Senior Development Officer

 SENIOR DEVELOPMENT OFFICER

HOUSTON GRAND OPERA

Houston, Texas

The Aspen Leadership Group is proud to partner with Houston Grand Opera in the search for a Senior Development Officer.

Reporting to the Director of Development, Individual Giving, the Senior Development Officer will manage a portfolio of individual and select corporate donors and major gift prospects and actively work to upgrade their support. The Senior Development Officer will work closely with the Director of Development to manage special underwriting opportunities for the HGO Studio, Houston Grand Opera's training program for young singers and opera coaches. This includes underwriting opportunities for current HGO Studio artists, guest faculty, HGO staff, and former Studio artists returning to the mainstage.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) is one of the largest, most innovative, and most highly acclaimed opera companies in the United States. HGO was the only American finalist for Opera Company of the Year at the 2019 International Opera Awards.

Houston Grand Opera’s vision is to inspire opera’s future. Its mission is to advance the operatic art to serve an ever-evolving audience. It produces great operatic works that create and sustain a new American art form and fuse them with historical repertoire to inspire the next generations of opera lovers—both in its own community and globally through technology.

In fulfilling its mission, HGO leads the field in commissioning new works (67 world premieres to date) and in training and nurturing promising young artists and administrators. The company contributes to the cultural enrichment of Houston and the nation through a diverse and innovative program of performances, community events, and education projects that reaches the widest possible public. HGO's pioneering community engagement initiative, HGOco, has served as a model for other arts organizations.

HGO leads the field in commissioning and producing new works, almost exclusively from American composers, including 66 world premieres at the end of the 2018–19 season. HGO has also staged seven American premieres. The company presents six to eight productions per season, and has an operating budget of $27M devoted exclusively to its live performances at this time, due to the impact of Covid-19. Houston Grand Opera performances are held in the Wortham Theater Center, a venue with two performance spaces: the Alice and George Brown Theater and the smaller Roy and Lillie Cullen Theater. Their combined capacity is more than 3,300. HGO has toured extensively and has won a Tony, two Grammy awards, and three Emmy awards. It is the only opera company to win all three honors.

HGO seeks to be a global leader in the evolution of the art form, by inspiring it, developing it, training people to deliver it, documenting it, and most importantly, composing it. It identifies and trains the next generation of gifted artistic, creative, and leadership talent who will create opera’s future.

A bachelor's degree is required for this position. At least five years of experience in major gift fundraising and/or campaign management is preferred. All applications must be accompanied by a cover letter and résumé. Cover letters should be responsive to the mission of Houston Grand Opera.