Director, Major and Individual Giving

Position                                Director, Major and Individual Giving

Status                                  Full Time

Department                          Development

Location                               East Norwalk, CT

SeriousFun Children’s Network, founded by Paul Newman, is a growing global community of independently managed and financed camps and programs, which have come together with a common purpose – to provide transformative experiences to children with serious illnesses and their families, free of charge. Through our 30 camps and programs around the world, SeriousFun reaches more than 150,000 children and families annually. Learn more at www.seriousfun.org

About us: The SeriousFun Support Center is located in East Norwalk CT. Our team of 30 staff members provides support services to SeriousFun camps and partnership programs around the world in order to ensure program and operational excellence, create awareness for the camps worldwide, and foster the continued growth of the Network as a whole.

SeriousFun is committed to fostering and ensuring a culture and environment that values the experiences, knowledge, and voices of all those who work to carry out our mission. We are continually focused on bringing our core principles of diversity, equality, and inclusion to life by embracing individual talents and experiences and encouraging ongoing learning and understanding.

The purpose of our job posting is to provide an overview of the responsibilities and qualifications needed for this role and what it’s like to work with us. If this sounds like the work you would like to do - and if we sound like a non-profit that you would like to work for - then please apply even if you don’t match 100% of the job description.

This position is perfect for you if:

You are an experienced, creative and strategic fundraising professional with excellent written communication and networking skills. This position requires an individual who is poised, able to communicate and work effectively with a portfolio of donors, comfortable with communicating/influencing with a variety of levels in companies and at SeriousFun, with a successful track record of managing relationships with a broad spectrum of individuals.

POSITION SUMMARY

Reporting to the Chief Development Officer, the Director, Major and Individual Giving is responsible for planning, budgeting, and raising funds in the major, planned, and individual giving portfolios. The Director will develop comprehensive annual plans for both areas that include strategies to identify, cultivate, solicit, and steward individual donors, to increase giving at all levels supported by a multi-channel, donor-centric approach. The Director will be responsible for managing a portfolio of Major Gift (MG) and Planned Gift (PG) prospects and donors and work to retain and upgrade their giving and involvement with SeriousFun Children’s Network.

The individual in this role will be required to work in our Norwalk, CT office 3 days per week, with the ability to work remotely 2 days per week.

Essential Responsibilities:

1) Major Gift Officer (60% of time)

1. Design and lead SeriousFun’s major gift and individual giving programs including the creation of an annual strategy, revenue, and expense
2. Responsible for setting and meeting annual revenue targets and for providing regular progress updates to executive leadership and the SeriousFun Board of Directors, as
3. Identify, research, and qualify Major Giving (MG) and Planned Giving (PG) prospects and donors that represent MG or PG
4. Engage senior leadership and the board in identifying, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of individual
5. Create and implement moves management (MM) plans for assigned MG and PG
6. Develop and present presentations, proposals, and reporting
7. Lead monthly MG prospect meetings with senior
8. Manage people, process, deadlines, and budget while adhering to the policies and procedures of the organization. Collaborate with Chief Executive Officer, Chief Development Officer, Advancement Committee, Development and Finance teams.
9. Establish and maintain appropriate files of biographical and financial information, as well as, funding priorities, application guidelines and deadline dates in Raisers Edge, our system of

 2) Individual Giving (Mass appeals and smaller gifts) (25% of time)

1. Oversee Senior Manager, Individual Giving, who is responsible for creating and executing plans to achieve annual fundraising targets via mass appeals (primarily via postal mail and email) and some personal donor contact.
2. Ensure an appropriate mix of Individual Giving strategies are implemented to acquire, retain, upgrade, and engage Individual Giving level donors.
3. Identify donors with capacity and propensity to give at higher levels, as prospects for Major

 3) Management / Collaboration (15% of time)

1. Serve as a member of the senior development team, working collaboratively with the Chief Development Officer, Director, Corporate Partnerships, and Director, Special Events to identify funding opportunities that meet the needs of Major and Individual Giving
2. Collaborate with other Development, Marketing/Communication, Program/Evaluation and Finance/Administrative staff to ensure coordination of
3. Participate in appropriate SeriousFun Director-level meetings to ensure cross departmental collaboration and knowledge sharing

Competencies:

• Job-Specific Skills, Knowledge and Ability: Demonstrating the application of job-specific technical skills, general knowledge, and/or abilities to add value
• Authority and Accountability: Providing direction of processes, projects, programs, and people. Delegating responsibilities and decisions appropriately. Being accountable for
• Critical Thinking and Decision Making: Making decisions and solving problems involving varied levels of complexity, ambiguity, and risk.
• Planning and Organizing: Defining tasks and milestones to achieve objectives and ensuring the optimal use of resources to meet those objectives.
• Interpersonal Skills: Building and maintaining productive work relationships, collaborating with others to achieve common goals, listening and communicating in a way that is inclusive, respectful and supportive of others.
• Adaptability: Adjusting one’s own behavior to work efficiently and effectively in light of new information, changing situations, and/or different environments.
• Prudence and Discretion: Using good judgement and taking great care in fulfilling one’s responsibilities and working with others; knowing when, what, how and to whom to communicate regarding sensitive information.
• Leadership: Setting a positive example, encouraging and supporting collaboration and teamwork, exhibiting humility, helping others achieve success, being honest and
• Management: Mentoring, coaching and providing feedback, direction, development opportunities, and positive reinforcement to employees. Inspiring commitment, providing vision, promoting and ensuring alignment with organizational goals and values.

Minimum Qualifications & Job Specific Skills

• Education: Bachelor's Degree (e.g. BA, BS) or equivalent
• Years of Relevant Work Experience: 7-10 years
• Ability to cultivate and maintain good interpersonal relationships across all levels of prospects, donors, and the
• Excellent influencing, negotiating, communicating, project-planning, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Preferred Qualifications & Job-Specific Skills

• Experience in working in NGO’s or other non-profit organizations, particularly those with federated/networked structures.
• 10+ years relevant work experience.
• Customer service / stakeholder management

Company Culture, Perks and Benefits – please read Our Philosophies here to get a sense of what’s important to us.

• Fun, respectful, and collaborative environment
• Professional Development opportunities (online and company facilitated offerings)
• Respect for your non-working time (in Eastern Standard Time) unless under special circumstances, we limit contacting staff on evenings and
• 30+ paid time off for you to enjoy as you see fit, including vacation days, holidays, opportunities to volunteer at a SeriousFun camp.
• Paid time off for family, medical, and civic service needs.
• Company sponsored retirement 403b plan after one year of continued
• New office located in a fully renovated mixed-used building with great onsite (free)
• Steps away from the East Norwalk train station

Company Culture, Perks and Benefits – please read Our Philosophies here to get a sense of what’s important to us.

• Fun, respectful, and collaborative environment
• Professional Development opportunities (online and company facilitated offerings)
• Respect for your non-working time (in Eastern Standard Time) unless under special circumstances, we limit contacting staff on evenings and
• 30+ paid time off for you to enjoy as you see fit, including vacation days, holidays, opportunities to volunteer at a SeriousFun camp.
• Paid time off for family, medical, and civic service needs.
• Company sponsored retirement 403b plan after one year of continued
• New office located in a fully renovated mixed-used building with great onsite (free)
• Steps away from the East Norwalk train station

Benefits are subject to change

Compensation is commensurate with experience and relevant labor market comparisons.