Senior Director of Development

Description

Senior Director of Development
Building Bridges Across the River

Status: Full-time, exempt employee
Location: Washington, DC
Deadline: Mid-February. Resume reviews begin immediately.

About Building Bridges Across the River
Building Bridges Across the River (Building Bridges) exists to reduce structural barriers to social and economic mobility to build a more equitable city. Founded in 1997, the organization has created an effective blueprint for equitable development for Washington, DC residents living east of the Anacostia River.

Building Bridges operates facilities, programs, and key partnerships in three focus areas: arts and culture; economic opportunity; and health and well-being. Its first initiative, Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC), houses more than a dozen nonprofits in a 203,000 square foot, state-of-the-art campus in DC’s Ward 8. These resident nonprofits, including the Boys and Girls Club, the Levine School of Music, and Trinity Washington University, work alongside residents to create intentional and sustainable pathways to equitable opportunities. THEARC is the country’s largest multisector social service nonprofit collaboration.

In addition to its unique partnership model, Building Bridges leads its own nationally recognized programs, including the 11th Street Bridge Park, the Skyland Workforce Center, THEARC Theater, and Building Bridges Farms. Collaborations between partners and programs form an ecosystem of positive change that enhances agency within the community.

Building Bridges is committed to co-creating the organization’s future, informed by community needs. Learn more by visiting www.bbardc.org.

Leadership Opportunity
Building Bridges seeks its first Senior Director of Development (SDD) to lead the vision, planning, and coordination of philanthropic activities for an inspiring community-centered nonprofit with a strong culture of philanthropy and an active and loyal group of champions.

The ideal candidate will be an experienced fundraising professional with a record managing development operations, planning, and teams. Building Bridges’ development functions have historically been dispersed across projects; an early priority for the SDD will be to implement a strategy that consolidates development responsibilities within a new department. The SDD will be capable of aligning an inspiring vision with an operationally excellent department.

The SSD is a member of Building Bridges’ leadership team and oversees the day-to-day administration of an annual contributed operating revenue of approximately $5 million. The FY23 annual revenue breakdown is roughly 28% from foundations, 39% from corporations, 9% from government and 25% from individuals. With two capital campaigns currently underway, this is an exciting moment of growth: a $92 million campaign to launch the 11th Street Bridge Park and a $5 million campaign to add a new campus for the Washington School for Girls. Approximately 85% of funding are in hand for both projects.

The SSD will report to the Senior Vice President and maintain a close working relationship with the President. The President and Senior Vice President are experienced and actively engaged fundraisers for Building Bridges, and will be the principal stewards of major gift prospects and solicitation. The SSD will create strategies with the President and Senior Vice President to significantly increase major and principal gifts from individual and institutional sources to support upcoming institutional goals.

As a trusted partner to leadership and the Board of Directors, the SDD will work with staff, volunteers, and community to ensure Building Bridges’ fundraising strategy reflects a cohesive culture of philanthropy grounded in equity, social justice, and community-centric principles.

The SDD’s leadership style will be one that centers deep and genuine respect for the communities Building Bridges serves, prioritizes active listening and emotional intelligence, is invested in an inclusive team culture, and develops clear systems of performance and accountability. They will lead a six-person team that includes a Director of Individual Giving and Major Gifts, two Directors of Foundation, Corporation & Government Giving that manage different programmatic portfolios, a Senior Grant Writer, a Grants and Program Associate, and a Development Associate. The SSD and members of their team liaise with the Board of Directors’ development committee and other volunteers affiliated with fundraising.

Specific areas of responsibilities include:

Development Strategy & Operations
– With the President and Senior Vice President, design strategic approaches to cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship for existing and new donors, with an eye toward expanding the pool of major gifts and corporate partnerships.
– Standardize department-wide policies, procedures, operations, and communications protocols across donor qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship; streamline current processes to reduce redundancy and increase staff productivity.
– Develop and implement multi-year and annual development plans that include measurable financial goals and feasible timelines.
– Create detailed annual and multi-year revenue forecasts, including quarterly financial goals for the development team.
– Work cross-departmentally to plan long-term revenue strategies for all major initiatives.

Fundraising Responsibilities
– Steward a limited portfolio of current and prospective high-net-worth donors to secure funds for general operations and major projects.
– Build and maintain relationships with corporate, foundation, and community partners and prospects; identify aligned opportunities to secure funds for special projects and campaigns.
– Guide the development team on matters related to donor prospecting, appeals, proposals, and stewardship; evaluate areas requiring focus and investment.
– Direct team-wide prospect research activities that progressively deepens donor engagement and accomplishes philanthropic goals.
– Set strategies to grow the donor base through effective annual appeals via mail, email and social media solicitation; identify new engagement opportunities through monthly giving, planned giving, and select major donor programs.
– Ensure annual goals are met for key fundraising events in the spring and fall.
– Monitor the team’s grant research, writing, and reporting to ensure accurate and timely information reaches institutional funders.
– Represent Building Bridges at site visits, public appearances, and speaking engagements as requested by the President and Senior Vice President.
– Direct team members to adequately acknowledge, track, and report all donations, including gift acceptances and timely grant reporting as required by donor agreements.
– Support development of a strategic approach to data collection and analysis, including systems to monitor departmental goals and individual performance objectives.
Assess current technological tools to determine needed upgrades.
– Create timely progress reports for staff and Board leadership to track fundraising goals, pipeline activity, and inform key stakeholders on pertinent developments.

