Development Director

The Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) seeks a development director with at least 10 years of development experience to join our team. The development director will work with colleagues across DREDF to increase financial support for our work defending and promoting disability civil and human rights.

DREDF is a leading national civil rights law and policy center directed by disabled people and parents who have children with disabilities. Our mission is to advance the civil and human rights of people with disabilities through legal advocacy, training, education, and public policy and legislative development. DREDF has 20 staff, including the development director position. The organization has a $2.8 million annual budget.

This position offers a wonderful opportunity to take a strong and well-established organization to a new level.

Position Overview

The development director works with our leadership team and reports directly to the executive director. The development director will manage all activities that raise funds for DREDF, with a focus on strengthening existing donor relations and substantially increasing the number of individual supporters. The development director leads our annual fundraising plan that includes fundraising goals and targets for grant proposals, donation appeals, and other campaigns. This is a hybrid position requiring 2-3 days in-person at our Berkeley office.

Job Responsibilities Individual Gifts

• Identify, develop, and implement strategies to cultivate new donors, including law firms and individuals in the legal community
• Meet with donors and potential donors to create a group of enthusiastic supporters
• Train and prepare Leadership Team Members and the Board of Directors for donor meetings

Foundation and Other Institutional Gifts

• Identify new foundation and other institutional support
• Draft grant proposals and reports in collaboration with colleagues and make sure that all proposal and reporting deadlines are met

Major Gifts (Annual), Workplace, and Year End Campaigns

• Design and run our year end, workplace, and major gift campaigns
• Develop a plan to increase the revenue from our year-end giving campaign

Planned Giving

• Develop and implement strategies for a planned giving campaign

Communications

With a team including the executive director, communications director, and other program staff:

• Collaborate to produce fundraising and marketing materials
• Assist with developing content for the DREDF website, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media
• Develop messages, materials, and explanations of our work used in our development campaigns, including website fundraising pages, and communications with our donors

Special Events

• Plan and direct our annual fundraising event
• Secure financial support in the form of corporate and individual contributions and sponsorships, and in-kind donations

Administration

• Gift Recording and Acknowledgement: assure recording, tracking, and reporting of gifts from donors. Work with support staff to maintain accurate and current data files, including giving histories, and donor profiles
• Reporting: produce reports for annual audits and verify reconciliation of funds with our accounting department

Qualifications

We want to find the best candidate for the job, and want to hear from candidates with diverse lived experiences. We encourage you to apply, even if you don’t believe you meet every one of our qualifications described.

• Commitment to disability civil and human rights
• Minimum of ten years of fundraising experience
• Successful grant writing and reporting experience
• Proven track record of cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding various donor constituencies (e.g., individuals, foundations, and special event donors)
• Demonstrated ability to write clearly and persuasively
• Great communications skills
• Organizational and time management skills
• Find pleasure in the details
• Computer proficiency in MS Office and donor management databases, research databases, and social media
• Willing to work the occasional night and weekends for fundraising events
• Willingness to travel on occasion

 

Full-time salary is in the range of $115,000 – $130,000, dependent on experience. For example, the salary of a person with ten years of experience would be $115,000, and the salary for a person with 15 years of experience would be $125,000.

Currently, for employees working 50% time or more, DREDF pays 80% of medical and 100% of dental and vision insurance for employees and their dependents. Other benefits include paid vacation (full-time employees accrue 21 days a year), sick leave (full-time employees accrue 15 days), paid holidays (15 days in the first year and two more days after one year of employment). Holiday, vacation, and sick leave accrual is pro-rated based on FTE. We offer a 403(b) retirement plan with savings matched at 5% after one year, and a Flexible Spending Account.