Development Director, San Francisco Bay Area

The High Level

The Development Director is part of a team of fundraisers and relationship builders working together to support Reading Partners' strategic growth plan. The Director's main roles are to create and implement the overarching regional fundraising strategy, lead cultivation and stewardship of many high-level external relationships, and lead, develop, and mobilize the region to achieve ambitious fundraising goals. The Director directly manages a Development Manager.

• Report directly to the Executive Director in SFBA, the Director creatively develops, leads and drives an ambitious fundraising strategy, board management in close partnership with the Executive Director, and new fundraising generation.
• As a trusted advisor and strategic thought partner to the ED, the Director is a senior leader in the region who catalyzes regional growth as a resource mobilizer, elevates the Reading Partners brand, as a fundraising and external relations expert, and as a savvy people leader and relationship builder.
• This role is a hybrid role responsible for conducting in-person meetings and site visits across the Bay Area. The Director will report into our Oakland or San Francisco offices 1-2 times per week for team meetings and events.

What You’ll Do

• Create, lead, and drive overarching fundraising strategy, operational plans, and all revenue activities to meet or exceed fundraising goals for the region.
• Maintain high renewal rates
• Maintain donor relationships and build new ones
• Maximize upgrade opportunities for individual and institutional gifts
• Increase revenue in all streams by 10% in FY26
• Identify strategies to generate prospects to support impact goals through 2027
• Own, develop, and implement innovative strategies to increase individual and institutional funding streams and identify prospective government funding opportunities.
• Deliver on a comprehensive development plan for FY26 with a private revenue goal of $2.9MM and support current local government fundraising sources $1.2M
• Personally manage a high-level portfolio of major individual donors, corporate partners, and foundations (existing and prospective), driving cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship to secure six- and seven-figure gifts and achieve personal fundraising targets.
• Drive Regional External Relations And Local Brand: Develop a comprehensive communications and public relations plan to help elevate the Reading Partners brand
• Build external relationships is essential for donor cultivation, prospect identification, and partnership opportunities in the education and literacy sectors.
• Oversee all external communications, ensuring persuasive and compelling messaging, campaigns, and alignment
• Oversee the strategy and support in cultivating and stewarding individual donors
• Manage relationships with institutional donors, including corporate and entertainment alignments
• Staff and provide strategic support to the board through management of Fundraising and Engagement, and Corporate committees
• Support and project manage our internal development team along with various external vendors and consults in planning and executing our annual fundraising event, Literacy is Liberation, raising $250,000 against a $60,000 budget
• Manage a development manager to meet ambitious goals by managing their own portfolio, and by executing excellent development operations.
• Provide performance management reviews, training, and ongoing support to direct reports
• Ensure systems and operations of the development department, optimizing efficiencies and skills
• Provide strategic advice and direction to the Executive Director to ensure the region’s success against goals and benchmarks

How You’ll Do It

• Strategy Development: Demonstrate an ability to devise innovative regional strategic fundraising plans, create action steps, and mobilize many stakeholders to achieve fundraising goals. Build sustainable plans to maximize market opportunities, meet goals and significantly grow funding. In addition, leverage systems, people, and resources to drive processes and track progress against goals to report on progress to senior leadership and board.
• Execute work in a highly organized, analytical, and data-informed manner
• Regions key advisor and expert on monthly cash flow, updating internal systems with 100% efficacy to ensure best approximate revenue forecasting
• Provide best in class cultivation and activation strategies to move all prospects through pipeline moves management from research/ prospecting to close
• External Relations & Communication: Demonstrate advanced experience in external relations, corporate alignment, board management and communication, and strategic stewardship and cultivation of donors. Deliver convincing messaging and demonstrate a genuine joy in connecting with donors, and all external stakeholders that reflects Reading Partners’ culture and values. Serve as an ambassador of Reading Partners. Quickly establish credibility when promoting Reading Partners to external audiences. Demonstrate a high degree of comfort and poise with donors, corporations, and prospects. Develop strategic corporate partnerships. Create compelling external materials and collateral. Engage press and secure earned media opportunities. Develop and lead on social media strategies and content generation.
• New Revenue Generation: Demonstrate a strong track record in driving development efforts in rapidly growing organizations, particularly in SFBA. Demonstrate ability to hit fundraising goals, generate new funding sources, and run sophisticated corporate and individual giving campaigns. Demonstrate cultivation success. Show a strong hunger and drive to not only drive strategy internally but also to heavily participate in external relationship building and fundraising.
• People Leadership: Collaborate with the SFBA leadership team, and lead an internal team to meet and exceed aggressive fundraising goals. Consistently coach, grow, and create stretch assignments to grow future fundraising leaders from within. In close partnership with the Executive Director, recruit, cultivate, and co-lead our 14-member Regional Advisory Board and 8-10 member Associate Board, ensuring achievement of annual give-get goals averaging $25,000 per member/board annually, while providing strategic support to Fundraising & Engagement and Corporate committees.