Director of Development

Job Title: Director of Development

Reports to : Executive Director


FSLA Status: Exempt, Full-time

Location : Georgetown


Compensation : $125k to 135k/Annual

Position Summary

The Director of Development provides strategic leadership for St. Vincent de Paul's fundraising, donor engagement, volunteer engagement, and external communications efforts. This position is responsible for developing and executing a comprehensive fundraising strategy that grows contributed revenue, strengthens donor relationships, expands the organization's community of supporters, and builds the long-term sustainability of the organization.

The Director of Development will oversee a diversified fundraising program that includes individual giving, major gifts, annual giving, monthly giving, corporate and foundation partnerships, grants, donor stewardship, special campaigns, events, planned giving, and donor acquisition and retention.

The Director will also play a leadership role in an upcoming capital campaign, partnering closely with the CEO/Executive Director, Board of Directors, campaign leadership, staff, donors, and community partners to successfully prepare for, launch, and execute the campaign.

This position supervises the Volunteer Coordinator, Development Coordinator, and Marketing & Communications Manager and is responsible for ensuring strong coordination across fundraising, communications, and volunteer engagement.

Key Responsibilities

Fundraising Strategy & Leadership

• Develop and implement a comprehensive annual development plan with clear revenue goals, strategies, timelines, responsibilities, and performance measures.
• Establish annual and multi-year fundraising goals in partnership with organizational leadership.
• Further build a diversified fundraising program that reduces reliance on any single donor, funding source, campaign, or event.
• Develop strategies to grow individual giving at all levels, including donor acquisition, annual giving, monthly giving, mid-level giving, major gifts, planned giving, and donor reactivation.
• Identify opportunities to increase donor retention, average gift size, donor upgrades, and lifetime donor value.
• Develop compelling fundraising opportunities that connect donors with specific organizational priorities and community impact.
• Monitor fundraising performance against goals and adjust strategies throughout the year as needed.
• Develop and manage the annual development budget, including revenue projections and fundraising expenses.
• Provide regular fundraising reports, forecasts, dashboards, and analysis to the CEO/Executive Director and Board.

Major Gifts & Donor Relations

• Develop and manage a robust major gifts program, including identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.
• Maintain a portfolio of major donors and prospective major donors.
• Create individualized cultivation and solicitation strategies for priority prospects.
• Conduct donor meetings, site visits, solicitations, stewardship conversations, and other meaningful donor engagement.
• Partner with the CEO/Executive Director, board members, and other organizational leaders on major donor cultivation and solicitation.
• Create meaningful opportunities for donors to experience and better understand St. Vincent de Paul's work.
• Develop a systematic moves-management process and ensure donor activity is appropriately documented in the CRM.
• Strengthen donor stewardship so supporters understand the impact of their giving and have meaningful opportunities to deepen their relationship with the organization.

Annual Giving & Donor Acquisition

• Develop and oversee a year-round annual giving program incorporating direct mail, email, digital fundraising, Giving Tuesday, year-end giving, special appeals, and other campaigns.
• Develop strategies to acquire new donors and convert first-time donors into ongoing supporters.
• Build donor journeys designed to move supporters from initial engagement toward increased giving and deeper involvement.
• Develop strategies for retaining and reactivating donors.
• Grow recurring and monthly giving programs.
• Use donor segmentation and giving behavior to create increasingly personalized fundraising communications.
• Work closely with the Marketing & Communications Manager to integrate fundraising priorities into the organization's communications calendar.

Corporate, Foundation & Institutional Giving

• Develop and strengthen relationships with corporate, foundation, faith-based, and community partners.
• Identify opportunities for corporate sponsorships, employee giving, matching gifts, workplace campaigns, volunteer engagement, and year-round partnerships.
• Oversee grant prospecting, proposal development, reporting, and stewardship of institutional funders.
• Maintain a grants calendar and ensure proposals and reports are completed accurately and on time.
• Develop partnership opportunities that engage organizations beyond transactional event sponsorships.

Capital Campaign Leadership

The Director of Development will play a central role in preparing for and executing St. Vincent de Paul's upcoming capital campaign.

Responsibilities will include:

• Partner with the CEO/Executive Director, Board, consultants, and campaign leadership to develop and execute the overall capital campaign strategy.
• Support campaign feasibility and readiness activities, including donor discovery and confidential conversations with key stakeholders.
• Identify, qualify, cultivate, and solicit prospective campaign donors.
• Develop individualized strategies for campaign prospects, including gift amounts, engagement opportunities, relationship managers, and solicitation timing.
• Prepare the CEO/Executive Director, board members, campaign volunteers, and other organizational leaders for donor meetings and solicitations.
• Develop briefing materials, talking points, proposals, presentations, and other campaign materials.
• Help recruit, train, and support campaign volunteers and leadership.
• Coordinate campaign cultivation events, site visits, donor briefings, and other engagement opportunities.
• Track campaign commitments, pledges, payments, and progress toward goals.
• Develop campaign stewardship and recognition strategies.
• Ensure campaign fundraising is thoughtfully integrated with annual giving so the organization continues to maintain and grow unrestricted annual support throughout the campaign.
• Develop strategies for transitioning capital campaign donors into long-term organizational supporters following the campaign.

