Senior Director of Major Gifts

Are you an experienced fundraising leader looking for a player/coach role where you can manage a book of business while also supporting a team? If so, read on!


About Us
At Make-A-Wish Michigan, we create life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses, wishes that bring hope, strength, and joy when families need it most. Founded in 1984, our work is driven by compassion, creativity, and the belief that a single wish can be a powerful turning point. Together with our staff, volunteers, donors, and community partners, we are united by one purpose: to make the impossible possible, one wish at a time. We are committed to building a workplace where diverse perspectives are valued and every team member feels respected, supported, and connected to our mission.


About the Role
The Senior Director of Major Gifts plays a pivotal role in accelerating Make-A-Wish Michigan's philanthropic growth by engaging individuals who are new to the organization or newly capable of making significant investments in our mission. This is a player-coach role designed for an ambitious, proactive relationship-builder who thrives on building large pipelines, identifying opportunities, initiating meaningful conversations, and converting connections into philanthropic action that drives measurable results while leading the major gifts team, creating, monitoring, and analyzing metrics.


With clear accountability for revenue growth and pipeline expansion, the Director builds and advances a portfolio of high-potential prospects through strategic prospecting, discovery, and personalized cultivation. Success in this role is defined by achieving annual new-donor revenue goals, increasing the number of first-time and early-stage major gifts, and strengthening the long-term major gifts pipeline. By aligning donor interests with organizational priorities, the Senior Director of Major Gifts fuels sustainable revenue growth and ensures more wishes can be granted for children and families across Michigan.


Key Responsibilities

• Lead major gifts strategy, set the vision, annual priorities, and long-range roadmap for Make-A-Wish Michigan's major gifts program.
• Provide strategic leadership to the major gifts team by setting clear goals, defining expectations, and ensuring alignment with long-term revenue priorities.
• Serve as a player-coach by actively managing your own portfolio while modeling best-practice donor engagement, prospecting discipline, and solicitation strategy for the team.
• Own and achieve assigned annual new-donor major gift revenue goals, with clear expectations for first-time and early-stage major gifts.
• Proactively identify, research, and qualify new major gift prospects through data analysis, referrals, networking, events, and community engagement to drive pipeline growth.
• Build, manage, and advance a robust portfolio of high-potential prospects, with defined activity, discovery, and solicitation benchmarks.
• Develop and execute individualized cultivation and solicitation strategies that move prospects toward their first or next significant investment.
• Conduct meaningful discovery meetings to assess donor interests, motivations, and capacity, and translate insights into actionable revenue strategies.
• Consistently expand and strengthen the long-term major gifts pipeline by introducing new donors to Make-A-Wish Michigan and advancing them through the giving continuum.
• Partner with events, marketing, volunteer engagement, and corporate development teams to surface new prospects and convert engagement into philanthropic investment.
• Collaborate with leadership, board members, and key volunteers to leverage relationships, open doors, and accelerate new-donor acquisition.
• Maintain accurate, timely, and strategic documentation of prospect activity, revenue projections, and outcomes in Salesforce.
• Track, analyze, and report on key performance indicators including revenue, pipeline value, solicitation results, and conversion rates.
• Apply industry best practices, donor-centered fundraising principles, and regional market insights to continuously improve prospecting and revenue performance.

About You

You are a successful fundraiser and a strong leader looking for a role that utilizes both of these skills.