Director, Annual & Leadership Giving

Commemorative Air Force•Dallas, TX

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director, Annual & Leadership Giving is a frontline fundraising professional responsible for identifying, qualifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding donors with the potential to make annual gifts of $5,000 to $25,000 in support of the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) and the Henry B. Tippie National Aviation Education Center (NAEC). Reporting to the Chief Development Officer, the Director will build and manage a portfolio of annual and leadership giving prospects, with a significant portion of the portfolio developed by identifying promising donors from the organization's direct response fundraising program and other constituent audiences. The Director will engage donors personally and develop individualized strategies designed to deepen their connection to the mission and increase their philanthropic support. The goal is to move qualified prospects from transactional or lower-level giving into meaningful, relationship-based annual gifts of $5,000 to $25,000. Leadership annual giving represents a critical source of sustainable philanthropic support for CAF and NAEC and serves as an important bridge between broad-based annual giving and major philanthropy. The Director will be responsible for strengthening this donor community while developing a consistent pipeline of future major and planned giving prospects. The successful candidate will be an entrepreneurial and relationship-focused fundraiser who enjoys discovering donor potential, building relationships, and personally asking for financial support. This individual will combine strong interpersonal skills with a disciplined, data-informed approach to prospect qualification and portfolio management.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
Minimum of five years of progressively responsible fundraising, development, sales, relationship management, or comparable experience.
Demonstrated success developing relationships with donors, clients, or other external stakeholders.
Experience personally soliciting and closing philanthropic gifts or comparable financial commitments.
Experience managing a portfolio of donors, prospects, clients, or comparable relationships.
Demonstrated ability to identify and qualify prospective donors and develop relationships that result in increased financial support.
Understanding of annual and leadership giving, donor cultivation, solicitation, stewardship, retention, and upgrade strategies.
Strong interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to establish meaningful relationships with individuals from diverse backgrounds.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Strong organizational and project-management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities and deadlines.
Ability to work independently, initiate donor outreach, and take ownership of fundraising goals while contributing effectively to a collaborative team.
Experience using a fundraising CRM or comparable constituent relationship management system.
Ability to analyze donor information and giving behavior and translate data into actionable fundraising strategies.
Ability and willingness to travel and attend occasional evening and weekend donor and organizational events.

Nice To Haves

Experience managing a leadership annual giving, mid-level giving, or similar donor portfolio.
Demonstrated success securing gifts in the $5,000–$25,000 range.
Experience qualifying donors from direct response, annual giving, membership, or other broad-based constituent programs.
Experience developing annual giving societies or donor recognition programs.
Experience with Raiser’s Edge and familiarity with Raiser’s Edge NXT.
Experience with moves management and donor qualification practices.
Experience identifying and transitioning donors into major or planned giving programs.
Experience soliciting event sponsorships.
Experience working within a national, chapter-based, membership, museum, education, aviation, military heritage, or other mission-driven organization.
CFRE certification or interest in pursuing professional fundraising credentials.

Responsibilities

Build a portfolio of prospective annual and leadership donors primarily through the identification and qualification of donors emerging from the organization's direct response fundraising program and other constituent audiences.
Qualify prospects through personal outreach, discovery conversations, research, and engagement to determine philanthropic interests, capacity, and inclination.
Build and manage a portfolio of approximately 125–175 qualified donors and prospects with the potential to make annual gifts of $5,000 to $25,000.
Develop individualized strategies for the cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of assigned donors and prospects.
Personally solicit donors for annual gifts within the $5,000–$25,000 leadership giving range.
Develop strategies to grow the number of donors making annual gifts of $5,000 to $25,000.
Strengthen leadership annual giving as a core source of sustainable philanthropic revenue for CAF and NAEC.
Use the organization's direct response donor base as a primary source for identifying prospective leadership annual giving donors.
Develop intentional strategies for moving qualified direct response donors from transactional giving into personalized cultivation and relationship-based fundraising.
Develop personalized stewardship strategies that strengthen relationships and demonstrate the impact of donor support.
Ensure assigned donors receive timely, meaningful, and appropriate stewardship.
Identify recurring and long-term annual donors who demonstrate potential for leadership-level philanthropic support.
Identify event sponsorship opportunities among assigned donors, prospects, members, and appropriate business relationships.
Solicit individual and business prospects for sponsorships that fall within or complement the Director's leadership giving portfolio.
Work closely with the Chief Development Officer to establish leadership giving priorities, portfolio goals, revenue expectations, and donor strategies.
Collaborate with the Director of Institutional Giving & Strategic Partnerships to coordinate individual, corporate, foundation, and sponsorship relationships when appropriate.
Partner with the Manager, Development Operations and Gift Administration to ensure effective gift administration, acknowledgment, and stewardship processes.
Work with the Database Administrator on prospect identification, portfolio management, donor segmentation, reporting, prospect screening, and fundraising analytics.
Work with the Development Coordinator on donor communications, meetings, stewardship activities, events, and fundraising projects.
Collaborate with Membership to identify CAF members with potential for deeper philanthropic engagement.
Coordinate with Marketing, Education, Events, Units, and other organizational teams to develop meaningful donor engagement opportunities.
Support the Chief Development Officer in engaging Board members, Development Committee members, senior leadership, and other volunteers in donor cultivation and solicitation.
Establish annual portfolio revenue and activity goals in collaboration with the Chief Development Officer.
Monitor progress toward leadership giving revenue and portfolio goals.
Track the number and value of qualified prospects entering the portfolio.
Monitor donor retention, renewal, upgrades, solicitations, and movement into the $5,000–$25,000 leadership giving range.
Track movement of qualified donors into major and planned giving pipelines.
Use fundraising data to identify trends and recommend adjustments to strategy.
Participate in regular Development team portfolio and pipeline reviews.
Ensure donor interactions, proposals, solicitations, and strategies are documented accurately and promptly in Raiser’s Edge.