Director, Individual Giving

The Organization:

Ronald McDonald House Washington DC has been serving families in the Greater Washington DC area for over 45 years. Our mission is to provide essential services that remove barriers, strengthen families, and promote healing when children need healthcare. We do this through three core programs - Ronald McDonald House is built on the simple idea that nothing else should matter when a family is focused on the health of their child, helps make this a reality by providing housing, meals, transportation, innovative educational and support programs, and more for our families in need.

Job Summary:

The Director of Individual Giving is responsible for identifying, qualifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding individual donors. This position plays a vital role in overseeing the annual campaign for individuals and launching a robust Major and Planned Giving initiative for the Ronald McDonald House Washington DC.

This position reports to the Vice President of Development and will work collaboratively with the Board of Directors and Staff – including Marketing & Communications, Community Engagement, House Operations, and Finance.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Annual and Special Gifts Management:

• Directs identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship efforts to engage new and prospective donors in order to increase annual giving across all Individual gift levels.

• Provides day-to-day management and strategic oversight for individual donors and prospects and manages a portfolio of approximately 100-125 individual donors.

• Develops a Moves Management plan for individual giving with solicitation strategies that forward the mission of the organization and ensure long-term sustainability.

• Develops and implements cultivation strategies to attract new individual donors that will expand and diversify the donor database.

• Manages the annual giving campaign including integrated omni-channel appeals.

• Designs, implements, and launches Major Gifts and Planned Giving (Legacy of Hope) programs and develops strategies for identifying, qualifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding qualified donors for Major Gifts.

• Collaborates with the VP, Development to create meaningful donor engagement through Giving Societies.

• Creates effective proposals, reports, and acknowledgement strategies.

• Collaborates with Marketing Department on direct mail strategies for sustainer giving in order to increase monthly giving donations.

• Maintains donor database to reflect all prospect/donor research, contact reports, and activities.

• Gives House tours to prospects and donors.

• Works with Finance to ensure adherence to gift acceptance, accounting, and gift processing policies and procedures, and to fulfill information requests and maintain reporting accuracy.

Additional Support

• Provides valuable input and supports the Development team to achieve fundraising goals.

• Develops annual operational planning, setting fundraising goals and KPIs.

• Collaborates with Development and Marketing Teams to assist with creation of bi-annual newsletters, quarterly e-newsletters, direct mail solicitations, stewardship communications, and any fundraising communications to support development goals.

• Works collaboratively to support RMHCDC special events with whatever assistance is needed and attends all fundraising activities.

Supervisory Responsibilities: 

• Intern(s), on occasion.

Required Skills/Abilities:

• Leadership: Possesses strong organizational skills; Able to lead and motivate individuals and teams. Displays high integrity and honesty. 

• Customer Service Oriented: Exhibits an attitude of service, making every effort to build positive relationships internally and externally. Presents a positive image of the organization in all communications. 
• Relationship Builder: Excels at building partnerships, influencing, and fostering teamwork. Works collaboratively within and across organizational boundaries to achieve common goals. 
• Problem Solver: Works well under pressure to meet goals and deadlines. Takes initiative, able to multi-task, make decisions, propose creative solutions, and work alone as needed to set and meet targets independently. Perseveres through challenges with a positive outlook and adaptability. 
• Project Management: Able to effectively manage multiple projects and respond to changing priorities. Sees projects through to completion, with focus on deadlines and budget. 
• Communication: Exceptional communication skills including verbal, written, and presentation formats. Interacts with diverse groups of people with clear and concise presentation of organizational goals. 
• Proficient in Neon CRM (or similar database), MS Office Suite, Outlook, Excel, Meta Business Suite; Adobe Creative Suite; willingness to learn additional programs. 

Education and Experience: 

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent education or experience. 

• 5+ years of experience in special or major, individual gift fundraising. 
• Demonstrated ability in building relationships with donors.
• Knowledge and deep understanding of moves management principles and all aspects of the fundraising cycle.
• Must be familiar with donor database systems.
• Strategic, self-directed, creative, problem-solver. Must be organized and able to multitask, flexible, able to accept direction and to work independently as well as part of the team.
• Is motivated by the mission of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Washington, DC and follows our Core Values.
• High degree of professionalism and handles all personal and financial information in a confidential manner.

• Proficiency with Microsoft 365; aptitude for learning new technologies. 
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal. 

Physical Demands: 

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the functions of this position. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. This position requires:

• Talking and listening to individuals and small groups is a major component of the role. 

• A moderate amount of sitting and walking. 

• Spending long hours in front of a computer screen.
• Frequent use of hands and arms to use office equipment, telephone, computer. 
• Occasional need to lift and move supplies up to 30 lbs.