Development Director

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Development Director is the lead strategist and project manager for growing WLC's philanthropic revenue. This person will lead, manage, and coordinate all fundraising efforts across individuals, law firms, corporations, foundations, and government contracts — identifying, cultivating, and soliciting major donors, executing signature fundraising events, and building the systems and team that let WLC fundraise at the scale its mission deserves. Above all, this role is the executor who puts core development infrastructure in place: visible deadlines, clean data, coordinated budgets, while building a strategy for future growth.

What You'll Do

Systems, Data & Development Operations

• Own data integrity in WLC's CRM (Raiser's Edge): ensure campaigns, funds, appeals, and gift records are structured and used the way the system is designed to work
• Partner with the COO and outside database consultants on the CRM clean-up already underway, and put guardrails in place — documentation, standard operating procedures, and training — so the data stays reliable going forward
• Build and maintain a shared development and grant calendar, visible to program, finance, and leadership
• Maintain a robust pipeline of local, regional, and national grant opportunities, with a calendar tracking every upcoming application and report
• Partner with the COO and program leadership to build grant budgets before proposals go out the door
• Build a regular progress-to-goal report and a probability-weighted pipeline dashboard — covering individual giving, board giving, and foundations — for the Executive Director, COO, and Board Finance Committee
• Provide accurate, timely revenue reports to the Board Finance and Executive Committees
• Establish and monitor annual and long-term revenue goals and projections

Leadership & Development Strategy

• Develop, manage, and execute WLC's development and stewardship plans to hit annual revenue goals
• Refresh existing plans with new ideas, industry best practices, and data-driven analysis
• Build and manage a gift pipeline robust enough to meet annual revenue goals across individual donors, law firms, corporations, and foundations
• Partner with the Executive Director on non-philanthropic revenue streams, including government grants/contracts, attorneys' fees, and other fee-for-service opportunities
• Partner with an engaged, fundraising-minded board of directors, working with individual board members to build development goals based on their unique networks, and serving as the team's point of contact for board engagement on fundraising
• Plan for compelling 60th anniversary events and engagement activities

Fundraising & Donor Relations

• Design moves-management plans for major individual donors and corporate partners
• Manage and grow appeals and campaigns that acquire new donors and steward existing ones
• Expand prospect research capacity, using wealth-screening, psychographic, and other donor data already gathered to sharpen segmentation and identify new major-gift and event prospects
• Support the Executive Director's fundraising time, helping to guide where and how she spends her efforts

Development Communications

• Lead creative, mission-driven fundraising messaging that captures WLC's role in the racial justice movement
• Partner with program staff so their expertise and impact come through clearly to donors
• Coordinate with the communications team on a shared calendar so program and development milestones reinforce each other
• Grow fundraising through digital and social channels, and serve as an informed, decisive partner to WLC's outside digital marketing team

Fundraising Events

• Set the strategy for which events best support program and revenue goals, and design new ones as needed
• Produce fundraising events, including the annual Branton luncheon and donor house parties, with direct ownership of event revenue and budget targets
• Help negotiate vendor and venue contracts, and build the pre- and post-event stewardship plans that turn one-time attendees into long-term donors
• Partner with the Events Associate to right-size and target guest lists using donor data and prospect research

Team Leadership & Staff Development

• Supervise, coach, and develop two direct reports — the Associate Director and Events Associate — with clear priorities and consistent one-on-ones
• Act as a thoughtful liaison between the development team and organizational leadership
• Enhance onboarding and training plans for new development hires, including structured CRM training
• Champion professional development, including conference attendance and peer learning, for the development team

Champion the Use of AI

• Lead WLC's adoption of AI and other emerging technology across development — prospect research, drafting and messaging support, data analysis, and CRM-adjacent tools — to increase efficiency and free up time for relationship-building work
• Set practical, forward-looking norms and guardrails for how the team uses these tools, so WLC moves quickly and confidently
• Bring fresh AI-driven ideas to the team proactively, and model curious, hands-on experimentation

Who You Are

To thrive in this role, you are:

• A reliable executor first — someone who builds and runs systems well, and earns trust through consistent follow-through at the detail level, before layering on bigger strategic bets
• A seasoned development professional and project manager with a knack for working backward from a deadline to build a plan
• Comfortable running multiple projects with different deadlines at once
• An independent worker, self-starter, and self-manager
• A direct communicator who responds readily and closes loops
• A natural information-sharer who keeps everyone in the loop
• A trusted steward of sensitive donor and organizational information
• Comfortable partnering with attorneys and litigators, and translating complex legal work into language that resonates with donors and funders
• A creative thinker willing to test new ideas — and a systems developer committed to excellence and best practices

What You Bring

• A minimum of 7 years of nonprofit development experience, including direct staff supervision
• Hands-on fundraising generalist experience: institutional giving/grant writing, major gifts, donor-advised funds (DAFs), annual giving, corporate partnerships, special events, and online giving
• Deep, hands-on fluency with a major donor CRM — Raiser's Edge preferred — including how campaigns, funds, and appeals should be structured; candidates from other CRMs (e.g., Salesforce) are welcome if they understand sound database architecture
• Experience building or improving fundraising systems and processes, including grant tracking and close coordination with finance and program staff on budgets
• Experience partnering closely with senior leadership and board members on major philanthropic initiatives and campaigns
• Comfort negotiating vendor and event contracts
• Prospect research experience, including wealth-screening tools (e.g., DonorSearch, iWave, Foundation/corporate research tools)
• Enough digital fundraising fluency (email, paid social, analytics) to direct and approve strategy from an outside marketing partner
• Enthusiasm for proposing fresh ideas, openness to feedback on them, and persistence in bringing them to life
• A genuine, hands-on enthusiasm for using AI to work smarter
• Experience building onboarding or training programs for a small team, preferred
• Working knowledge of the Washington, DC funder community, preferred
• Experience in a unionized workplace, and enthusiasm for fostering positive labor-management relations, preferred
• Experience working alongside attorneys or in a legal/litigation environment, preferred

• Employer-provided health and dental insurance
• Group life, AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability coverage
• Flexible Spending Account
• Retirement plan
• Transit and parking savings

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