Donor Relations & Partnerships Coordinator - Volunteer Unpaid Position

Organization: Smiles Foundation
Department: Donor Relations & Partnerships
Position Type: Volunteer – Unpaid
Location: Remote – Canada
Time Commitment: Approximately 10 hours per week
Minimum Commitment: 1 year

About Smiles Foundation

Smiles Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to improving access to dental care, health education, and community support for underserved populations.

Our work includes community initiatives in Canada as well as programs and operations in the Dominican Republic, where we collaborate with dental professionals, clinics, volunteers, donors, dental companies, corporate partners, sponsors, and community organizations.

As Smiles Foundation continues to grow, we are strengthening our Donor Relations & Partnerships Department to develop and maintain meaningful, long-term relationships with individuals and organizations that can support our mission.

About the Role

Smiles Foundation is seeking a highly organized, proactive, and relationship-focused Donor Relations & Partnerships Coordinator Volunteer to help coordinate our donor and partnership development activities.

The objective of the Donor Relations & Partnerships Department is to build and maintain long-term relationships with donors, dental companies, corporate partners, sponsors, and strategic allies.

The Coordinator will play a central role in organizing this work by coordinating team priorities, assigning donor and prospect portfolios, monitoring the donor pipeline, ensuring follow-ups are completed, supporting volunteers working on donor outreach and stewardship, and escalating significant opportunities to organizational leadership.

This is primarily a coordination and relationship-management role. The successful volunteer should be comfortable keeping multiple relationships and opportunities organized while ensuring that conversations continue moving forward.

The Coordinator will work closely with the Administrative Director/Operations Coordinator and collaborate with Fundraising, Communications & Storytelling, and other relevant Smiles Foundation teams.

Key Responsibilities

Donor & Partnership Pipeline Coordination

• Coordinate priorities and activities within the Donor Relations & Partnerships team.
• Maintain oversight of the donor and partnership pipeline.
• Review qualified donor, sponsor, corporate, dental-industry, and partnership prospects.
• Help determine appropriate next steps for qualified opportunities.
• Assign prospects and donor portfolios to the appropriate team members.
• Monitor active conversations, follow-ups, outstanding actions, and relationship-development activities.
• Identify overdue or missing follow-ups and ensure they are assigned and addressed.
• Help prioritize opportunities based on their potential value, relevance, stage of development, and organizational priorities.
• Ensure important opportunities continue progressing through the relationship-development process.

Team Coordination

• Coordinate volunteers supporting donor relations, partnerships, outreach, and stewardship activities.
• Assign prospects, portfolios, priorities, and follow-up responsibilities to team members.
• Provide guidance and clarification to volunteers regarding assigned donor or partnership activities.
• Hold regular check-ins with team members to review progress, priorities, challenges, and next steps.
• Support the onboarding of new volunteers joining the Donor Relations & Partnerships team.
• Help establish clear expectations, responsibilities, and workflows across the department.
• Identify blockers or situations requiring additional organizational support.

Donor & Partner Relationship Management

• Support the development and maintenance of long-term relationships with:
  • Individual donors
  • Dental companies
  • Corporate partners
  • Sponsors
  • Strategic allies
  • Other prospective organizational partners
• Ensure appropriate and timely follow-up with donors and prospective partners.
• Help coordinate relationship-development activities and next steps.
• Support professional communication with external stakeholders when required.
• Help ensure donor and partner interactions are documented appropriately.
• Identify opportunities to deepen existing relationships and encourage continued engagement with Smiles Foundation.

Donor Stewardship

• Coordinate donor stewardship activities across the team.
• Ensure appropriate acknowledgement and follow-up activities are completed.
• Help maintain consistent engagement with existing donors and partners.
• Coordinate with other volunteers responsible for donor stewardship and administration.
• Support appropriate donor-recognition activities.
• Help ensure important donor milestones, commitments, communications, and follow-ups are not missed.

Opportunity Escalation

The Coordinator will help identify opportunities that require involvement from organizational leadership.

Responsibilities include:

• Recognizing significant donor, sponsorship, corporate, dental-industry, or strategic partnership opportunities.
• Escalating qualified opportunities at the appropriate stage.
• Providing leadership with sufficient context regarding the opportunity, relationship history, current status, and recommended next steps.
• Identifying situations requiring leadership decisions or organizational approval.
• Ensuring significant opportunities are not delayed because of missing internal follow-up.

The Coordinator is not expected to independently make organizational commitments on behalf of Smiles Foundation without appropriate authorization.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

The Donor Relations & Partnerships Coordinator will work closely with other areas of Smiles Foundation.

