Development Director

About the role

The Development Director (DD) is part of a team of fundraisers and relationship builders, working across regions to support Reading Partners’ strategic plan. The DD will lead fundraising and development efforts for our Minnesota and Los Angeles, California sites.

Responsibilities

• Create and implement the overarching regional fundraising strategy, operational plans, and all revenue activities to meet or exceed the fundraising goal for the Minnesota and Los Angeles region.
• Manage a portfolio of existing and new foundation, corporate, and individual relationships to meet annual fundraising goals by the end of the fiscal year.
• Maintain, renew, and upgrade current portfolio of donors.
• Own, develop, and implement innovative strategies to increase support from new funding streams.
• Identify strategies to generate prospects to support impact goals through 2027.
• Increase revenue in all streams by 15% and deliver on a comprehensive development plan for FY27 with a revenue goal of $1,977,000 for Minnesota and $1,625,000 for Los Angeles.
• Provide strategic advice and direction to the Executive Directors to ensure the region’s success against goals and benchmarks.
• Drive board engagement, external relations, and organizational brand awareness within portfolio.
• Oversee all external communications, ensuring persuasive and compelling messaging, campaigns, and alignment.
• Develop high-quality, mission-aligned email and social media content to steward donors and grow brand awareness.
• Oversee the strategy and support in cultivating and stewarding individual donors.
• Manage relationships with institutional donors and corporate partners.
• Steward local fundraising events in partnership with Executive Directors and local team members.
• Build and support a highly invested board in local regions.
• Manage annual Board fundraising planning and goal achievement for each region in the portfolio.
• Partner with the National Development Operations team to achieve high levels of data integrity, customer service, and communication.
• Project manage all event and solicitation logistics, including annual fundraising event and annual appeal.
• Oversee development systems and track progress against goals in Salesforce.
• Produce reports and data to drive streamlined communication.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of increasing responsibility in a development or related role.
• Experience fundraising and building funder pipelines across multiple geographies, including major markets on the West Coast and in the Midwest.
• Track record of building strong and productive relationships with regional/national philanthropic organizations and individual donors from a remote location.
• Demonstrated experience in planning, leading, and managing development projects to achieve desired outcomes, and tracking and reporting on progress to leaders.
• Skilled at relationship development within the fundraising community, among peers, and internal/external stakeholders.
• A high degree of comfort with Salesforce or other fundraising databases.
• Experience managing virtual and in-person fundraising events.
• An exceptional and persuasive communicator in written and verbal communication.
• Experience in fundraising marketing and/or campaign communications.
• Hold a Bachelor’s degree and/or equivalent experience.