Project Manager, Creative Operations (2 Year Fixed-Term)

Main Work Location: Historic Stanford Campus 

Schedule:  Hybrid (at least 2 days per week onsite)

Budgeted Salary Range: The expected pay range for this position is $104,400-$128,000 per annum.

This opportunity is a fixed-term position for two years.

The Office of Development (OOD) advances Stanford’s mission by raising philanthropic support from alumni, parents, families, friends, and institutional funders. Working in concert with volunteers and academic leaders, OOD staff members strive to accelerate Stanford’s purposeful impact in the world. Stanford is committed to a donor-centric approach to development. Every member of the Office of Development staff plays a role in providing the university’s donors with the service and attention that ensures an exceptionally positive and fulfilling philanthropic experience.

 

Position Summary:

Reporting to the Director of Campaign Operations and serving as a member of the Creative Operations team, the Project Manager is an execution-focused role that serves as an integral part of the engine behind many of the Office of Development’s most visible fundraising materials. This role is responsible for the planning, coordination and delivery of creative materials that reflect the Office of Development brand and inspire Stanford’s philanthropic partners. This individual will serve as a central point of coordination and bridge between fundraising strategy and creative in partnership with development leadership, creative colleagues including writers, designers and digital strategy partners as well as external vendors. 

 

The ideal candidate brings structure to projects without stifling creativity, strong communication skills that ensures partners feel informed, self-discipline that means you can easily manage a variety of projects at once and can bring clarity to ambiguous requests. 

In this role you will:

Translate complex fundraising needs into clear, actionable creative workflows from intake through final delivery across campaign, and evergreen fundraising projects. 

Manage the full lifecycle of creative projects including priority papers, bespoke donor materials, impact reports, event collateral, digital web pages, microsites, as well as photo and video from project request to delivery. 

Serve as the conduit between project requestors in central development and across schools and units and the project team. Field project requests and hold intake meetings to align on project goals, timelines and budget.

Steward the internal and external review and approval process, maintaining discipline throughout. 

Ensure final products reflect the Office of Development’s brand and quality standards.

Partner with creative leadership to onboard, facilitate contracts and payment and provide on-site support to freelancers and other external vendors.

Partner with other project managers to support operational excellence across the Office of Development 

Maintain a working understanding of how AI tools can be implemented in creative operations and relevant systems effectively 

 

Preferred Skills:

Proven project management skills with the ability to manage multiple complex projects at once in a fast-paced environment. 

Proficiency with project management tools (such as Airtable or similar).

Strong relationship building skills with the ability to work effectively with stakeholders at all levels of the organization including development leadership.

Strong sense of ownership and accountability, following through on commitments and communicating transparently through challenges. 

A resilience that means you’ll be able to manage last-minute changes with grace. 

A proactive, solutions oriented approach to operations, bring forward options and recommendations rather than obstacles.

 

Responsibilities

Core Duties:

• Independently implement, administer and evaluate day-to-dayactivities of the unit, function or program by identifying and executingtasks and objectives, making recommendations that impact policies andprograms, and assigning resources to achieve the goals of theprogram.

• Collect and analyze data, create reports, review and explaintrends; formulate and evaluate alternative solutions and/orrecommendations to achieve the goals of the program orfunction.

• Analyze and interpret policies; develop, revise and implementprocedures for program or function.

• Represent the program or function as the key contact and subjectmatter expert within the department, unit or school. Commit resourcesand provide information and/or training. May also represent the programor function to external/internal stakeholders andconstituencies.

• Organize and/or participate in outreach activities that mayinclude developing communications and training, planning/promotingevents and/or conferences.

• May participate in development of budgets, monitor, and approveexpenditures. May perform limited forecasting and providerecommendations that determine the budget.

• May direct staff to perform various tasks and assignments. Mayalso supervise staff.

Minimum Education andExperience

Bachelor’s degree and three years of relevant experience, orcombination of education and relevant experience.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Demonstrated ability to prioritize own work andmulti-task.

• Demonstrated excellent organizational skills.

• Demonstrated ability to take initiative and ownership ofprojects.

• Ability to communicate effectively both orally and inwriting.

• Ability to routinely and independently exercise sound judgment inmaking decisions.

• Demonstrated experience working independently and as part of ateam.

• Relevant subject matter knowledge.

• Ability to direct the work of others, for jobs requiringsupervision.