Fundraising

Coordinate with the Fundraising team when donor or partnership opportunities involve:

• Fundraising campaigns
• Sponsorship opportunities
• Events
• Grant-related opportunities
• Financial contributions
• Other fundraising initiatives

Communications & Storytelling

Coordinate with Communications & Storytelling when donor relationships require:

• Impact stories
• Organizational information
• Donor communications
• Recognition materials
• Program information
• Supporting communications or storytelling materials

Organizational Leadership

Escalate significant opportunities, strategic relationships, blockers, or decisions requiring leadership involvement.

Tracking & Documentation

• Maintain accurate and organized information regarding donor and partnership activities.
• Ensure donor portfolios and prospect assignments remain current.
• Monitor outstanding follow-ups and next steps.
• Help ensure important relationship information is documented appropriately.
• Maintain confidentiality regarding donor, partner, organizational, and financial information.
• Ensure donor-relations activities follow Smiles Foundation policies and internal processes.
• Help maintain continuity when relationships or portfolios are transferred between volunteers.

Expected Deliverables

The Donor Relations & Partnerships Coordinator is expected to maintain consistent oversight of the department and provide the following key deliverables:

• Assigned donor and prospect portfolios with clear ownership across the team.
• Monthly donor and partnership pipeline review.
• Identification and assignment of overdue follow-ups and outstanding actions.
• Regular team check-ins to review progress, priorities, and challenges.
• Appropriate and timely escalation of significant donor and partnership opportunities.
• Coordination of donor stewardship and relationship follow-up activities.
• Accurate and current tracking of active prospects, conversations, and next steps.
• A concise monthly departmental update to the Administrative Director/Operations Coordinator.

The monthly update should provide visibility into:

• New prospects identified
• Active donor and partnership conversations
• Donor engagement activities
• Significant opportunities
• Pipeline progress
• Outstanding follow-ups
• Blockers or challenges
• Leadership decisions or support required

The purpose of the role is not simply to generate activity, but to ensure that donor and partnership opportunities are organized, actively followed, appropriately assigned, and continuously moving forward.

Time Commitment

This is a remote volunteer position requiring approximately 10 hours per week.

We are looking for someone who can make a minimum commitment of 1 year.

Because donor and partnership development depends heavily on relationship continuity, consistency and long-term commitment are particularly important for this position.

Weekly hours may be flexible, but the volunteer must be available to maintain regular communication with the team, participate in agreed check-ins or meetings, and ensure time-sensitive donor and partnership follow-ups are completed.

Who We Are Looking For

This role may be a strong fit for someone with experience or transferable skills in:

• Donor relations
• Fundraising
• Sponsorships
• Corporate partnerships
• Business development
• Relationship management
• Account management
• Stakeholder engagement
• Nonprofit development
• Community partnerships
• Team or volunteer coordination

We are looking for someone who:

• Has strong relationship-building and interpersonal skills.
• Has excellent professional written and verbal communication skills.
• Is highly organized and comfortable managing multiple relationships and follow-ups simultaneously.
• Has strong follow-through and does not allow outstanding actions to be forgotten.
• Can coordinate and support other volunteers effectively.
• Is comfortable assigning responsibilities and following up on progress.
• Can identify when an opportunity requires escalation or leadership involvement.
• Demonstrates professionalism when communicating with donors, companies, sponsors, and external stakeholders.
• Is comfortable maintaining trackers, records, portfolios, and pipeline information.
• Can work independently while collaborating effectively with a remote team.
• Demonstrates discretion and understands the importance of donor confidentiality.
• Is proactive, dependable, accountable, and comfortable taking ownership of responsibilities.
• Is interested in building long-term relationships that support Smiles Foundation’s mission.

Previous nonprofit experience is considered an asset, but relevant experience from corporate, business-development, sales, account-management, sponsorship, community-engagement, or relationship-management environments may also be valuable.

What You Will Gain

As the Donor Relations & Partnerships Coordinator Volunteer, you will have the opportunity to:

• Gain practical experience coordinating donor and partnership development within a nonprofit organization.
• Develop experience managing a donor and partnership pipeline.
• Strengthen leadership, team-coordination, stakeholder-management, and relationship-development skills.
• Work directly with donors, corporate partners, dental companies, sponsors, and other external stakeholders.
• Collaborate with Fundraising, Communications, Operations, and organizational leadership.
• Develop experience in donor stewardship and long-term relationship management.
• Contribute to the development of systems and processes for a growing nonprofit organization.
• Help build relationships that can directly expand Smiles Foundation’s programs and community impact.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate is a relationship-builder and strong coordinator.

You should be comfortable looking at the bigger picture of the donor and partnership pipeline while also paying attention to individual conversations, deadlines, follow-ups, assignments, and next steps.

This role requires someone who can help ensure that promising relationships do not become inactive because of missed follow-ups or unclear ownership.

You should also be comfortable supporting and coordinating other volunteers, maintaining organized records, communicating professionally with external stakeholders, and escalating important opportunities when appropriate.

Reliability and continuity are particularly important because successful donor and partnership development often requires relationships to be cultivated over time.