Major Gifts Officer

Boys & Girls Clubs of the Central Coast•Paso Robles, CA

7d•$80,000 - $93,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Boys & Girls Clubs of Mid Central Coast is seeking a relationship-driven fundraiser to build and manage relationships with individual donors and prospective supporters throughout San Luis Obispo and Northern Santa Barbara Counties. This is a frontline fundraising role with significant time spent in the community—meeting donors, opening new relationships, making thoughtful asks, and helping people connect their philanthropy to opportunities for local youth. The role involves joining a Resource Development team that is strengthening its focus on relationship-based fundraising and individual philanthropy. Reporting to the Chief Advancement Officer, the Major Gifts Officer will have meaningful ownership of an assigned donor portfolio and the opportunity to help grow a strong pipeline of annual, mid-level, major, and multi-year donors. The ideal candidate prefers meeting with donors over sitting behind a desk and is comfortable moving conversations toward meaningful financial commitments.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
Demonstrated experience asking individuals for significant financial commitments and successfully closing those asks in fundraising, sales, business development, or a comparable field.
Strong interpersonal, verbal, written, organizational, and relationship-management skills.
Ability to work effectively with general supervision and exercise sound independent judgment.
Ability and willingness to travel frequently throughout Northern Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties.
Availability for occasional evening and weekend donor and organizational events.
Genuinely enjoy getting to know people and building relationships over time.
Comfortable talking about money and asking directly for a financial commitment.
Experience personally soliciting and successfully closing gifts, sales, investments, or other significant commitments.
Ability to listen for what matters to someone and connect those interests to a meaningful opportunity.
Self-directed and comfortable managing multiple relationships, asks, deadlines, and next steps.
Judgment to know when to move a relationship forward—and when to take more time.
Persistent without being transactional.
Communicate with warmth, confidence, and professionalism.
Organized and disciplined about using a CRM and documenting donor activity.
Enjoy collaborating with organizational leaders, Board members, volunteers, and program staff while taking ownership of your own portfolio and results.

Nice To Haves

Five or more years of progressively responsible fundraising experience.
A demonstrated track record of personally soliciting and closing significant individual or major gifts.
Experience managing a donor or prospect portfolio and moves-management pipeline.
Experience using a donor CRM or constituent database.
Knowledge of the philanthropic communities of San Luis Obispo County and/or Northern Santa Barbara County.
Experience partnering with nonprofit Board members, volunteers, or community leaders in fundraising.

Responsibilities

Actively manage a portfolio of approximately 125 current donors and qualified prospects, developing personalized strategies to cultivate, solicit, steward, retain, and grow those relationships.
Build authentic, long-term relationships with donors and prospective supporters.
Personally cultivate and solicit annual, mid-level, major, and multi-year gifts.
Identify and qualify new prospects through referrals, community relationships, Board connections, events, research, and existing organizational networks.
Develop thoughtful strategies for each donor based on their interests, capacity, readiness, giving history, and connection to our mission.
Move donors intentionally through identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.
Create opportunities for donors to experience the mission through Club visits, tours, small gatherings, donor salons, and other meaningful engagement.
Strengthen donor retention, renewal, upgrades, recurring giving, and re-engagement of lapsed supporters.
Help grow the organization's individual-giving pipeline and identify donors with potential for major and planned gifts.
Partner with the Chief Advancement Officer, CEO, and Board members on high-level and strategic donor relationships and solicitations.
Lead the fundraising strategy and donor approach for year-end and other targeted individual-giving campaigns.
Use donor and pipeline data to prioritize opportunities, forecast revenue, and make informed fundraising decisions.
Use events as opportunities to cultivate and steward donors while partnering with others on event production and logistics.
Maintain a consistent presence throughout the communities served, including approximately 12–15 meaningful donor and prospect meetings each month, with the majority face-to-face.
Achieve 25–30 substantive one-to-one donor and prospect contacts per month through meetings, visits, calls, introductions, Club tours, and personalized follow-up.
Take initiative, follow through, know when a donor relationship is ready to move forward, and be comfortable making a clear ask.
Strengthen relationships, solicit and close gifts, retain and upgrade donors, and build a healthy pipeline for the future.