About the position

The Church Engagement Advisor is externally focused on building mutually beneficial relationships with pastors, church, and Christian leaders to support World Vision’s mission of working with people globally facing poverty and injustice. This role will build strong relationships and engagement opportunities that enable a two-way value exchange between Canadian churches and World Vision; these relationships jointly contribute to the discipleship needs of congregations and directly benefits the children and communities World Vision serves. As an ambassador for World Vision’s vision and mission, the Church Engagement Advisor will deploy best practice development strategies and a detailed moves management approach to cultivating a network of World Vision advocates who work in churches, parachurches, Christian organizations and Christian ministries. This role is responsible for executing the Church Engagement strategy, which primarily supports World Vision’s fundraising goals and will give input into other World Vision teams’ go-to-market strategy based on their audience expertise. This role will report to the People Manager, Church and Corporate Engagement, while receiving operational direction from the Senior Manager, Church Engagement.

Responsibilities

• Helps execute the Church Engagement strategy to meet annually established fiscal goals and key performance metrics, increasing funds for the field and engaging more Canadians in transformational experiences through church partnerships.
• Actively builds and cultivates strategic relationships with key influential pastors, church leaders, and select congregation members using a relational sales approach, tracked in CRM, to connect their ministry and discipleship priorities with World Vision’s mission and ministry to the most vulnerable.
• Utilizes disciplined sales and moves management strategies to increase the number of engaged and highly engaged churches, resulting in increased revenue and deeper partnership.
• Proactively identifies, qualifies, and advances church opportunities using relationship-building techniques and fundraising strategies to meet activity, revenue, and engagement goals.
• Develops and implements mutually beneficial engagement plans between targeted churches and World Vision Canada that align World Vision’s financial objectives with the church’s ministry and discipleship goals.
• Maintains and advances relationships with pastors and their churches through all stages of opportunity development from prospecting through cultivation, solicitation, fulfillment, and stewardship using a structured moves management approach.
• Represents World Vision within church and Christian communities through networking, conferences, and public speaking/preaching engagements to build awareness of World Vision’s mission and cultivate new church advocates.

Requirements

• Minimum 3-5 years of progressing ministry leadership experience through a combination of church ministry, leadership experiences such as pastor, church employee, para-church leader, or highly engaged Christian lay leader (i.e. Church Board).
• Experience in fundraising, sales or business development activity that yielded strong, repeated financial results and growth over time.
• Undergraduate or master’s degree in theology, education, communication or other related field or equivalent experience.
• Passion for World Vision’s mission, a commitment to our vision, mission and core values, and a deep theological understanding of God’s heart for people facing poverty and injustice.
• Experience in building partnering relationships and networking among senior leaders in churches and/or Christian organizations from various traditions and denominations.
• Excellent oral and written communicator with strong experience in public speaking.
• Deep appreciation and respect for the diversity of Christian faith traditions and the ability to adapt personal approaches accordingly authentically.
• Understanding and empathy towards the needs and issues of faith leaders and proven ability to respond and relate to those varying needs.
• Experience analyzing data, extrapolating insights from data and then actioning those insights to drive towards predefined outcomes.
• Strong hands-on knowledge of Microsoft Office products, CRM systems and BI dashboards.

Benefits

• Health Spending Account
• Up to 6% matched pension contributions
• Parental leave top-up
• Generous paid vacation, sick days, wellness and personal days
• Office closed extra days before long weekends (6x/year)