The Director of Leadership Annual Giving directs and manages the frontline Annual Giving team at the University of Chicago Law School, working to develop and manage strategies for a coordinated and comprehensive program of annual giving fundraising activities. The individual in this position will participate in the development of fundraising strategies to secure annual gifts, leadership annual gifts, and major gifts from individual donors (both for their own prospect pool, which will include major gift prospects, as well as the prospects managed by Annual Giving team) and will also manage the overall prospect pool for the Annual Giving team. Responsibilities include oversight of the Reunion Giving program as well as other annual giving initiatives including the Law Firm Challenge. This position reports to the Law School’s Associate Dean for External Affairs.
Responsibilities
- Manages the Law School’s reunion giving program, including management and development of two professional staff members. Develops and oversees the strategy and staff member responsible for the Law Firm Challenge program, a peer-to-peer fundraising program that encourages consistent annual giving by alumni at over sixty law firms. Ensures the success of this program as a key pipeline development initiative for the Law School.
- Works with the Senior Director of Annual Giving and Operations and the Associate Dean for External Affairs to strategically plan and implement a program of activities to identify, solicit, and retain institution-wide donors. Also works with this team to develop and meet annual giving goals.
- Collaborates with the Director of Major Gifts and Major Gifts team on strategies to cultivate prospect development and build the major gifts pipeline.
- Personally manages a portfolio of donors with the capacity to make individual leadership annual gifts and/or major gifts in the greater Chicago area and other regions.
- Collaborates with other departments at the Law School on managing sponsorship opportunities.
- Manages, supports, and develops annual giving fundraisers and staff and directs the sharing of resources, ideas, and information to accomplish goals requiring cross functional collaboration. Participates in the formation of annual giving objectives, goals, and strategies. Collaborates with communications staff to design annual, strategic communications, solicitations, create newsletters, senior class campaign materials, volunteer and staff training presentations, and marketing plans tailored to specific audiences in order to maximize fundraising effectiveness, annual support and engagement from these audiences.
- Works closely with annual giving, University leadership, faculty and staff across campus to synthesize the interests and philanthropic capabilities of alumni and friends of the University in order to increase the level of giving and the number of annual donors to the University.
- Performs other related work as needed.
Minimum Qualifications
Education:
Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.
Work Experience:
Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 7+ years of work experience in a related job discipline.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience:
- A minimum of four years of professional work experience in nonprofit management, development, alumni relations, marketing, public relations or similar work experience strongly preferred.
- Previous supervisory experience strongly preferred with a track record of identifying and developing team members.
- A minimum of two years annual giving program management strongly preferred.
- Proven record of accomplishment in solicitations and cultivation of prospective donors strongly preferred.
- A minimum of one year of experience of major gift work strongly preferred.
Preferred Competencies
- Ability to interact with high-level donors, a general level of comfort when dealing with high net-worth individuals, and an ability to maintain discretion and high levels of confidentiality when dealing with significant benefactors.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including strong writing and presentation skills.
- Ability to work collaboratively with colleagues in a team environment, but also to manage a team successfully without continuous oversight.
- A high level of competence with personal computers and software programs—especially Microsoft Office—for retrieving, organizing and researching appropriate donor/prospect information, as well as data gathering and manipulation.
- Demonstrated knowledge of, or ability to learn quickly, the internal workings of the University as well as the technology tools available to the Law School through the University Office of Alumni Relations and Development, including Phoenix, the University’s Donor Relationship Management System.
- Ability and willingness to quickly learn the Law School and the University’s history, mission, demographics, faculty, current programs, departments, etc., as well as the University culture to be able to persuasively articulate how the University of Chicago and the Law School distinguishes itself from peer institutions.
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