Chief Development Officer (Chicago / Hybrid)

Feeding America • Chicago, IL

5d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Chief Development Officer (CDO) serves as lead strategist and enterprise leader accountable for delivering sustained, year-over-year philanthropic revenue growth (currently $225–$250M annually) through best-in-class, disciplined fundraising practices and integrated revenue strategy in fulfilling Feeding America’s mission and strategic goals. The CDO is responsible for embedding a vibrant, organization-wide culture of philanthropy and stewardship that actively engages the staff and the Board as committed partners in philanthropy.

The CDO leads execution of all revenue generating enterprises (in collaboration with direct marketing) and sets clear performance expectations for donor acquisition, increased giving among existing donors, and reduced donor attrition through rigorous, data-driven donor prospecting, segmentation, moves management, and stewardship across all teams and leaders. The CDO directs development and implementation of strategies to grow multi-faceted strategic partnerships, cultivate high-capacity, consistent, transformational donors, expand markets and engage the Feeding America Board in resource development.

The CDO plays a critical role in supporting network-wide fundraising capacity building and oversees the development and maintenance of best-in-class systems and standards, including but not limited to revenue management and forecasting, analytics and reporting, donor stewardship and cultivation, employee engagement, prospect research, and donor recognition. They hold leaders accountable for disciplined application and continuous improvement and will serve as a member of Feeding America’s Executive Team, responsible for aligning investment decisions (including acquisition and capacity investments) to measurable return and sustainable enterprise growth.

Requirements

• Visionary, metrics-driven fundraiser with a proven track record building transformational relationships and delivering sustained year-over-year revenue growth through disciplined best practices, strong stewardship, and accountable performance management
• Broad and deep fundraising experience with proven ability to secure multi-million, multi-year, multi-faceted corporate/cause marketing partnerships, high-net-worth individuals, and foundations, and to build scalable pipelines with rigorous prospecting and stewardship
• Experience in a complex, networked, or federated environment where collaboration, co-creation, and consistent standards are critical success factors
• Experience cultivating transformational principal gifts and partnerships including the development and execution of highly-customized donor cultivation strategies, solicitation approaches and donor stewardship and leveraging these gifts for maximum impact through effective planning and project management
• Ability to elicit, understand and synthesize complex information and translate that information into a case for support that motivates constituents to give
• A track record of effective leadership in active listening, relationship building and thoughtfully stewarding the highest-level corporate and foundation executives, high-net worth individuals, and other key influencers
• Accomplished, compelling, public speaker with demonstrated experience engaging audiences of varying sizes in formal and informal settings and directing the execution and planning of events and activities to engage donors
• Fosters an Enterprise Mindset
• Fosters an Open and Supportive Environment
• Leads with Accountability
• Collaborates Internally and Externally
• Focuses on People and Teams
• Manages Organization and Business Complexity
• Communicates with Impact and Influence

Responsibilities

• Expanding the top of the donor pyramid by strengthening stewardship, increasing in-person engagement, and accelerating movement of donors into top-tier giving
• Sustaining a strong corporate fundraising engine while building a more robust and diversified individual giving pipeline, including major and planned gifts
• Building trust and alignment with local food banks, ensuring proactive coordination on donor strategy and maximizing the “Better Together” approach to fundraising
• Establishing clear KPIs, strengthening forecasting and pipeline management, and driving consistent execution across teams to improve fundraising outcomes
• Providing strong people leadership to a talented but process-heavy organization, reinforcing accountability, ownership, and a culture of excellence
• Driving results with a newly appointed CEO, Denis McDonough, supporting his first year in relationship-building, goal-setting, and storytelling
• Capitalizing on CRM investments and large-scale donor data to enable more sophisticated segmentation, predictive insights, and donor strategies
• Partnering closely across marketing, supply chain, and other functions to deliver more coordinated, multi-channel fundraising strategies

Benefits

• transparent salary ranges
• clearly defined practices for how our team, including new hire salary offers, moves through these ranges
• opportunity to progress through salary ranges via regular merit increases and step promotions

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Education Level: No Education Listed