Vice President, Individual Giving

The Role

AWF seeks an ambitious Vice President, Individual Giving to lead a high-functioning, strategic individual giving program. This is a unique opportunity for a sophisticated development professional with excellent management experience and a track record of raising major gifts, in and out of campaigns. This new VP will be responsible for driving the development of the individual giving fundraising strategy and building a high-performing team currently charged with raising $25M annually, with goals to double this individual portfolio through a special gifts campaign of $150M over the next five years.

The successful candidate will be a senior fundraiser with the vision, technical skill and management experience needed to build a thriving, donor-centric program that includes principal gifts, major gifts, planned giving, mid-level and a membership program. The team is also engaged in the management of AWF’s leadership council and trustee alumni programs. Creativity, a hands-on work and leadership style, and focus on results will be key to the VP’s success.

Ideally, this position will be based in Washington, DC and will supervise staff in DC, New York, Austin, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, New England, as well as London and Ottawa.

Responsibilities

Leadership & Management:

• Lead, direct and build a high-functioning individual giving department, including a legacy giving team, major gifts team, mid-level team, membership team, and our growing programs in the UK and in Canada to increase and maximize the revenue from individual donors. Establish new standards of performance and a metrics-based evaluation for both individuals and for the individual giving programs.
• Provide leadership and mentoring to the individual giving staff; train and supervise a team of front-line fundraisers tasked with securing 5 -, 6-, 7- and 8- figure gifts.
• Build a culture where the marketing, development and programming functions collaborate and make decisions that are informed by reliable market-tested data.
• Contribute to organizational strategy and planning as member of Senior Management Committee.
• Work with the Development leadership, AWF CEO and Program heads to develop and consistently deliver an inspiring narrative for investing in AWF’s African-led approach and strategic priorities to realize ambitious AWF’s 10-year strategic vision.

Fundraising Strategy, Planning & Implementation:

• In partnership with the SVP, Development; VP, Corporate & Foundations Relations; and VP, Enterprise Investment and Program Design, develop and implement annual and multi-year fundraising plans in service to the strategic five-year fundraising plan that showcases AWF as the premier global African conservation organization and inspires donors to invest in the mission and work of the organization.
• Create and direct all aspects of the individual donor effort, including the creation of a comprehensive individual giving plan.
• Increase the sophistication and effectiveness of donor identification, qualification, engagement, solicitation, and stewardship within fundraising programs as well as donor journey across programs. Work with individual giving teams to build donor-centric cultivation methods and deploy effective moves management strategies that harness the many assets of AWF.
• Expand and diversify AWF’s donor base/pipeline to secure funding for new initiatives.
• Oversee the development an effective planned giving program that utilizes all front-line individual team members and delivers a robust and reliable stream of planned gift revenue.
• Refine and improve AWF’s membership program including a robust mid-level bridge program focused on stewardship, identification and qualification for our growing major gifts program.
• Assist in optimizing AWF’s use of safaris program and safaris industry partners to successfully target and secure new high net worth donors to AWF and use them to inspire additional larger gifts for AWF priority landscapes.
• Strengthen donor operations and stewardship (donor communications, events, donor research, data management) and support institutional fundraising efforts as needed.
• Develop strong relationships with program staff and effective ways to communicate their work to our donors and prospects, while encouraging collaboration with the development team.
• Command and communicate a comprehensive understanding of African Wildlife Foundation’s history, mission, strategic goals, programs, and impact in the context of the critical issues facing the future of Africa’s wildlife.
• Work with the VP, Corporate & Foundation Relations; VP, Program Design; VP, Marketing & Communications staff; and national staff, to develop and guide new fundraising programs in UK and Canada markets.
• Work with the Vice President, Communications & Marketing to ensure all donor messaging reflects AWF’s African-led conservation approach and celebrates and promotes African conservation leadership, a hallmark of the AWF brand.
• Directly manage a select pool of high-net-worth donors; participate in one-on-one cultivations and solicitations with donors.

Board Engagement

• Support the leadership to build out a more robust Board that is capable of contributing 6-, 7- and 8- figure gifts to AWF, and of advancing Board engagement and recruitment.
• Contribute to board giving strategies.
• Support SVP, Development with timely and accurate fundraising reports, strategy presentations and other material as needed for the Board Development Committee as well as AWF Canada and UK Boards of Governors.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required, advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum 15 years’ progressive fundraising experience in fundraising from individuals with emphasis on major gifts fundraising, to include minimum 5-7 years at a senior management level with comparable staff and budget responsibilities.
• Comprehensive campaign experience highly desirable.
• Excellent management skills, experience managing large, autonomous teams.
• Demonstrated ability to raise 6-, 7-, and potentially 8-figure gifts from individuals.
• Strong leadership skills, with an entrepreneurial spirit and strong business and management skills; demonstrated ability to inspire and motivate staff, donors, volunteers (including trustees), and potential partners a must.
• Strong analytic and project management skills; demonstrated experience overseeing and executing complex or multiple time-sensitive projects, including meeting financial goals and project deadlines, monitoring, evaluating and adaptively managing individual performance, programs and budgets, and coordinating the work of key staff and partners.
• Ability to succeed in a highly complex, matrixed organization—strong ability to collaborate, influence and persuade others.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to influence and engage a wide range of donors and build long-term relationships.
• Outstanding interpersonal skills, judgment, and ability to collaborate with a wide range of colleagues at the local and global levels.
• Demonstrated passion, appreciation and knowledge of Africa, wildlife conservation, international development, and broader African conservation history and strategies. Direct experience working in Africa, with non-profits working with wildlife and/or conservation is highly desirable.
• Ambitious with a love of fundraising.
• Willingness and ability to travel – domestically and internationally.
• Multi-lingual, multi-cultural or cross-cultural experience appreciated