Director of Annual and Leadership Giving

Yale New Haven Health•Hamden, CT

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Annual and Leadership Giving plays a pivotal role in advancing the philanthropic mission of Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS). This individual is responsible for developing and executing strategic initiatives to identify, cultivate, solicit, and steward annual giving donors (friends, grateful patients, and employees) capable of contributing $5,000 or more. A key focus of the role is to elevate existing leadership annual giving donors to higher levels of support, thereby strengthening the pipeline for major and planned gifts. This position provides enterprisewide leadership, supervision, and strategic direction for annual and leadership giving staff across the health system, including Delivery Networks (DN) and Service Lines (SL). Additionally collaborating with the Yale School of Medicine (YSM), ensuring alignment with mutual strategic objectives. The ideal candidate is a highly motivated and results-driven fundraising professional with a strong commitment to donor cultivation. They will lead efforts to grow donor acquisition, increase donor upgrades, and expand membership in DN giving societies. Fundraising strategies will be multichannel, encompassing personal outreach, direct mail, email campaigns, phone solicitations, and in-person meetings.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree required
Minimum of ten (10) years' experience in healthcare fundraising, leadership and annual giving.
Minimum of five (5) years' experience leading and managing teams required.
Experience in an academic health system, medical school, Tier One research university, or complex nonprofit environment where philanthropy is a strategic imperative, with campaign experience preferred.
Successful experience in growing unrestricted fundraising, employee giving, grateful patient, and major gift pipelines.
Raisers Edge experience or other relevant CRM's
Proven ability to self-start and manage a team toward a set of strategic objectives.
Success in increasing awareness and preference of an organization and the importance of philanthropy.
Fluent in strategy and utilization of direct mail and moves management in furtherance of achieving specific objectives.
Ability to understand and align leadership, annual and employee solicitations with the strategic priorities of an institution.
Serve as trusted partner with colleagues to accomplish institutional strategic goals.
Ability to create an engaging, upbeat work environment with positivity and humor.
Comfortable navigating and solving high-ambiguity problems in collaboration with colleagues.

Nice To Haves

advanced degree preferred
campaign experience preferred

Responsibilities

Plan, implement, and evaluate strategies to obtain outright annual gifts through direct mail, digital and social strategies.
Collaborate with the YNHHS advancement communication colleagues to support content creation and collateral material for direct response, direct-solicitation, and social media appeals across the DN and SL.
Collaborate with the YNHHS advancement communication colleagues on a comprehensive stewardship effort that illustrates the impact of unrestricted support to the DN and SL.
Develop and collaborate with colleagues on unique donor experience and engagement initiatives annually.
Determine, track, and report on key performance analytics related to leadership and annual giving.
Work with DN annual giving staff to manage 12-month program calendar.
Prioritize competing demands in a complex, matrixed organization with overlapping deadlines.
Develop and orchestrate the implementation of a multi-year plan to increase unrestricted funding to the organization through leadership and annual giving.
Identify, qualify, cultivate, and solicit mid-level giving prospects to create and grow a pipeline of leadership annual giving donors.
Conduct at least 75 personal contacts annually, averaging 5-10 solicitations per month, with a minimum ask of $5,000 and a goal of closing 80% of gifts.
Strategic development and management of a portfolio with approximately 100 prospects and donors capable of making a minimum gift of $5,000.
Make donor referrals to major gift officers, as appropriate.
Provide timely post-visit follow-up, including tracking moves and solicitations and sending personalized follow-ups to individual prospects.
Collaborate with colleagues to help align our donors' philanthropic interests with various priorities across the health system.
Coordinate stewardship efforts with advancement communications and stewardship as needed.
Establish, execute and grow an employee giving program.
Supervise annual giving staff for content quality, workload, and achievement of project management objectives and deliverables.
Establish management practices and project plans for all direct mail solicitations, deliverables, benchmarks, and timelines.
Achieve a strong working knowledge of the System, DNs, SLs, YSM, and how philanthropy can significantly impact their respective goals.
Build collaborative and collegial relationships across YNHHS, DN, SL, and YSM development functions.
Participate in professional development to achieve both performance goals and career goals in pursuit of YNHHS becoming a workplace of choice among fundraising professionals.
Availability to travel in the region, work nights and weekends, as needed.
Perform other duties as assigned.