Senior Manager (Major Gifts)

Short Description

Advancement Office is seeking a Manager/Senior Manager who will be a strategic collaborator in identifying, cultivating, soliciting and stewarding lead donors, which include high-net-worth individuals, corporations and foundations.

The incumbent reports to the Director and will manage a portfolio of potential and current 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 a skilled relationship-builder, results-oriented, creative and enthusiastic while being extremely collaborative, organised 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.

Job Description

Duties & Responsibilities

• 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 personalised materials. 
• Proactively identify, develop and deliver engagement opportunities to donors to ensure the maximisation of their financial and non-financial support. 
• Research, develop, and write funding proposals and appeal letters 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, and electronic and telephone communication. 
• Be accountable for cultivating relationships of individual and organisational giving with a 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 programme. 
• 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, or other forms of donor intents 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

• Bachelor’s degree. 
• Minimum 8 years’ experience in partnership, sales and marketing roles involving multiple stakeholder engagement; preference for individuals with direct fundraising experience.
• Proactive, energetic personality who enjoys meeting with donors, and 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 communication skills; effective organisational 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.