Associate Director of Advancement - Schools

Founded by Detroit philanthropists George and Ellen Booth in 1904, Cranbrook Educational Community includes the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Cranbrook Institute of Science, Cranbrook Schools, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, Cranbrook Horizons-Upward Bound, and Cranbrook House & Gardens. Located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, twenty miles north of downtown Detroit, Cranbrook’s 319-acre campus is a National Historic Landmark District that welcomes tens of thousands of visitors each year to the Museum, Institute, and three historic houses. Cranbrook is also home to more than 150 graduate Academy students and 1,600 students in grades pre-K through 12 attending Cranbrook Schools.

Associate Director of Advancement

Reporting to the Director of Advancement, the Associate Director of Advancement is primarily responsible for the coordination and management of the department’s Annual Fund, Major Gifts, and Stewardship programs at Cranbrook Schools. The Associate Director assumes responsibility for major donor prospects and manages and motivates a staff of experienced, productive frontline fundraisers to achieve aggressive goals while assuming personal responsibility for top level individual donor prospects. The incumbent works closely with the Director of Advancement, the Director of Schools, the Schools’ Board of Governors, and members of the CEC Advancement Staff to achieve success.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Gift Prospect Management: Manage a personal portfolio of 75-100 major gift prospects. Conduct regular prospect visits relating to discovery, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship with the goal of securing major and planned gifts. Work with the Director of Advancement to create and implement strategic plan for major gifts. Collaborate with CEC Director of Planned Giving for prospecting and securing planned gifts.

• Portfolio Evaluation: Evaluate the portfolios of all Advancement prospect managers. Establish metrics to help all prospect managers achieve goals and timetables and set appropriate strategies for prospect progress and success. Identify, research and qualify prospective donors. Direct high-level cultivation and solicitation activity to the Director of Schools and Director of Advancement when appropriate, and support those activities as needed. Manage effective systems for tracking, cultivating, soliciting and stewarding prospects and donors through the organizational database, and maintain donor files.

• Annual Fund: Supervision of the Annual Fund Program.

• Reunion Fundraising: Create, execute, and evaluate broad reunion major gift efforts, including the creation of an 18-month overlapping reunion major gifts cycle for identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. Collaborate with the alumni relations team and frontline fundraisers in the selection of key reunion major gift volunteers, identification of key reunion major gift prospects, and individual class goal setting. Lead one or more major gift reunion class effort(s).

• Stewardship: Develop, evaluate, and streamline systems to support the stewardship of donors and volunteers.

Requirements:

Minimum of bachelor’s degree; Master’s degree preferred. A minimum of seven years fund-raising or sales experience, preferably in the education sector; major gift, campaign experience, or other applicable experience required. Management of a major gifts program and a team of fundraising professionals. Excellent interpersonal skills and high-level organizational skills. Capable of working with major donors, high level volunteers and major administrators. Collaborative and inclusive decision-making style. Enjoys and appreciates building relationships with colleagues, alumni, and other school families. Enthusiasm to join and support a vibrant, diverse, and inclusive school community. Calmness under pressure with sense of humor. Takes initiative with a positive, energetic, can-do spirit. Independent School experience preferred. Computer fluency and high degree of comfort with Excel and relational/administrative databases. Familiarity with Blackbaud Razors Edge preferred, but not required. Valid Michigan driver’s license with satisfactory driving record required.

For consideration, please submit a cover letter, resume and completed Employee Application to: Cranbrook – HR, P.O. Box 801, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303-0801, or fax to (248) 645-3014, or email humanresources@cranbrook.edu. Our Employee Application can be downloaded from the employment page of our website at www.cranbrook.edu/employment .