Major Gifts Director Job Description
Museums, zoos, cultural institutions, and nonprofits all rely on public donations for part and sometimes all of their funding. Charities, fundraising campaigns, non-monetary gifts, and volunteer work are all essential to keep your organizations open. Having someone like a Director of Major Gifts to help organize and strategize fundraising efforts could add a huge lifeline to your organization, allowing you to grow, build your memberships, and achieve your mission.
What is a Director of Major Gifts?
Directors of Major Gifts are expected to work closely with executives and senior staff members in order to cultivate engaging and successful fundraising campaigns and philanthropic efforts. Directors are responsible for creating and building fundraising strategies, gift planning, donor campaign efforts, donor and membership management, and reaching key donation metrics and annual earning goals with the goal of achieving institutional missions.
Typical Summary of Major Gift Director Position
Candidates in this position will be expected to integrate new donor strategies and fundraising campaigns with existing/recurring donors, new donors, and potential future donors. You will create relationships with other organizations and partnerships in our space and cultivate relationships with valuable donors. One of the main goals will be to implement these strategies in order to consistently drive and diversify revenue for the short and long-term.
These individuals will be critical thinkers, excellent communicators, and seamless multi-taskers who can meet both immediate needs and have the bird’s-eye view to reach long-term and strategic goals. Part of their strategic responsibilities will be to create a robust major gifts program and culture, improve the donor experience, meet key metrics, plan and organize annual events, oversee other departments, and work directly with high-value donors and partners to drive revenue and build partnerships.
Main Duties and Responsibilities of a Major Gift Director
Some of the main duties and responsibilities of a Major Gift Director include:
- Responsible for developing a major gift program that will ensure consistent growth while also being relevant to the mission statement of the cultural institution.
- Manage and oversee major gifts programs to ensure growth and long-term success.
- Oversee a team of gift leaders and officers to ensure that all institutional benchmarks, KPIs, organizational culture, and qualitative standards are being met.
- Create and execute short and long-term strategies to cultivate gift engagement, participation, cultural excitement, and solicitations.
- Plan career and volunteer opportunities, guest visits, and events for current and potential donors to increase engagement.
- Reach out to local community members to cultivate relationships and co-create outreach events.
- Create a common language in order to better communicate the goals and purpose of major gifts within and outside the organization.
- Attend and actively participate in administrative level meetings in order to communicate strategies and implement any senior-made changes.
- Develop and report annual fundraising plans, campaigns, and donor solidifications.
- Use in-house technologies in order to track and report on donor contacts and relevant partnerships.
- Team up with other cultural, artistic, and educational organizations in the area to cultivate events and engagement for nonprofit/cultural institution needs.
Skills, Abilities and previous experience for a Director of Major Gifts
You want your Director of Major Gifts to have the following set of skills and experiences:
- Bachelor’s degree in communication, business, public relations, or related field with 7+ years of experience in fundraising or donor management positions. Or a Master’s degree in a related field with 3-5 years experience.
- Proven history and track record working with marketing, sales, and finance.
- Proven leadership and team management experiences.
- Deep and studied understanding of fundraising, donor campaigns, and local/national tax-related policies surrounding fundraising.
- Excellent communication skills.
- Is able to multitask, work under pressure, and meet demanding deadlines.
- Your candidate should be goal oriented and driven to achieve goals in a self-sufficient manner.
- Ability to read, analyze, and present data in a simple and understandable manner.
- Ability to lead, organize, and delegate team members when necessary.
Specific Goals and targets for donor relations
Major gift directors have a primary goal of identifying and acquiring donors that will meet your organization’s donor campaign and revenue goals. Along with managing a team, planning events, and providing reports to other administrative level members of your organization, gift directors need to be the primary figures in building donors and building a robust donor strategy.
ACME Can Help Your Major Gift Directors and Organization Thrive
Part of the challenge with creating a comprehensive donor portfolio and strategy is the ability to parse through hundreds or thousands of current and potential donors. With the amount of data available to cultural institutions and nonprofits, it takes a cutting-edge solution to help them make sense of that data and create a donor-acquisition strategy that can translate to increased revenue.
This is where ACME Ticketing’s membership management features, stand-alone donation page, and advanced CRM can make donor management easy. Keep track of current and potential donors, market to new audiences, acquire donations, and reach your annual goals with ease.
Try the demo to see how ACME can help you grow donations today.