VP of Philanthropy

About the role

The Vice President of Philanthropy owns individual giving and engagement at Scholars of Finance — the strategy, the relationships, the team, and the results. This is a builder’s role: you will turn a founder-led fundraising and engagement effort into a durable, scalable institution, while personally carrying a portfolio of high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth donors and leading the team that grows that engine over time. You will advise leaders on how they invest their time, talent, and treasure. You build the motion for engaging hundreds of leaders and volunteers and funders. You will own donor relationships end-to-end, deploying our CEO and Board as closing assets on your timeline.

Responsibilities

• Grow annual revenue from $2.5M to $10M+ by 2030, building the individual-giving engine that empowers us to deepen our impact, grow our team, and scale our mission to transform finance.
• Inspire hundreds of high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals across private equity, venture capital, investment banking, asset management, and beyond to invest their time, talent, and treasure in our mission.
• Turn a founder-led fundraising and volunteer engagement effort into a durable, scalable institution — with the team, systems, and discipline to compound results year over year.
• Scale the only organization in the world developing purpose-driven, principled future finance leaders with the character to steward the world's capital for good.
• Be a member of the Executive Team of this organization, build our culture, and steer us toward achieving our mission to transform finance.
• Set the vision, goals, and operating cadence for individual fundraising and volunteer engagement, aligned to strategy, revenue, and program outcomes.
• Own the number — the pipeline, the forecast, and the path to it — steering fundraising and volunteer engagement efforts day to day across our organization.
• Build and run the fundraising operating system (KPIs, dashboards, meeting rhythms, pipeline reviews) that gives leadership a clear view of performance and projections.
• Manage budget and resourcing, anticipating seasonal shifts in donor activity and adjusting plans accordingly.
• Take on and coach two direct reports, one fundraiser and one revenue operations manager, and strengthen their performance and output.
• Build, coach, and develop a high-performing fundraising team that multiplies our collective velocity rather than carrying it alone.
• Establish the systems, cadence, and accountability that enable individual giving and engagement to grow nonlinearly as the team expands.
• Build a culture of trust, ownership, and continuous improvement among the people you lead — across both fundraisers and operations team members.
• Work closely with Partnership, Events and Marketing team members to ensure a strong donor and volunteer experience, and establish clear unified forecasting.
• Bring in the CEO and Board strategically to help close 6- and 7-figure gifts on your timeline, deliberately and proactively utilizing leaders to drive your pipeline.
• Personally identify, cultivate, solicit, and steward a portfolio of HNW and UHNW donors, building authentic relationships that inspire significant, sustained support.
• Grow existing donors — deepening relationships and inspiring them to expand their commitment to our mission over time.
• Represent SOF with credibility and warmth in high-stakes donor settings, holding the confidence of sophisticated, affluent leaders.
• Develop the systems and processes that enable us to engage hundreds, and eventually thousands, of volunteers (via mentoring, speaking, advising, etc.) so we can fulfill our programs and build deep relationships with our volunteer community.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of relevant experience in nonprofit fundraising, major gifts, or philanthropy linked to finance, education, leadership development, or mission-driven organizations.
• 3+ years building, managing, and developing high-performing teams across multiple workstreams and timelines.
• Evidence of sourcing, closing, and stewarding major gifts and ownership of a significant relationship portfolio — and the appetite to build the function that scales it.
• Proven experience building systems, teams, processes, stewarding hundreds of relationships of various types (e.g., donating, volunteering, advising).
• Ownership and execution in fast-moving, deadline-driven, high-empowerment environments — you create structure and don't wait to be handed a playbook.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication. You write with precision and speed and serve as a credible, compelling face of the organization with affluent leaders.
• Proven ability to set and execute a fundraising or revenue strategy with clear goals, data-driven decisions, and measurable outcomes.
• Proven comfort with working on a fully-remote team, and the ability to travel up to 10-20% of the time for off-sites and donor meetings.
• Experience building and running an operating cadence that drives execution: priorities, metrics, accountability, and adaptation.
• Ability to lead through others across full-time staff, interns, contractors, and senior stakeholders.
• Strong people leadership: you coach, set clear expectations, build followership, and develop others into successful fundraisers or revenue operations and analytics talent.
• Proven capacity as a "Multiplier": you know how to multiply the intelligence of your team and get the best from people.
• Mission-driven: you love our mission, have a passion for making finance a force for good, and are excited to develop morally sound leaders.
• Ownership orientation: you take full responsibility for the numbers and the outcomes, and you drive the work rather than wait to be directed.
• Systems-and-scale orientation: you build repeatable processes that let fundraising scale consistently as the organization grows.
• Strong strategic judgment: you identify opportunities, anticipate risks, and make clear trade-offs, considering all stakeholders affected.
• Growth mindset: you seek and thrive on feedback, and you proactively drive your own growth and learning to expand your impact.
• SOF Values & Principles: you exemplify the four values and twelve principles of Scholars of Finance, both professionally and personally.

Skills

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to set and execute a fundraising or revenue strategy with clear goals, data-driven decisions, and measurable outcomes.
• Strong strategic judgment: you identify opportunities, anticipate risks, and make clear trade-offs, considering all stakeholders affected.
• Ownership orientation: you take full responsibility for the numbers and the outcomes, and you drive the work rather than wait to be directed.
• Systems-and-scale orientation: you build repeatable processes that let fundraising scale consistently as the organization grows.
• Mission-driven: you love our mission, have a passion for making finance a force for good, and are excited to develop morally sound leaders.
• Strong people leadership: you coach, set clear expectations, build followership, and develop others into successful fundraisers or revenue operations and analytics talent.
• Proven capacity as a "Multiplier": you know how to multiply the intelligence of your team and get the best from people.

Benefits

• 401(k) match (100% match up to 5% of the base salary)
• Generous health, dental, and vision insurance
• Unlimited PTO; all federal holidays off
• Quarterly team offsites, expenses fully paid when in-person
• A high-growth culture to accelerate your professional development
• A unique company ensuring all team members thrive holistically

Pay

$150K - $170K

Schedule

Full-time