Fundraising Strategy & Leadership

This involves taking the overall organizational fundraising strategy and adapting it to your specific context, ensuring your team's activities align with broader goals while meeting your area's unique needs. You'll translate strategic direction into actionable plans, refine approaches based on performance data, and ensure your department's fundraising efforts contribute effectively to organizational revenue goals.

Supervise development staff, set expectations, coach performance, and ensure alignment across all fundraising efforts. Leading a development team involves hiring the right people, providing clear direction and support, managing performance, and creating a culture where team members can succeed. You'll set goals, provide feedback, identify training needs, resolve conflicts, and ensure your team has the resources and guidance they need to meet fundraising objectives.

This involves executing multiple fundraising approaches—such as major gifts, annual giving, grants, events, corporate partnerships, or digital fundraising—that fall within your team's responsibilities. You'll coordinate these channels to ensure they work together effectively, allocate team resources appropriately, and build capacity across different fundraising methods to create a balanced, resilient fundraising portfolio for your area.

Coordinate campaigns, appeals, stewardship cycles, and grant deadlines for smooth, consistent execution. A well-managed calendar ensures fundraising activities are strategically timed, prevents conflicts or donor fatigue, and helps you plan resources effectively. You'll map out all fundraising activities across the year, coordinate timing to maximize impact, and ensure deadlines are met without overwhelming your team or donors.

This involves aligning your team's fundraising efforts with the organization's mission, values, and strategic priorities. You'll ensure that fundraising strategies support program goals, that donor communications accurately represent your organization's work, and that fundraising decisions at the team level contribute to long-term organizational sustainability rather than short-term gains. This requires regular communication with program staff and leadership to understand mission priorities.

Track KPIs, revenue status, donor trends, ROI of campaigns, and pipeline health; adjust tactics based on data. Regular analysis helps you understand what's working and what isn't, identify trends and opportunities, and make data-driven decisions about where to invest resources. You'll monitor key metrics, create reports that highlight insights, and use data to continuously improve fundraising effectiveness.

Work closely with the Executive Director, CFO, and Board Fundraising Committee to set goals, report progress, and engage them in fundraising. Strong collaboration ensures fundraising is integrated into organizational strategy, that leadership understands fundraising realities, and that board members are effectively engaged in fundraising activities. You'll provide regular updates, seek input on strategic decisions, and ensure fundraising goals align with organizational priorities.

Craft or oversee the narrative that explains why donors should give—and align all giving programs around it. A compelling case for support articulates your organization's need, impact, and why donors' support matters. You'll develop core messaging that resonates with different donor audiences, ensure all fundraising materials align with this messaging, and create narratives that motivate donors to give and stay engaged.

This involves executing the organization's major gifts and institutional giving strategy within your team's scope. You'll identify prospects, build relationships, make solicitations, and steward high-value donors and funders like foundations and corporations, ensuring your activities align with the broader strategic approach. You'll coordinate with other teams to ensure consistent messaging and avoid conflicts in donor cultivation.

Adhere to fundraising standards, donor privacy, reporting requirements, and nonprofit regulations. Ethical fundraising builds trust and protects your organization's reputation. You'll ensure all fundraising practices meet legal requirements, respect donor privacy, follow industry best practices, and align with your organization's values. This includes proper gift acknowledgment, transparent reporting, and compliance with regulations governing nonprofit fundraising.