About RMI

RMI is an independent nonprofit, founded in 1982 as Rocky Mountain Institute, that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions to align with a 1.5°C future and secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all. We work in the world’s most critical geographies and engage businesses, policymakers, communities, and NGOs to identify and scale energy system interventions that will cut climate pollution at least 50 percent by 2030. RMI has offices in Basalt and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; Oakland, California; Washington, D.C.; Abuja, Nigeria; and Beijing.

Position Overview

The Development Lead – Prospect Research and New Business Development leads funder research, prospect development, active pipeline management, and research operations across fundraising verticals, including individuals, foundations, corporate philanthropy, corporate fee-for-service engagement partners, and the public sector.

This is an experienced Lead / senior individual contributor role for a candidate who can assess RMI's current state, strengthen standards, and help mature the prospect development function. The role supports unrestricted and general operating revenue growth by improving how prospects are identified, prioritized, tracked, and advanced; how prospect data is captured and surfaced in Salesforce or related data warehouse/reporting environments; and how AI, automation, and prospect intelligence are used responsibly to support better fundraising decisions.

The ideal candidate brings dedicated prospect development practice, data fluency, Apra-informed standards, and experience supporting prospect discovery across individual, foundation, corporate, and public-sector revenue streams. Individual/HNWI research experience is especially valuable given RMI’s unrestricted giving goals.

This role is part of RMI's Development & Strategic Engagement team and reports to the Director of New Initiatives & Partnerships (Strategic Services). 

Key Responsibilities

Prospect Research and New Business Development 

• Lead and evolve RMI's prospect research and prospect development work across the revenue portfolio, maintaining centralized prospect lists and pipelines that incorporate inputs from new business development efforts, Program teams, Development staff, events, executive engagement opportunities, and shifts in the broader funding landscape.
• Identify, evaluate, and recommend U.S. and global prospects across revenue streams, with emphasis on action-ready opportunities that have clear capacity, inclination, access, timing, and strategic fit for unrestricted, flexible, general operating, or priority program support.
• Apply Apra-informed best practices in capacity, inclination, affinity, and readiness analysis; relationship mapping; ethical research; due diligence; reputational judgment; and privacy-conscious documentation.
• Own cross-vertical new business development workstreams, including research delivery, reporting, meeting facilitation, accountability tracking, process improvements, and concise prospect briefings with clear next steps. 

Pipeline Strategy and Cross-Functional Partnership 

• Actively manage program-specific and cross-program prospect pipelines, tracking opportunity status, prospect movement, owner accountability, next steps, and action follow-up.
• Conduct pipeline analysis, reporting, and financial pipeline reviews to identify funding gaps, high-potential opportunities, prospects ready for outreach, and actions needed to move prospects forward.
• Partner with Relationship Managers and program colleagues to prioritize prospects, identify engagement gaps, support follow-up, and elevate recurring or unresolved barriers to Development leadership when needed.
• Translate prospect and pipeline data into clear recommendations for where RMI should focus limited relationship-building time and senior leadership attention, separating useful intelligence from action-ready opportunities. 

Systems, Data, Automation, and Operational Excellence 

• Serve as a steward of high-quality prospect and pipeline data in Salesforce, including relationship data, ratings, attribute coding, opportunities, tasks, moves management, prospect status, and next steps.
• Partner with Development Operations and data/technology colleagues to strengthen the prospect research data model in Salesforce or related data warehouse/reporting environments, including fields, tagging, data standards, dashboards, and data-quality checks.
• Develop standardized capacity, inclination, affinity, and readiness rating practices; evaluate research resources, datasets, AI applications, automation tools, data enrichment services, and vendor relationships to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of RMI's prospect research system.
• Use AI and automation responsibly to reduce duplicative manual work, improve prospect discovery, increase reporting speed, and support prioritization while maintaining human judgment, documentation quality, privacy safeguards, and ethical review.
• Identify, streamline, document, and improve internal processes across research requests, qualification, outreach handoffs, data flow, reporting, and knowledge management. 

Training, Standards, and Resource Coordination 

• Promote knowledge-sharing and consistent adoption of prospect research and new business development processes across collaborators, making tools and workflows practical, easy to use, and tied to fundraising decisions.
• Train Development, Strategic Engagement, and Program colleagues on prospect research tools, data practices, and effective partnership with Development; guide staff, contractors, interns, or vendors on repeatable research or data tasks as needed.