About the Opportunity
JOB SUMMARY
The Assistant Director of Major Gifts, Family Philanthropy Program reports to the Sr. Associate/Associate Director, Family Philanthropy Program. They are responsible for the creation and implementation of strategic fundraising initiatives that support the Family Philanthropy Program engaging parents and families who have the capacity to make significant gifts to the institution in support of a wide range of priorities across the university.
The Assistant Director will:
- Manage a portfolio of 125 parents with a focus on soliciting leadership and major gifts of $100K+
- Work with SAD/Associate Director and Development Research to identify new parent prospects
- Make discovery and qualification calls, establish cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship strategies
- Perform a minimum of 120+ in-person and virtual meetings maintaining a regular travel schedule to visit identified parent prospects, and meet or exceed annual strategic goals
- Support fundraising programming, specifically the Family Fellows
- Create and coordinate fundraising activities related to key programming and initiatives, recruit and steward volunteer leaders, and enhance program visibility
- Communicate efforts and collaborate with college and program content experts in the Advancement division
- Recommend and implement new initiatives that will provide meaningful and substantive engagement opportunities for parent and family prospects
Responsibilities include:
Parent and Family Engagement
• Identify, qualify, visit, and solicit an assigned pool of approximately 125 non-alumni parents and families.
• Assess their interest in the university and their capacity to make major and principal gifts.
• Establish, cultivate and maintain a substantive relationship with major gift rated parents regionally as assigned.
• Discover, cultivate and solicit parent and family prospects. Actively solicit at $100k+ major gifts level.
• Travel as needed to qualify new parent and family prospects and to build relationships with existing parent prospects and donors.
• Achieve a high level of engagement and financial support from these parents.
• Utilize Advancement data management system (Ascend) to log activity, create call reports and progress reports, and maintain data integrity of parent prospect portfolio. Create reports that reflect parent giving activity and use them to support the launching of new initiatives.
Program and Content Sharing for the Global University
• Develop and disseminate parent and family programming to college and program content partners.
•Work within geographic territories with college and program partners to develop opportunities and solicitations that benefit the global university system, as well as colleges and programs when possible.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s Degree required; Master’s preferred;
- Past experience working within a Family Philanthropy program preferred
- 2-4 years of professional experience with preferably at least 2 years of demonstrated success in soliciting and closing major gifts in support of a non-profit institution
- Demonstrated experience cultivating and soliciting, alumni, parents, and friends, and maintaining positive relationships with donors
- Superior communication skills—highly collaborative and entrepreneurial in approach and possessing interpersonal skills necessary for building relationships with various university constituents, both internal and external
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively as a member of the Northeastern University Advancement team
- Data- and metric-driven mindset
- An appreciation and understanding of the mission of Northeastern University
- Overnight travel and some evening and weekend work required
Position Type
Advancement
Additional Information
Northeastern University considers factors such as candidate work experience, education and skills when extending an offer.
Northeastern has a comprehensive benefits package for benefit eligible employees. This includes medical, vision, dental, paid time off, tuition assistance, wellness & life, retirement- as well as commuting & transportation. Visit https://hr.northeastern.edu/benefits/ for more information.
All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