Leadership & Team Collaboration
– Advance Building Bridges’ mission, vision, and goals in collaboration with the President, Senior Vice President, executive team, Board of Directors, and key volunteer leadership.
– Provide direction to the President’s and Senior Vice President’s fundraising efforts with major donors. Manage opportunities that connect these leaders with prospective and current funders, brief principals with reports and other materials, and staff select engagements.
– Supervise a high-performing team of development professionals while steering departmental culture-building efforts. Set clear priorities and annual financial goals, promote professional growth through continuing education and coaching, and award strategic thinking and creative approaches to achieving goals.
– Assess competencies, identify growth areas, and determine additional investments in the development team; oversee hiring, development, and performance evaluation of staff, contractors, and outsourced support, as needed.
– Liaise with the Board’s development committee to provide accurate and current development updates, forecasts, and engagement opportunities. Meet regularly with Board members to identify major gift cultivation and solicitation opportunities.
– Assign development team members to engage with Advisory Board and other volunteer fundraising committees to support planning and fundraising for signature events.
– Support the Communications team to ensure Building Bridges has an integrated external communications strategy that effectively shares its case for support with current and prospective donors.
– Coordinate fundraising activities with the finance staff to produce and reconcile monthly revenue reports and monitor cash flow to inform timely executive-level decision making.
Work with outside legal counsel to update gift acceptance policies, as needed.

Requirements and Qualifications
This position is a challenging and rewarding opportunity that requires a diverse set of skills and experiences. While we understand that no single applicant can possess every skill listed below, qualified candidates will likely possess many of the following:
– No less than 8 years of progressive leadership experience with nonprofit fundraising.
– A passionate advocate for supporting resilient communities that are underresources; familiarity with DC’s Ward 8 communities is considered a plus.
– Demonstrated supervisory experience and ability to build managerial capacity among direct reports and other team members.
– Excellent organizational and project management skills with a strong orientation toward developing and maintaining systems, standard operating procedures, process improvement, and departmental protocols.
– Working knowledge of modern fundraising technology that streamlines and improves team collaboration with respect to donor management, data analysis, and prospect research.
– Strong written and oral communication skills. Can distill complex information into compelling cases for support for a wide variety of audiences and coach spokespeople to support fundraising-related activities.
– Experience advancing equity and social justice goals within a workplace.
– Demonstrated comfort working alongside a wide variety of stakeholders, from community members to high-net-worth donors.
– Operates with high levels of maturity, integrity, transparency, and discretion; adheres to the fundraising field’s best practices, principles, and ethical standards.
– Has a high level of emotional intelligence, cultural sensitivity, and interpersonal skills; effectively engages and influences a wide range of key stakeholders and decision makers.
– Demonstrated experience in change management, including leading and implementing strategic and operational plans with the ability to build consensus, make tough decisions, and ensure clarity around departmental goals and performance expectations.
– Experience supporting and working closely with organizational leadership and principal staff members is a major plus.

Location
Building Bridges’ administrative offices are based in Ward 8. The Senior Director of Development will have an opportunity to work a hybrid schedule, but must be located in the Washington, DC region to facilitate on-site work.

Compensation & Benefits
The budgeted salary range for this role is between $125,000 to $140,000. Building Bridges offers a benefits package that includes 100% employer-paid health, vision, and dental insurance, paid time off, paid holidays, free parking, and 4% matching for retirement savings.

Application Process
Building Bridges has retained Good Insight, a national executive search firm serving nonprofits, to conduct this search. Interested applicants should submit a resume and detailed cover letter to www.good-insight.org/careers. Send confidential inquiries to BuildingBridges@good-insight.org.

Resume reviews begin immediately. For best consideration, please apply by mid-February, 2023. Early applications are encouraged due to the pace of the search.

Equal Employment Opportunity
Building Bridges fully supports and is committed to equal employment opportunity (EEO) and workforce diversity. The organization respects and values the variety of ideas and creativity generated by different cultures and backgrounds, and strives to create a workplace that promotes, values, and makes the best use of individual styles and differences.

Building Bridges adheres to equal employment opportunity in all aspects of the employer-employee relationship. This includes recruiting, hiring, transfers, promotion, conditions of employment, compensation and benefits, training and educational assistance, social and recreational programs, discipline, layoff, return to work and termination. No employee of the organization will discriminate against any applicant or fellow employee based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related conditions), age, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, national origin or other classification protected by law.