Major Gifts Officer

About the role

The Major Gifts Officer (MGO) builds meaningful, strategic relationships to identify, cultivate, solicit, and steward individual major donors, charitable trusts, and family foundations. This role strategically manages all fundraising activities for an assigned portfolio of donors and prospects, helping the organization meet annual revenue goals that support strategic initiatives and long-term sustainability. The MGO embodies and actively reflects the College Fund’s core values of respect, reciprocity, reasoning, relationships, and responsibility, working collaboratively within Resource Development and across departments.

Responsibilities

• Builds strategic relationships with donors in an assigned fundraising portfolio of up to 150 donors to meet individual and organizational goals.
• Develops strong, personal, productive relationships with people interested in supporting the College Fund’s mission.
• Creates and maintains strategic, ongoing action plans for every donor in the portfolio.
• Tracks donor status and modifies stewardship or cultivation plans as needed.
• Enters all donor information and actions into the donor database.
• Monitors fundraising goals and performance metrics, consistently meeting or exceeding individual targets.
• Makes data-driven decisions to manage the portfolio, focusing on fundraising goals, organizational objectives, and return on investment.
• Develops donation-focused relationships with current and prospective donors through frequent and consistent communication.
• Engages in creative and frequent interactions with donors, ensuring appropriate follow-up based on correspondence.
• Provides information through diverse and strategic touchpoints.
• Finalizes reporting documents and manages the presentation of gift reports to donors.
• Strengthens and develops relationships with regional stakeholders.
• Implements innovative solutions to optimize fundraising potential and shares ideas with the Resource Development team.
• Maintains accurate recordkeeping in organization databases, including donor activities, pledges, gift agreements, and reporting deadlines.
• Collaborates with internal teams to support scholarship funding alignment and donor intent documentation.
• Supports grant management processes in partnership with the grantwriting team, including coordination of proposals and reports.
• Completes other duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work well within a diverse team and across departments.
• Flexibility to adapt to a fast-paced and dynamic work environment.
• Experience managing a fundraising portfolio, organizing deadlines, and meeting financial goals.
• Demonstrated success in closing major gifts ranging from $10,000 to $1,000,000+ from individuals, corporations, and foundations.
• Familiarity with using analytics to drive major donor relationships.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite.
• Knowledge of donor relational database software.
• Knowledge of and/or interest in learning about American Indian education.
• Familiarity with the national philanthropic sector and trends within philanthropy.
• Ability to work respectfully across differences in identity, background, and lived experience.
• Thrives in a fast-paced work environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 4+ years of major gift fundraising experience or 7+ years of related experience in fundraising, sales, or relationship management.

Work Environment

• Professional office setting.
• Significant air and car travel required.
• Frequent keyboarding.