Team Leadership & Management

The Director of Development supervises the Volunteer Coordinator, Development Coordinator, and Marketing & Communications Manager.

Responsibilities include:

• Provide clear goals, expectations, coaching, and professional development for each team member.
• Conduct regular individual and team meetings.
• Establish annual goals and work plans aligned with organizational priorities.
• Foster collaboration among development, communications, volunteer engagement, programs, and organizational leadership.
• Create efficient systems and workflows that reduce duplication and ensure consistent donor and constituent experiences.
• Conduct performance evaluations and support staff development.
• Identify future staffing, technology, and resource needs as the fundraising program grows.

Development Coordinator Oversight

Provide leadership and oversight for functions including:

• Gift processing and data entry.
• Donor acknowledgments and tax receipts.
• CRM/database administration and data integrity.
• Donor records and constituent information.
• Fundraising campaign support.
• Donor lists, segmentation, and reporting.
• Event and development administration.
• Prospect research and portfolio support.

Volunteer Coordinator Oversight

Ensure the volunteer program supports both organizational needs and long-term constituent engagement by overseeing:

• Volunteer recruitment and retention strategies.
• Volunteer orientation and stewardship.
• Corporate and group volunteer engagement.
• Volunteer communications and recognition.
• Tracking volunteer participation and engagement.
• Strategies for converting interested volunteers into deeper organizational supporters, including donors, ambassadors, and advocates.

Marketing & Communications Oversight

Partner with and supervise the Marketing & Communications Manager to ensure external communications support fundraising and organizational priorities, including:

• Donor communications and newsletters.
• Email marketing.
• Social media.
• Website content.
• Fundraising campaign communications.
• Impact storytelling.
• Annual reports.
• Media and public relations.
• Brand consistency.
• Capital campaign communications.
• Development of an organization-wide system for collecting stories, testimonials, photographs, and impact information.

Development Operations & CRM

• Ensure the donor CRM is effectively used as the central system for managing donor relationships and fundraising activity.
• Establish and maintain standards for gift entry, donor coding, acknowledgments, moves management, reporting, and data integrity.
• Develop written development policies, procedures, and standard operating procedures.
• Ensure appropriate gift acceptance, donor privacy, acknowledgment, and recordkeeping practices.
• Use donor data to identify trends, opportunities, risks, and prospective donors.
• Develop dashboards and reporting systems for fundraising performance.
• Maintain accurate revenue forecasting and pipeline reporting.

Board Engagement

• Partner with the CEO/Executive Director to engage the Board of Directors in fundraising.
• Provide regular development updates and reports to the Board.
• Help board members identify meaningful roles in fundraising based on their strengths, relationships, and comfort levels.
• Provide fundraising training, talking points, donor materials, and other resources for board members.
• Engage board members in donor introductions, cultivation, stewardship, events, and solicitation when appropriate.
• Support board participation in the capital campaign.

Events & Community Engagement

• Provide strategic oversight for fundraising and donor cultivation events.
• Establish clear goals and evaluate events based on revenue, cost, staff capacity, donor acquisition, cultivation, and long-term relationship-building potential.
• Identify opportunities to use events as entry points into deeper donor relationships.
• Develop post-event cultivation and stewardship strategies.
• Represent St. Vincent de Paul at community, donor, corporate, and partner events as appropriate.

Cross-Departmental Collaboration

• Work closely with program and operational staff to understand community needs, program outcomes, funding priorities, and emerging opportunities.
• Develop processes for regularly collecting meaningful impact information and stories for donor communications.
• Ensure fundraising messaging accurately and respectfully represents the people and communities served by St. Vincent de Paul.
• Help build an organization-wide culture of philanthropy in which fundraising and stewardship are understood as shared organizational responsibilities.

Qualifications

• 5 or more years of progressive experience in nonprofit fundraising, development, or advancement.
• Demonstrated success developing and implementing comprehensive fundraising strategies.
• Demonstrated experience cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding individual and major donors.
• Experience supervising and developing staff and building collaborative teams.
• Experience with annual giving, donor stewardship, fundraising communications, and donor databases/CRMs.
• Experience with capital campaigns or significant major-gift initiatives strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with executive leadership and boards.
• Strong understanding of donor cultivation, moves management, prospect development, and fundraising best practices.
• Excellent written, verbal, interpersonal, and presentation skills.
• Strong project-management and organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Ability to interpret fundraising data and translate it into actionable strategy.
• Commitment to ethical fundraising and donor-centered relationship building.
• Ability to communicate St. Vincent de Paul's mission with authenticity, dignity, and respect.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Retirement plan
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance
• Dental insurance
• Life insurance
• Employee assistance program

St. Vincent de Paul is an Equal Opportunity Employer that supports equality and diversity.