Contract Temporary Data Analyst Jobs in Edison, NJ

ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. 

ProPublica is seeking a data analyst to assist the development team in building out the reporting infrastructure that supports sustainable donor growth across our development team. This 12-month temporary position will focus on strengthening Salesforce reporting, donor acquisition tracking and fundraising analytics across membership, midlevel giving and major gifts.

Reporting to the director of development services, you'll work closely with colleagues across the development, membership and product teams to improve how donor behavior is tracked and measured across systems including Salesforce, Sailthru, Classy/GoFundMe Pro, Parse.ly and Google Analytics.

The ideal candidate combines strong analytical skills with a systems mindset and can translate fundraising questions into reporting frameworks that support better decision-making across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Assess and strengthen Salesforce reporting capabilities, identifying gaps and opportunities for improvement.
• Build and standardize reporting that supports donor acquisition, retention, recurring giving conversion, upgrades, lapses, reactivation and donor progression.
• Develop consistent attribution methodologies for donor acquisition and first-gift tracking.
• Create shared reporting definitions, documentation and business rules that improve consistency across teams.
• Evaluate how donor, campaign and engagement data flows between Salesforce and connected systems, including Sailthru, Classy/GoFundMe Pro, Stripe and other fundraising platforms.
• Identify data quality issues, attribution gaps and reporting inconsistencies, and recommend practical solutions.
• Partner with product and development services to improve reporting reliability, data quality and donor journey visibility.
• Help define and operationalize donor acquisition pathways across channels, including newsletters, website traffic and paid acquisition.
• Build dashboards and recurring reporting tools that support fundraising strategy, campaign analysis, audience segmentation and leadership decision-making.
• Reduce reliance on manual spreadsheets and ad hoc reporting by creating scalable, self-service reporting resources.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience building reports, dashboards and analytical frameworks in Salesforce.
• Experience with donor databases, CRM systems and fundraising operations, ideally within nonprofit, membership or philanthropy organizations.
• Strong understanding of donor acquisition, retention, recurring giving, donor upgrades and life cycle reporting.
• Experience working across integrated systems such as Salesforce, email service providers and donation platforms.
• Ability to translate complex business questions into clear reporting structures and actionable insights.
• Strong SQL skills required; experience with Python, R or data visualization tools is a plus.
• Comfort working in evolving environments and improving systems incrementally.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across technical and nontechnical teams.
• An entrepreneurial approach to problem-solving and stakeholder engagement.

What Success in This Role Looks Like

• Development teams can reliably identify where donors come from and how they move through the donor life cycle.
• Leadership can track acquisition performance and fundraising outcomes without extensive manual analysis.
• Core donor journey reporting is documented, trusted and widely used.
• Salesforce reporting is significantly stronger and easier for teams to use independently.

Cross-functional teams operate from shared reporting definitions and metrics.

• Staff spend less time gathering data and more time acting on insights.                 

This job is full time and includes benefits. ProPublica is based in New York, but we’re open to remote candidates. We have offices in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Chicago; Phoenix; and Berkeley, California. Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S.

The expected salary range for this position is $95,000 to $115,000.

This is a good-faith estimate of what we expect to pay for this position. The final salary figure will take into account a person’s experience, accomplishment and location. ProPublica is committed to paying its staff equitably, and these ranges should not be considered career salary limits or caps.

We will begin reviewing applications as we receive them, but we will continue to consider candidates as long as the posting remains live on our site.

Questions? Send an email to talent@propublica.org. 

No phone calls, please.

We know there are great candidates who may not fit into what we’ve described above or who have important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself.

We are dedicated to improving our newsroom, in part by better reflecting the people we cover. (Here is a breakdown of our staff.) We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages. And we are taking steps to meet that commitment. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities. We are an equal opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age or any other status protected under applicable law.