efforts.
Training & Capacity Building
Design and lead advancement-specific Slate training sessions, equipping fundraisers, prospect managers, and alumni relations staff with the tools they need to maximize donor engagement.
Create custom training materials focused on campaign tracking, event participation insights, leadership gift stewardship, and annual fund segmentation.