Senior Manager, Advancement Office

Advancement Office

Job Description

We are looking for a Manager/Senior Manager, Major Gifts to join their esteemed organization. This is an exciting and progressive career in philanthropic fundraising for the University, with responsibilities to cultivate a portfolio of prospective donors to the University.

The Development Office is seeking a Major Gift Officer who will be a strategic collaborator in identifying, cultivating, soliciting and stewarding lead donors, which include high net worth individuals, corporations and foundations.

The Major Gift Officer reports to the Director and will manage a portfolio of potential and current Major Gift level donors to the university. He/she will be responsible for facilitating all phases of the gift cycle, including initiating contact, cultivating and moving potential donors to solicitation and closure, creating solicitations, writing proposals, and stewarding donors. The ideal candidate is skilled relationship builders, results-oriented, creative and enthusiastic, while being extremely collaborative, organized and strategic.

He/she will support the Director in identifying and implementing strategies for success in securing significant philanthropic support, and work collaboratively with key volunteers, leadership and faculty and colleagues to cultivate donors for university priorities.

• Identify and cultivate major gift prospects, including developing ways to find new prospects and following up on inquiries regarding significant gifts to the university.
• Personally solicit assigned donor portfolio completely in its entirety through face-to-face visits, including preparation of personalized materials.
• Proactively identify, develop and deliver engagement opportunities to donors to ensure the maximization of their financial and non-financial support.
• Research, develop, and write funding proposals, appeal letters, and reports as required.
• Be accountable for meeting or exceeding established monthly fundraising goals and metrics.
• Work with prospects to educate them on university priorities and soliciting and closing immediate and planned gifts.
• Serve as a primary contact point for prospective donors in the assigned portfolio and effectively manage them through personal visits, correspondence, electronic and telephone communication.
• Be accountable for cultivating relationships of individual and organizational giving with focus on retention, recapture, and growth.
• Establish specific individual fundraising plans, develop activity and visit goals and supporting documentation, and maintain a portfolio of prospects as part of a coordinated major gift program.
• Collaborate with colleagues in major gifts, annual giving, planned giving, corporate and foundation giving, donor relations, advancement communications, prospect research, and alumni engagement to develop and maintain a coordinated approach in support of overall departmental and university-wide goals.
• Develop a cultivation and solicitation strategy for each prospect under management and enter call reports for each completed action in a timely manner.
• Timely completion of gift agreements, letters-of-intent and in-kind gift forms to document donor commitments.
• Assist in hosting various development and alumni events, such as homecoming, alumni weekend and donor cultivation and recognition events.

Job Requirements

• A Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in partnership, sales, marketing roles involving multiple stakeholder engagement; preference for individual with direct fund raising experience.
• Proactive, Energetic personality who enjoys meeting with donors, partners and multi-tasking between partners, various teams and key stakeholders.
• Demonstrated successful complex individual selling-related experience or any equivalent combination of education and/or experience from which comparable knowledge, skill and abilities have been achieved.
• Ability to manage a mixed portfolio of individual, corporate, and prospective donors involving considerable face-to-face meetings.
• Strong interpersonal, verbal and written skills and the ability to collaborate, build alliances, and achieve results within a population that may possess competing interests, opinions, and /or expectations.
• Collaborative, energetic, self-motivated, and engaging professional with strong multi-tasking skills and sound judgment who can effectively and diplomatically work with diverse groups of alumni and donors, colleagues, members of the faculty, high-level administrators, volunteer leaders, and other constituents.
• Superior verbal and written communications skills; effective organizational skills and strong detail orientation; the ability to speak and present credibly and effectively about higher education and the goals and mission of the University.
• A high degree of customer service orientation, personal motivation and commitment to values that support the University’s philanthropic mission and vision.
• Demonstrate strong active listening skills and ability to negotiate positive outcomes.
• An ability to maintain a high level of confidentiality with respect to prospects and donors.
• Good knowledge of MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and donor database software