Chief Development Officer

Job Title: Chief Development Officer 

Employment Status: Full-Time Exempt Employee (40 hours per week)

Compensation Range: Salary determined by experience and qualifications

Location: This is a remote position. The individual will be expected to work with a team based entirely on the West Coast.

Reports to: Vice President/Chief Strategy Officer

About The Center for Cultural Power:

The Center for Cultural Power (Cultural Power) is a women of color, artist-led organization, inspiring artists and culture makers to imagine a world where power is distributed equitably and where we live in harmony with nature. We support artists through fellowships, training, and opportunities for activation. We create intersectional stories and content addressing issues of immigration, climate, gender and racial justice. We engage movement groups in cultural strategy and organize artists in issues that inspire them. Together with allies, we are co-creating a field of cultural strategy with organizations and practitioners through convenings, design teams, and strategy tables. Our website has more about the organization and our team.

Our staff and board align around the following organizational values:

Trust Collaboration Care Learning Inspiration

Cultural Power has a $6MM operating budget in 2021, and we are primarily funded by institutional donors, including major grant support from 40-50 different philanthropic foundations such as The Ford Foundation, The California Endowment, The MacArthur Foundation, The Libra Foundation and Blue Shield. Thanks to our generous supporters, the organization is in a strong financial position, yet we have ambitious plans for the future that will require a bold new leader for our fundraising team.

We also have a sister organization, called The Cultural Engagement Lab (CEL), which is a 501(c)(4) organization that organizes a powerful network of seasoned artists and culture makers from impacted communities to lend their storytelling talents to meaningful advocacy, electoral, and civic engagement efforts. You can visit CEL’s website to learn more about this body of work and what we accomplished during the 2020 election year. This role supports fundraising for both CEL and Cultural Power.

About the Role:

Amidst rapid growth, Cultural Power seeks a Chief Development Officer (CDO) to lead and manage the small, but mighty fundraising team. The CDO’s primary responsibility is to lead the team tasked with raising $8-10MM annually, including the personal management of a $5MM+ portfolio of Institutional Funders and a growing base of High Net-worth supporters for both Cultural Power and CEL. Our ideal candidate has a track record of success leading and implementing the fundraising strategy for a fast-growth nonprofit, managing a portfolio of institutional funders in the six-figure range, is an excellent manager and strong communicator, and is a natural relationship builder who will build lasting partnerships with foundation staff and major donors.

This position will report to the organization’s VP and will be a key member of our Executive Team. This position will manage the current fundraising team (consisting of a Director of Institutional Giving, a Development Manager, part-time administrative support, and a contract Grant Writer) and will help set the future vision of the team. They will also be responsible for ensuring that the team has the proper assets, systems, and processes required to consistently meet our fundraising goals. They will also work closely with the President, VP, and Senior Program staff, utilizing the team thoughtfully and strategically to develop strong funding relationships. This is a highly collaborative position that will interface with team members across the organization.

Responsibilities:

Fundraising Strategy 

​​Drive the strategic resource growth for the organization by creating a fundraising strategy that aligns with Cultural Power’s long-term goals and vision, and engages funders deeply as we build a new ecosystem for this nascent field. Develop a High Net-worth strategy for the organization that creates a pathway for individual major gifts and taps into the vast network of Senior Leadership. Keep the Executive Team apprised of progress to date and how we are tracking towards our quarterly and annual goals. Provide weighted forecasts for annual fundraising goals that can be built into annual revenue plans. Determining what fundraising roles are needed within the development department and the timeline for these hires, to sustainably build the fundraising function, in alignment with Cultural Power’s planned growth. Ensure that proposal deliverables align with program goals and collaborate with key members of the Executive Team to identify how current strategy could shift to materialize new opportunities. Participate in Executive Team meetings and necessary prep for Board meetings. Support the President, VP and other senior team leaders on continuous prioritization and relationship cultivation to ensure resources flow.  Incubate the Impact and Learning function for Cultural Power, including interfacing with our external evaluation consultants, managing a learning fellow, and ensuring that all internal results and outcomes monitoring is running smoothly and on time.

 Team Management

Manage the Development Team and two contractors - keeping the team focused, on task, and engaged in their work. Interface between the Development Team and the Executive Team to communicate team and organizational updates. Manage an Impact Fellow who is responsible for supporting the internal learning and evaluation framework. Find, hire, and manage contract and part-time support as needed to accomplish the overall goals of the team or to execute special projects. Ensure that the Development Team is maintaining all systems to allow for accurate forecasting, reporting, grant management and creating strong cases for support for each program. 

