Director of Major Gifts - Khoury College

About The Opportunity

Job Summary

The Director of Major Gifts, Khoury College, is the content specialist responsible for building and executing Khoury College’s fundraising strategy. Reporting to the Executive Director, Interdisciplinary Advancement, this role works with faculty at the College and Advancement staff across the university to discover, identify, and build relationships with prospective donors, developing strategies for their cultivation and soliciting gifts.

Key Responsibilities & Accountabilities

• Lead the major gifts fundraising effort and serve as the college’s content expert for Advancement.

• Cultivate, solicit, and build relationships with alumni, parents, and friends.

• Strategize with faculty and colleagues on next steps for prospects across the college and disciplines.

• Solicit gifts in the $100K–$1M+ range.

• Advise faculty, fundraising colleagues, and administrators on alumni and parent areas of interest.

• Partner with Advancement teams, including corporate and foundation relations, leadership giving, international and regional giving, gift planning, and family philanthropy, to develop interdisciplinary donor strategies.

• Travel as needed to build relationships with volunteers, prospects, and donors.

• Discover new prospects and build a pipeline to support major gift fundraising.

• Manage a portfolio of approximately 120+ prospects.

• Establish region-based plans for cultivating and soliciting alumni and parents in targeted areas nationally.

• Engage faculty strategically with prospects and maintain ongoing correspondence.

• Keep leadership and stakeholders informed of funding opportunities and trends.

• Travel to strategically identified regions to support prospect identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.

• Achieve annual fundraising and activity metrics set by the Executive Director.

• Maintain a high-quality development process for active alumni, parent, and friend prospects and donors.

• Create call reports and maintain database records using Development Office systems (Ascend).

• Ensure data integrity of the prospect portfolio.

• Prepare monthly prospect progress reports for the Executive Director.

• Partner with the Stewardship team to ensure donors are appropriately recognized and supported.

Required Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree

• 6–8 years of professional experience, including at least 5 years of demonstrated success in soliciting and closing six- and seven-figure gifts in support of a nonprofit institution

• Demonstrated experience cultivating and soliciting alumni, parents, and friends, and maintaining positive donor relationships

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to build relationships with internal and external stakeholders

• Ability to work independently and collaboratively within a university Advancement team

• Data- and metric-driven mindset

• Appreciation and understanding of the mission of Northeastern University

• Ability to travel overnight and work evenings and weekends as needed

Preferred

• Familiarity with the technology industry

• STEM or computer science-related educational background