Director of Leadership Giving

The Director of Leadership Giving is responsible for ensuring the success of KEXP’s Major Giving, Grants, and Planned Giving programs. The Director works with staff, board members, and volunteers to provide leadership and strategic direction to a growing area of revenue for KEXP. They oversee and manage KEXP’s fundraising strategies for individuals, private foundations, government entities, and corporations, and develop annual fundraising plans to meet annual and long-term revenue goals. The Director executes personal and program-wide major and institutional giving efforts that identify, assess, cultivate, solicit, and steward donors for outright gifts, pledges, and planned gifts. They directly supervise a team of Advancement professionals to focus on leadership giving for both annual operations and special campaigns.

Essential duties include:

• Strategic Leadership + Management (20%)
  • Establishes Leadership Giving Team goals, objectives, and strategies; creates, manages, and evaluates team’s expense and revenue budgets.
  • Interprets and integrates market research relevant to major giving and institutional giving into fundraising activities as needed.
  • Develops and executes short-term and long-range major and institutional giving plans that include overall strategy, proposed activities, required resources, and revenue goals.
  • Provides strategic leadership to KEXP staff and volunteers in designing and implementing fundraising programs needed to sustain major gift and grant support.
  • Supports professional growth and development of direct reports by fostering a culture of feedback, accountability, and support.
  • Supervises a team of professionals for success in the work of identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of major donors, including leadership of major donor research, information systems, services and communication.Develops and measures personal and Leadership Giving Team performance goals using metrics and tools from the UW and KEXP prospect management and tracking systems.
  • Liaises with University of Washington Advancement colleagues as necessary to fulfill letter and spirit of UW/KEXP operating agreement.
• Institutional Giving (20%)
  • Defines and regularly assesses the institutional giving program’s overall strategy, proposed activities, required resources, and donor and revenue goals, reporting to the Chief Advancement Officer.
  • Collaborates with Advancement Administrative Specialist to meet all relevant deliverables for grant applications, site visits, meetings, and reporting.
  • Participates in the development of policies and procedures related to the Advancement program.
  • Works with frontline staff and University of Washington Advancement colleagues to identify leadership giving prospects.
• Major Giving (60%)
  • Defines and regularly assesses the major giving program’s overall strategy, proposed activities, required resources, and donor and revenue goals, reporting to the Chief Advancement Officer.
  • Develops a portfolio of approximately 100-150 donors and uses moves management principles to build relationships with donors whose giving capacity has been rated at $25,000 or more, and solicits gifts that result in solicitations of $5,000 and more.
  • Ensures 100-140 substantive contacts are made each year with major gift prospects (an average of two to three visits per week).
  • Solicits at least 20-30 major gifts per year, ranging from $5,000 to $100,000 (or more) each.
  • Develops and implements techniques to start cold relationships and moves them through the donor commitment continuum to a gift conversation.
  • Clearly and professionally articulates KEXP’s vision and funding priorities, both verbally and in writing, to prospects and donors.
  • Makes proposal presentations for significant gifts and/or provides training and support to appropriate individuals(s) who will make the solicitations.
  • Participates in stewardship and outreach efforts for KEXP donor events; represents KEXP to a variety of constituencies and organizations, including other non-profit boards.
  • Oversees and carries out special projects as assigned.

Organizational & Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Maintains thorough understanding of KEXP organizational policies, including employee handbook, procedures, expense reporting, and payroll submission; follows policies and leads by example.
• Works closely with direct reports to plan, guide, and execute professional development plans and opportunities; sets clear, achievable, and measurable goals for individual performance, providing frequent and constructive feedback, and holds staff accountable to themselves, the team, and KEXP.
• Actively participates in our culture of philanthropy, which honors the important role our donors, volunteers, business and community partners play in the life of KEXP. Collaborates across teams and departments to steward donors on behalf of KEXP and actively seeks opportunities to integrate philanthropy into their role within KEXP operations, programs, and projects.

Supervision Received: Position reports to Chief Advancement Officer.

Supervision Exercised: Directly supervises Associate Director of Leadership Giving, Philanthropy Officer, and volunteers and interns, as applicable.

Education & Experience: Bachelor’s degree and seven or more years of related professional experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience sufficient to successfully perform the essential duties of the job as listed above.

Position Qualifications:

• Progressively responsible experience in institutional development, with proven ability in cultivating, soliciting and closing major gifts and grants of $25K and more.
• Demonstrated ability to manage budgets, ability to interpret and act upon financial information.
• Exceptional ability to organize staff and motivate external advocates and volunteers.
• Ability to handle and protect sensitive, confidential material.
• Outstanding attention to detail and a high degree of accuracy.
• Commitment to maintaining confidentiality.
• Ability to take initiative and use independent judgment within established policy and procedural guidelines.
• Strong self-motivation in carrying out responsibilities, organizing and prioritizing multiple tasks, and meeting deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal, presentation, relationship-building, and communication skills - both written and verbal - for a wide variety of audiences, specifically racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse communities.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in teams, as well as provide consistent, high-quality service to a wide variety of internal and external constituents and adapt communication style to multiple cultural environments.
• Demonstrated ability to maintain grace under pressure, especially while working in a demanding work environment with regular interruptions and competing priorities.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with people of diverse backgrounds and promote a positive working environment, spirit of cooperation, and react positively to change and conflict resolution.
• Deep knowledge, appreciation for, and understanding of KEXP programming and mission.
• Ability to embody the community-oriented spirit of KEXP to both internal and external constituents.
• Experience in recruiting, retaining, and leading dynamic and talented people to build superior, inclusive teams.
• Experience in successfully managing teams, including the ability to set, motivate, and achieve individual as well as departmental goals, to mentor and manage performance for all team members, and to facilitate communication between teammates with different styles.
• Ability to work cross-departmentally, facilitating cooperation between teams and leading by example to ensure alignment on organization-wide goals.
• Experience incorporating the perspectives of multiple communities, including communities of color, in the consideration of impacts and outcomes of a decision-making process.
• An understanding of the concepts of institutional and structural racism and bias and their impact on under-invited communities, either through lived experience and/or training and education.
• Commitment to advancing justice and equity in the arts with a passion for community building.
• Must be able to work an irregular schedule, including evenings or weekends as needed and additional hours during peak times, or as required.
• Minimal local travel is required for night and weekend coverage at events; some in- and/or out-of-state travel may also be required.

Physical Requirements: Long periods of being in a stationary position; operating a computer and other office equipment; frequently moving to/from various work areas; frequently communicating by phone and email; frequently remaining in a stationary position during meetings, discerning meeting content, expressing oneself, and exchanging accurate information; frequently moving to/from off-site meeting and/or event locations.

Working Conditions: Primary location in typical business office environment, with frequent meetings and event attendance at a variety of off-site locations. This position is eligible for up to 80% remote work, with an expectation of in-person availability for key business needs, fundraising drives, and events. This person must reside in the Puget Sound area.