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Permanent
Remote
Chief Development Officer
Recruiter: Jori Holloway
NY
Job ID
611
Industry
Jewish Non profit
Specialty
Fundraising And Development
Experience level
C Suite
Salary range:
$225,000 - $275,000
COMPANY DESCRIPTION
Our client is a well-established, international Jewish nonprofit with over a hundred years of educational impact and a global network spanning Israel and Jewish communities around the world.
Through a network of schools and programs, the organization helps young people from diverse and underserved communities reach their full potential, combining high-quality education, technology, and workforce preparation with rich Jewish learning, identity, and community.
The organization has a distinctive combination of global reach, deep Jewish communal roots, educational expertise, and a strong commitment to preparing the next generation for a rapidly changing world. Its work connects Jewish communities across countries and generations while equipping young people with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to build successful futures.
The organization is entering an important period of growth and development. Leadership is committed to strengthening its presence and impact in North America and to significantly expanding the resources available to support its global mission.
OVERVIEW
The Chief Development Officer (CDO) will be a transformative addition to the organization’s senior leadership team and will have a clear mandate: to build the next generation of the organization’s North American philanthropic engine.
This is not simply a role to manage an existing development operation. The CDO will be responsible for significantly increasing philanthropic revenue, expanding and diversifying the donor base, strengthening relationships with existing donors, developing a robust major and principal-gift pipeline, and creating a culture of philanthropy that engages the CEO, Board, staff, and volunteers.
The CDO will bring strategic discipline and entrepreneurial energy to the organization’s fundraising efforts, identifying opportunities that may not yet exist and translating the organization’s priorities into compelling philanthropic opportunities.
The successful candidate will be an exceptional relationship builder and fundraiser who is equally comfortable developing strategy, personally cultivating and soliciting major donors, coaching staff, engaging Board members, analyzing fundraising performance, and working with the CEO to pursue transformational opportunities.
The CDO will report directly to the CEO and will work in close partnership with the CEO, Board Chair, Board of Directors, relevant Board committees, senior management, and development professionals.
This is a unique opportunity for an accomplished fundraising leader to join an organization with global scale, a powerful mission, a long history, and significant untapped philanthropic potential in North America.
QUALIFICATIONS
The ideal candidate will be an accomplished, entrepreneurial fundraising leader with a demonstrated record of significant results.
Required
- A substantial track record of success in developing and executing fundraising strategies that produce significant revenue growth.
- Demonstrated success in major and principal giving, including personally cultivating and closing significant gifts.
- Proven ability to identify, engage, and secure new major donors while substantially increasing existing donor commitments.
- Experience building and managing a major-gift pipeline and disciplined moves-management process.
- Experience working effectively with a CEO, Board Chair, Board members, senior leadership, and high-capacity donors.
- Demonstrated ability to recruit, lead, motivate, develop, and hold fundraising professionals accountable to ambitious goals.
- Exceptional relationship-building skills and the ability to establish credibility and trust with sophisticated philanthropists.
- Strong strategic, analytical, and organizational skills, with the ability to translate data into action.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to develop compelling cases for support and persuasive donor proposals.
- Ability, willingness, and desire to personally cultivate and solicit donors and funders.
- Strong understanding of philanthropy and the organized Jewish community in North America, with an established network of relationships among Jewish communal and philanthropic leaders.
- Willingness to travel nationally as needed, with occasional international travel.
- Passion for the organization’s mission, vision, and values.
Highly Desirable
- Experience with an international organization or an organization operating across multiple countries.
- Experience working with global Jewish philanthropy.
- Experience securing seven-figure or transformational gifts.
- Experience developing new philanthropic initiatives, campaigns, or revenue streams.
- Experience working with foundations, family offices, corporations, and other sophisticated philanthropic institutions.
- Experience using prospect research, wealth intelligence, relationship mapping, and fundraising analytics to drive results.
Leadership Qualities
The successful candidate will be:
Entrepreneurial. Comfortable building new relationships, opportunities, systems, and strategies rather than simply maintaining the status quo.
Strategic. Able to see beyond individual gifts and build a long-term philanthropic strategy that advances the organization’s broader mission.
Results-oriented. Motivated by measurable outcomes and willing to establish clear expectations and hold themselves and others accountable.
Relational. A natural relationship builder who understands that transformational philanthropy is built on trust, credibility, and authentic connection.
Collaborative. Comfortable working across a complex organization and bringing together the CEO, Board, staff, volunteers, and donors around shared priorities.
Persuasive. Able to communicate a compelling vision and inspire donors to invest in the organization’s future.
Candid and confident. Comfortable advising and, when necessary, challenging the CEO and senior lay leadership while maintaining strong relationships and trust.
Hands-on. Willing to personally make the calls, take the meetings, develop the strategy, make the ask, and close the gift.
Mission-driven. Deeply motivated by the opportunity to strengthen Jewish education, opportunity, community, and the next generation of Jewish life around the world.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Fundraising Strategy, Growth, and Leadership
- Partner with the CEO, Board leadership, and senior management to develop and execute a comprehensive North American fundraising strategy aligned with the organization’s strategic priorities.
- Establish ambitious but achievable multi-year fundraising goals and translate them into clear annual plans, priorities, and measurable objectives.
- Lead and manage all aspects of the North American fundraising program, including major gifts, principal gifts, annual giving, planned giving, foundations, corporations, institutional philanthropy, special events, and program-specific fundraising.
- Develop and execute strategies designed to substantially increase philanthropic revenue, including increasing existing gifts, acquiring new donors, expanding into new philanthropic networks, and developing transformational giving opportunities.