Funder Management

Manage a portfolio of 30+ institutional funders with the goal of securing renewals and cultivating new opportunities to raise at least $5MM annually.  Manage a portfolio of supporters for Cultural Power’s c4 entity, with the aim of raising $2M annually to support our civic engagement program. Create and implement a cultivation and stewardship plan for Center for Cultural Power’s institutional donor base. In collaboration with the Marketing and Communications Team, determine the highest value speaking engagements for the President that will help drive donor engagement and will generate new fundraising opportunities..  Manage 5-10 High Net-worth Individual donors, including sending acknowledgements and keeping them informed of our work. Additionally, work with the team to manage a more automated process for ~300 small level donors. Invest in ongoing strategic partnerships with core funders in your portfolio to engage them in our work, ensuring renewals and long-term commitment from foundations in the field of artist-driven cultural strategy and ensure renewals. Oversee the production of excellent grant material packages (with the help of a contract grant writer who has supported the team for several years) that secure major grants of $500,000-$1MM from our largest investors.  Oversee the reporting process for all grants in your portfolio, including working across teams to gather project and financial data to produce a comprehensive report.  Lead the process of aligning grant requests with the needs of the organization, which includes interfacing with the Program Team on project deliverables and Finance Team on budgeting, tracking grant allocations over time, and reporting. 

Qualifications

We are looking for a candidate who is excited to take on a strategic leadership role in a growing and innovative organization. You must be self-motivated, a strong relationship builder, a collaborative team player, detail-oriented, and highly-organized, and above all, be able to thrive in a fast-paced and iterative environment. We are looking for a strategic leader who exhibits grace under pressure. You are an excellent communicator who exercises tact and understands nuance in communications. Like others on our team, you are deeply committed to working with diverse populations, to artists, and to social justice. Our ideal candidate is excited to build and maintain a growing portfolio of funders, design new strategies for new funding streams, and work in a relational and collaborative manner across departments and with external supporters. 

Required

The ideal candidate for this position will possess the following qualifications:

10+ years of fundraising experience with at least 3 years of strong management experience;  Experience leading and managing Development Teams for organizations with budgets of $5MM+; Experience building fundraising plans, cultivating and securing institutional grants of $500,000+, and managing the stewardship process for a portfolio of donors;  Excellent interpersonal and team management skills; Strong project management skills and ability to maintain high-level focus, delegating tasks while keeping momentum on projects; Exceptional ability to prioritize - both in your individual workflow and in managing the team’s focus - within an expanding pipeline and complex body of work; Ability to thrive in a diverse and women of color led environment; High level of cultural fluency, experience working with BIPOC communities and/or organizations, and a commitment to equity;

Demonstrates behaviors that deescalate conflict and behaviors that are solutions-oriented;

Strong interpersonal, written, and oral communication skills; Must be flexible and adaptable; and Must be technologically proficient in Google office suite.

Preferred 

We prefer candidates that have experience in:

Raising funds for the arts and cultural, or cultural strategy field Raising funds from social justice and/or issue-based philanthropic institutions Operating in a Salesforce database 

Compensation & Benefits

The position is full-time with a salary range determined by experience and qualifications. We offer a generous benefits package including full medical, dental, vision (100% company paid for employee & 80% contribution towards dependent premiums), life, disability, flex spending accounts, and 401k plan with 2% match; generous vacation, office closures, sick leave, and holidays.

Application Process

To apply, please send the following to jobs@culturalpower.org with Chief Development Officer in the subject line: 

A cover letter outlining why you are interested in working for Cultural Power, your experience fundraising for a growing organization, and your salary requirements. Your resume. A 1-3 page writing sample, ideally of a proposal, report, case study, or other fundraising related writing you have personally written in the past.

A list of three professional references. Two or more of these references must be previous or current supervisors.

All applications will be acknowledged, but only complete applications will be reviewed. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

The Center for Cultural Power supports artists and culture makers whose voices are most needed to transform the status quo towards a more just and inclusive future. This includes artists and cultural workers of color, Black artists, Indigenous artists, migrant artists, artists with disabilities, queer artists, transgender and nonbinary artists, and women of color identified artists. As such, we strongly encourage individuals from these communities to apply. We are committed to the collective work and intentional investment necessary to consistently move in the direction of equity and inclusion.

We look forward to hearing from you.