Director of Major Gifts

Reports To: Chief Development Officer

Classification: Full-time | Exempt

Salary & Benefits: $115,000 to $130,000. The Center offers a competitive benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, 401k with employer contribution, voluntary life, short-term, and long-term disability insurance, paid parental, family care, and gender affirming healthcare leave. We also offer a generous paid time off policy.

Schedule: Work week and hours fluctuate based on events schedule and will include evenings and weekends on a regular basis. Generally, Monday through Friday; a typical schedule will be 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; flexibility required. The Center currently operates under a hybrid work schedule and this position must be on-site at The Center at a minimum from Tuesday through Thursday. On-site work days can shift depending on work needs.

Summary: The Director of Major Gifts will oversee the organization’s individual giving vertical and development systems, with a primary focus on strategy development and execution of The Center’s major gifts and planned giving programs. The Director will oversee and implement individual fundraising and direct response strategies that effectively move existing prospects along the donor pipeline. The Director will cultivate and manage relationships with mid-level donors that lead to annual fund giving upgrades and greater legacy giving commitments. They will also provide insight, reports and recommendations across the individual philanthropy vertical. The Director will manage the Individual & Planned Giving Manager and the Development Systems Manager. 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Mid-Level Major and Planned Gifts Strategy & Execution

• Develop a comprehensive mid-level major gifts and planned giving strategy.
• Prospect, manage and continuously refine a portfolio of ~70 qualified major gift prospects with the capacity to give $1,500 and up.
• Conduct donor cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship activities through a variety of channels to meet annual revenue targets.
• Maintain overall Major Donor and planned giving mapping tools to ensure line of sight and collaboration with CDO.
• Continuously research individual major donor prospects and leads and share with the CDO weekly to map outreach.

Individual Giving and Membership Donor Engagement

• Supervise the Individual and Planned Giving Manager by supporting and guiding multi-channel, mid-level and sustaining/membership donor relationship building.
• Supervise and support the efforts of the Individual and Planned Giving Manager, ensuring they have the tools and capacity to grow revenues on an annual basis.
• Explore, recommend and test new strategies and tactics, including direct response (digital and mail), monthly giving, emergency appeal and digital advertising.
• Develop and execute a planned giving strategy in partnership with Individual Planned Giving Manager that converts loyalty donors into legacy society members.
• Track giving trends (within the organization and especially across peer institutions), assess fundraising performance, and adapt strategies to ensure goal attainment.
• In partnership with the CDO and Communications and Marketing lead, craft compelling donor materials, proposals, and impact reports.

Individual Philanthropy Strategy & Leadership

• Supervise and support the efforts of the Development Systems Manager to monitor workflow, gift volume and capacity needs, to ensure accurate and timely gift entry and reporting in Salesforce, and make process improvements as needed.
• Support critical Development systems work, synthesizing and formatting gift data across the department’s verticals, creating useful tools for tracking performance in real time.
• Provide high quality data inputs, management, and reporting to ensure accurate and timely summary of progress to goal achievement for the CDO, CEO and for reporting to the Board of Directors.
• In collaboration with the Development Systems Manager create detailed and accurate revenue and expense reports for the department.
• Work collaboratively with members of the Finance Team, to support reconciliation of revenues and expenses and the monthly revenue close, to improve efficiencies across teams.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues on the TIDE (Technology, Information, Data and Evaluation) to ensure the team is maximizing the benefits of tech stack resources including Salesforce, Blackthorn, Donor Drive, Benevity, DAF Pay and other tools.

Other Collaboration & Internal Partnerships

• Work closely with Comms and Marketing Lead to align messaging and donor engagement collateral, including design projects/visual representation of key initiatives, giving levels, campaigns, among other tools for consistency of storytelling and impact.
• Work closely with CEO and CDO to brief and prepare for donor meetings.
• Partner with program staff to understand impact stories and translate them into donor-facing opportunities for engagement and case for investment.
• Other duties as assigned.

Position Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in nonprofit management, business, communications, or related field; or equivalent professional and/or educational experience.
• Five (5) to seven (7) years of progressive experience in fundraising, individual and/or major gifts, or advancement leadership.
• Demonstrated success securing $500,000 or more annually.
• Proven track record of cultivating and closing major gifts of $5,000+.
• Knowledge of individual direct marketing strategies and benchmarking.
• Demonstrated ability to leverage digital platforms, thought leadership and professional networks to support donor engagement and pipeline development.
• Proficiency with CRM and donor management systems (Salesforce preferred).
• Ability to work on multiple projects at one time and to set and stick to priorities.
• Excellent interpersonal skills; ability to interact with a wide range of personalities.
• Knowledge, understanding and experience working with LGBTQ+, TGNC, POC, and Immigrant populations, including knowledge of the spectrum of gender identity, transgender issues, immigration, and POC issues.

• Understanding of, and commitment to, undoing structural and institutional racism and bias and the spectrum of gender identity and bias. Thoughtful and articulate analysis of the above, and consideration of the impacts and outcomes in decision-making processes and on underserved and historically oppressed communities as it relates to The Center’s work.
• A strong commitment to the mission of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center.

The Center’s Commitment to Equity & Inclusivity:

The Center was born of community activism in response to the AIDS epidemic, ensuring a place for LGBTQ people to access information, care, and support that they were not receiving elsewhere. We opened in 1983 to help people who had doors constantly closed in their faces, ostracized by family, friends, and shunned by the general society. Since that time, we have continually provided a wide array of services and programs to serve our community, with an intentional focus on providing support to those who are most vulnerable. We have always taken great care to be a space that responds to community needs; engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion work is another outgrowth of those ongoing efforts. We recognize that in order to help LGBTQ individuals and our diverse community achieve parity in health, justice, opportunity and success outcomes, our organization must hold a strong foundation and competency in, as well as invest organizational focus on, equity and inclusion frameworks, practices and policies. This is also true in our hiring and retention of staff.

The Center is an Equal Opportunity Employer.