- Build a sophisticated, donor-centered fundraising operation that balances long-term relationship building with disciplined focus on results.
- Partner with the CEO and senior leadership to identify, shape, and package compelling philanthropic priorities, investment opportunities, cases for support, and named initiatives.
- Identify emerging opportunities in education, technology, Jewish identity, workforce development, Israel, and other areas aligned with the organization’s mission and donor interests.
- Create a culture of philanthropy across the organization in which fundraising is understood as a shared leadership responsibility.
- Serve as a senior ambassador for the organization, representing its mission and impact to donors, foundations, Jewish communal leaders, and other stakeholders.
2. Major and Principal Gifts
- Build and manage a sophisticated major- and principal-gift program, with particular emphasis on developing a strong philanthropic base in the New York metropolitan area and other key North American markets.
- Personally manage a portfolio of the organization’s highest-priority donors and prospects.
- Develop and execute individualized cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship strategies for major and principal-gift prospects.
- Identify opportunities for seven-figure and transformational gifts, including multi-year commitments and strategic investments.
- Work closely with the CEO and Board leadership to develop and execute high-level donor strategies, including preparing for solicitations, coordinating donor engagement, and ensuring disciplined follow-up.
- Develop compelling proposals and investment opportunities that connect donor interests with the organization’s strategic priorities.
- Ensure that major gifts are not viewed simply as transactions, but as the foundation for long-term philanthropic relationships.
3. Prospect Development and Pipeline Management
- Establish a systematic process for identifying, qualifying, prioritizing, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding major prospects.
- Build a robust and continually replenished pipeline of major and principal-gift prospects.
- Use appropriate prospect research, wealth screening, philanthropic intelligence, relationship mapping, and other tools to identify new opportunities.
- Segment and prioritize the existing donor base to identify opportunities for renewal, upgrading, reactivation, and deeper engagement.
- Develop clear portfolio-management practices to ensure that staff time and leadership attention are concentrated on the highest-value opportunities.
- Track and manage donor movement through the fundraising cycle, from identification through cultivation, solicitation, gift closure, renewal, and upgrade.
- Expand the organization’s reach beyond its existing donor universe by developing relationships with new philanthropic networks and communities.
4. CEO and Board Partnership
- Serve as the CEO’s strategic partner on philanthropy, helping maximize the CEO’s effectiveness as the organization’s chief ambassador and fundraiser.
- Develop donor strategies with the CEO, determine where CEO involvement will have the greatest impact, prepare the CEO for donor meetings and solicitations, and ensure disciplined follow-up.
- Serve as a trusted advisor to the CEO, including providing candid advice about donor strategy, timing, priorities, and resource allocation.
- Partner with the Board Chair, Board members, and relevant committees to strengthen their role as philanthropic ambassadors and fundraisers.
- Develop individualized fundraising strategies for key Board members, providing them with the information, tools, proposals, and introductions they need to be effective.
- Establish clear expectations and measures for Board engagement in fundraising.
- Leverage Board networks to identify new prospects, facilitate introductions, and expand the organization’s philanthropic reach.
- Participate in identifying and recruiting prospective Board members and lay leaders who can contribute both leadership and philanthropic capacity.
5. Foundations, Institutional Giving, and Strategic Partnerships
- Strengthen and expand relationships with family foundations, major foundations, corporations, and other institutional funders.
- Develop multi-year and strategic funding relationships that support the organization’s long-term priorities.
- Identify opportunities to align the organization’s programs and initiatives with emerging philanthropic priorities.
- Work collaboratively with program and senior leadership to develop strong proposals, outcomes, budgets, and impact narratives.
- Identify opportunities for strategic philanthropic partnerships that can expand both revenue and organizational visibility.
6. Development Team Leadership and Culture
- Build, lead, and develop a high-performing development team with the skills, structure, and accountability required to achieve ambitious fundraising goals.
- Establish clear roles, responsibilities, performance expectations, and priorities across the development function.
- Coach and mentor development professionals, helping them become stronger strategists, relationship managers, and fundraisers.
- Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, innovation, continuous learning, and shared ownership of results.
- Develop and implement performance metrics and evaluation tools that connect individual activity to organizational fundraising outcomes.
- Recruit additional development talent as needed to support the organization’s growth.
- Work closely with other senior management team members to ensure that fundraising priorities are integrated throughout the organization.
7. Fundraising Operations, Systems, and Accountability
- Develop the systems, processes, technology, and infrastructure required to support a sophisticated and scalable fundraising operation.
- Ensure effective use of the organization’s CRM and donor-management systems, including accurate data, portfolio management, gift tracking, moves management, and reporting.
- Establish a clear fundraising dashboard and regular reporting process covering, among other measures:
Revenue against budget and prior year
Major and principal-gift pipeline
Qualified prospects
Donor visits and meaningful contacts
Solicitations and ask amounts
Gifts closed
Renewal and upgrade rates
New donor acquisition
Multi-year commitments
Board fundraising engagement
- Provide regular, candid reports to the CEO and Board on fundraising performance, opportunities, risks, and challenges.
- Use data and analysis to identify trends, allocate resources, and make timely course corrections.
- Lead the annual development planning and budgeting process and ensure appropriate stewardship of fundraising resources.
8. Donor Stewardship and Recognition
- Develop a sophisticated, donor-centered stewardship strategy that strengthens retention and encourages deeper engagement.
- Ensure that donors receive meaningful, timely, and personalized communication about the impact of their philanthropy.
- Develop appropriate recognition strategies for major donors, foundations, and other significant supporters.
- Build long-term relationships that position donors as partners in the organization’s mission and future.
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