Director, Leadership & Annual Giving

About the Commemorative Air Force

Founded in 1957, the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) is a membership-based organization dedicated to educating, inspiring, and honoring through flight and living history experiences. Today, more than 7,000 members help support the CAF's mission and preserve, maintain, and operate a fleet of 182 historic aircraft.

Through its aircraft, members, volunteers, educational programs, events, and living history experiences, the CAF brings the stories of American military aviation to life for current and future generations.

As the education arm of the Commemorative Air Force, the Henry B. Tippie National Aviation Education Center (NAEC) brings the CAF mission to life through educational programs and experiences that connect aviation history with the future of aviation. Through hands-on learning, STEM education, and aviation-focused programming, the NAEC inspires young people to explore aviation, aerospace, and related career pathways.

Position Summary

The Commemorative Air Force is seeking an experienced, relationship-focused fundraiser to serve as our Director, Annual & Leadership Giving.

Reporting to the Chief Development Officer, the Director will identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward donors with the potential to make annual gifts of $5,000 to $25,000 in support of the CAF and its educational programs.

The Director will build and manage a portfolio of approximately 125–175 qualified donors and prospects, with a significant portion of the portfolio developed by identifying promising donors from CAF's direct response program, membership, and other constituent audiences.

This is a frontline fundraising role for someone who enjoys discovering donor potential, developing meaningful relationships, and personally asking for financial support. The Director will help move qualified donors from transactional or lower-level giving into deeper, relationship-based philanthropy while creating a strong pipeline for future major and planned gifts.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and manage a portfolio of approximately 125–175 qualified donors and prospects with the potential to make annual gifts of $5,000–$25,000.
• Identify and qualify prospective leadership donors from direct response, membership, events, volunteers, and other CAF constituent audiences.
• Personally engage donors through visits, calls, video conversations, events, and other individualized outreach.
• Develop individualized cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship strategies based on donor interests, giving history, engagement, and philanthropic capacity.
• Personally solicit and close annual gifts within the $5,000–$25,000 leadership giving range.
• Develop a consistent pipeline of prospective donors through ongoing qualification and discovery.
• Strengthen donor retention, renewal, consecutive-year giving, upgrades, and multi-year relationships.
• Create intentional pathways for donors to move from broad-based annual giving into leadership giving.
• Develop personalized stewardship and engagement opportunities that connect donors with CAF aircraft, educational initiatives, programs, events, and other areas of the mission.
• Identify leadership donors with the potential for major or planned giving and facilitate an intentional transition when appropriate.
• Identify and solicit event sponsorship opportunities among assigned donors, prospects, members, and appropriate business relationships.
• Develop donor proposals, correspondence, presentations, briefings, and other fundraising materials as appropriate.
• Maintain accurate donor strategies, interactions, proposals, solicitations, forecasts, and next steps in Raiser’s Edge.
• Collaborate with Development, Membership, Marketing, Education, Events, CAF Units, organizational leadership, Board members, and volunteers to create meaningful donor engagement opportunities.
• Establish and manage annual portfolio revenue, qualification, solicitation, and activity goals in partnership with the Chief Development Officer.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
• Minimum of five years of progressively responsible fundraising, development, sales, relationship management, or comparable experience.
• Demonstrated success developing relationships with donors, clients, or other external stakeholders.
• Experience personally soliciting and closing philanthropic gifts or comparable financial commitments.
• Experience managing a portfolio of donors, prospects, clients, or comparable relationships.
• Demonstrated ability to identify and qualify prospective donors and develop relationships that result in increased financial support.
• Understanding of annual and leadership giving, donor cultivation, solicitation, stewardship, retention, and upgrade strategies.
• Strong interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills.
• Strong organizational and project-management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Ability to independently initiate donor outreach and take ownership of fundraising goals while working collaboratively with a team.
• Experience using a fundraising CRM or comparable constituent relationship management system.
• Ability to use donor information and giving behavior to inform fundraising strategies.
• Ability and willingness to travel and attend occasional evening and weekend donor and organizational events.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing a leadership annual giving, mid-level giving, or similar donor portfolio.
• Demonstrated success securing gifts in the $5,000–$25,000 range.
• Experience qualifying donors from direct response, annual giving, membership, or other broad-based constituent programs.
• Experience with donor recognition or giving society programs.
• Experience with Raiser’s Edge or Raiser’s Edge NXT.
• Experience with moves management and donor qualification practices.
• Experience identifying and transitioning donors into major or planned giving programs.
• Experience soliciting event sponsorships.
• Experience working within a national, chapter-based, membership, museum, education, aviation, military heritage, or other mission-driven organization.
• CFRE certification or interest in pursuing professional fundraising credentials.

The Successful Candidate

The successful candidate will be an entrepreneurial, relationship-focused fundraiser who enjoys meeting people, discovering what motivates their philanthropy, and developing meaningful connections between donors and mission.

They will understand that a donor's current gift size does not necessarily define their future philanthropic potential and will be comfortable initiating relationships with individuals who may have had little previous personal interaction with Development staff.

Most importantly, this individual will be comfortable personally asking donors for gifts of $5,000 to $25,000, working toward measurable fundraising goals, and balancing revenue objectives with an exceptional donor experience.