Position: National Chief Development Officer
Functional Area: Development & Sales
Organization: Summer Search
Location: San Francisco
Metro Region: San Francisco
Overview:
Summer Search is a dynamic national non-profit organization that transforms the education and life-prospects of low-income young people. Summer Search makes a holistic, five-year investment in students that yields impressive results. In 2011:
- 95% of students were eligible for free/reduced lunch
- 96% of our seniors went onto post-secondary school including 94% to college
- 85% of our students currently in college were persisting and on track to graduate
For compelling stories of our students’ individual transformation, visithttp://www.summersearch.org/about/stories.aspx andhttp://vimeo.com/user1642384/videos
Founded in 1990 in San Francisco, Summer Search has expanded to North San Francisco Bay and Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, Seattle and Philadelphia. In the past five years, we’ve more than doubled students served as a result of a successful $20M national growth campaign. This growth can be attributed to the passion and dedication of a team that lives and breathes a culture that prizes high-performance and authentic relationships. Our team has been able to generate sufficient revenue for Summer Search to grow rapidly during a period when many nonprofits retracted.
Today, we serve over 2,000 students with a $14M organization wide budget, of which the National Support Center raises over $3M. We’ve just launched a new five year strategy that grows students served to more than 3,500 and increases our budget to $25M, of which the Support Center will raise over $6M. With proven results and an ambitious and well developed growth strategy, Summer Search is poised to become a force in the education field. Much of our success is attributed to our phenomenal staff and board talent and we hope you’ll join our team.
Position:
In order to help meet its ambitious growth goal to reach $25M, Summer Search is seeking a results-oriented and strategic Chief Development Officer (CDO) to join its team. Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer and working closely with the National Board of Directors, the CDO will work collaboratively to identify, cultivate, solicit and steward donors. This person will serve as the external face of Summer Search, publicly representing the organization and broadening our base of major donors. The CDO is charged with developing our professional national development team and providing support to regional teams across the network. This will include instituting ways to better use fundraising information systems and processes that complement the passion of our staff and help us better retain and upgrade small and mid-tier donors. The right development professional will relish the challenge to roll up their sleeves and lead our fundraising efforts to the next level of performance. This is an exciting opportunity for an ambitious and mission-driven leader to help a highly effective youth organization grow to a new level and achieve its potential for greater educational impact.
Responsibilities:
1. Secure annual revenues to support the advancement and sustainability of Summer Search at the national level
- Own responsibility for increasing annual revenue targets from $3M to $6M, and meet this target through strategic identification, cultivation, and solicitation of donors and prospects led independently and jointly with Summer Search’s National Board of Directors and senior leadership.
- Develop strong partnership with the National Board of Directors to increase its support of national fundraising, including leading and partnering with the National Development Committee.
- In partnership with the nomination committee, develop and implement a strategy for identifying, nominating, and cultivating prospective Board Members. Determine standards and processes for onboarding new Board Members.
- Personally cultivate, solicit, and steward current major individual donors, as well as oversee portfolio/grants management for current national foundation and corporate donors.
2. Develop and execute fund development strategies that significantly grow and maximize dollars across the entire Summer Search organization
- Oversee the implementation and continuous refinement of a long-term strategic development plan to fund national operations, comprised of diverse revenue sources, including foundation grants, major gifts, corporate sponsorship, and annual and multi-year donations.
- Execute development strategies in partnership with regional and national leadership, facilitating cross-site and national collaborations to ensure a sustainable and growing funding base, as well make ongoing improvements to fundraising systems and functions across the organization.
- Partner closely with Chief Marketing Officer to raise the profile of Summer Search in the philanthropic and corporate communities, ensuring that short- and long-term plans support the overall fundraising strategy.
3. Lead the national development team, support regional sites, and participate as an active member of the national senior leadership team
- Directly supervise and mentor a five-member team comprised of a Development Manager, Major Gifts Specialist, Corporate and Foundation Relations Manager, Database Administrator, and Development Associate, growing the team as needed over time.
- Collaborate with regional Executive Directors, development teams, and, where helpful, local Boards of Directors to share best practices and fundraising strategies, as well as support development efforts across the network.
- Serve as a key member of the national senior leadership team, contributing to overall organizational strategies and representing the priorities of the development function.
Qualifications:
Key Selection Criteria:
- 10+ years of experience in strategic fundraising, including demonstrated success identifying and cultivating, and closing $100K - $1M+ gifts from high net-worth individual, foundations, and corporations; experience raising funds for a national or multi-site organization is a plus.
- Flexible and adaptive work style, with the ability to thrive in an entrepreneurial, results-oriented, and hands-on environment.
- Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, with the proven ability to represent the organization publicly and passionately to potential funders and other partners, as well as listen and respond to the interests of a variety of stakeholder groups.
- Demonstrated ability to think strategically while executing tactically in order to achieve ambitious goals.
- Collaborative and transformational leadership style; proven ability to inspire, coach, and influence direct reports, senior leaders, regional staff, and Board members.
- Strong staff management skills, with the ability to foster a sense of team accountability and high performance.
- Ability to thrive in a mission-driven environment with a strong culture; passionate commitment to Summer Search’s mission, vision, values, and strategic direction.
- A solid grasp of fundraising systems, including an understanding of ways to optimize the usage of a donor database application (Raiser’s Edge is preferred.)
- Bachelor’s degree required.
- Willingness to travel throughout the Summer Search network, as well as attend evening and weekend events and meetings; approximately 15% of time is travel
To Apply:
Please upload a resume and thoughtful cover letter, outlining how your skills and experience meet the qualifications of the position and stating how you heard about this opportunity, both in Word format, to Emily Edwards athttp://jobs.cgcareers.org/application.aspx?id=1954. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
Consistent with its values, Summer Search intends to seek proactively a diverse pool of candidates for the National Chief Development Officer. It is assumed that prospective candidates will represent a wide variety of backgrounds, and the organization will not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, age, or physical ability.
