SENIOR DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

University of Washington Medical Center•Seattle, WA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

KUOW has an exciting opportunity for a dynamic fundraising professional to join the station as Senior Director of Development. This role will play a key leadership position in advancing KUOW’s mission by strengthening philanthropic support and deepening relationships with the community that powers the station’s journalism and public service. KUOW’s Senior Director of Development is a leader with a successful record of philanthropic fundraising. The Senior Director’s responsibilities include developing and leading a high-performing development team, growing philanthropic revenue and donor counts, increasing the percentage of donors retained year-over-year, building relationships with digital consumers and converting them into donors, and creating pathways that move supporters from annual giving to deeper engagement, including major gifts. Working closely with station leadership and colleagues across the organization, the Senior Director will guide strategies that strengthen KUOW’s culture of philanthropy and connect the station’s journalism and community impact with people who want to invest in trusted public media. The role oversees a comprehensive development program and helps ensure KUOW continues to grow its base of philanthropic support in a rapidly evolving media environment. MORE: The Senior Director leads an 8-person team that leverages best practices in donor management and stewardship, as well as marketing and communications disciplines, including A/B testing, copywriting, marketing automation, digital advertising, direct mail optimization, online conversion rate optimization, site merchandising, donor and audience segmentation, proposal development and writing, stewardship activities, event management, and effective messaging to donors. The Senior Director builds and maintains strong interdepartmental communication with audience development across KUOW, with the goal of leveraging content, events, breaking news, and station initiatives in both strategic and opportunistic ways to maximize donor acquisition and revenue generation within a growing number of channels and platforms. The Senior Director integrates and aligns development activities with the Chief Revenue Officer’s overall strategy and messaging and ensures individual stewardship activities and major donor proposals and engagement efforts are coordinated, with an emphasis on demonstrating philanthropic impact and translating organizational vision and mission into philanthropic opportunities.

Requirements

A bachelor’s degree or equivalent and a minimum of 6-10 years of professional experience with a record of increasing, significant responsibility for achieving fundraising and donor or customer acquisition/sales goals. Equivalent knowledge and skills may substitute for education and/or experience.
Progressively increased responsibility in development, marketing, or major gift fundraising required.
Working knowledge of direct marketing fundraising, personal cultivation methods, database management, new media, and fundraising programs.
Demonstrated facility with metrics and reporting; experience presenting results, analyses, trends, and benchmark data to Executive Leadership.
Demonstrated experience safeguarding donor experience: Donor-centric, with high degree of customer service orientation; model and coach toward best practices, balancing donor customer service with community-centric fundraising principals; adheres to AFP Donor Bill of Rights.
Demonstrated experience building authentic relationships with donors and colleagues from a variety of backgrounds, demonstrating empathy and cultural sensitivity.
Experience in creating budgets and program tracking/analysis.
Demonstrated ability to work independently, solve problems, take initiative, set priorities, and manage multiple projects and deadlines efficiently and effectively.
Demonstrated excellence in interpersonal and communication skills, both written and oral.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with and appreciation of public radio programming.
Working knowledge of fundraising databases, preferably Salesforce.

Responsibilities

Direct appropriate management of major donor relationships and ensures cultivation processes are created, research is applied, and appropriate contact occurs across all major donor portfolios.
Direct and advise on cultivation processes/plans for major donors/prospects, personal communications/contact, and provide strategies for donor events.
Collaborate with peer experts at UW’s Office of Planned Giving to build a sustainable planned giving program with a focus on expanding the ways donors can support KUOW, such as bequests and charitable remainder trusts, and steward current donors who have named KUOW in their estate plans.
Meet prospective donors and supporters on a continual basis to establish effective communications with them.
Maintain and create donor recognition programs to support and strengthen donor retention and belonging.
Ensure creation of fundraising materials, from cases for support to philanthropic reports, to support and grow fundraising activities; integrate and align with marketing strategy.
Create strategy for and oversee execution of individual fundraising activities through channels including online giving and email, on-air membership campaigns, direct mail, social media, special fundraising events, as well as new and emerging channels and revenue sources.
Direct and oversee on-air fundraising drives.
Lead team to administer in-house fundraising drive production with fundraising and station partners and work collaboratively with programming, marketing, and development staff to create messaging and campaign scripts.
Apply digital experience (e.g., A/B testing, email marketing) and knowledge of the latest digital communication tools and technologies to efficiently grow the member base and retain members.
Direct and oversee ancillary fundraising programs including vehicle donations, employee and corporate matching gifts, acquisition, and local campaigns such as GiveBIG and the King County Combined Fund Drive.
Staff Board Development Committee meetings and oversee liaison relationships between Major Gifts staff and current Puget Sound Public Radio (PSPR) Reach & Resource Committee Board members.
Oversee relationship with University of Washington Advancement, NPR Development and other external fundraising partners to develop collaborative fundraising projects, where appropriate, and enhance relationships with KUOW donors/prospects.
Work strategically with the Chief Revenue Officer, CEO, and station leadership, including collaboration with the directors of content, marketing, and business support to optimize audience conversion to donating, the donor journey and strengthen the pipeline and pathways to evolve donors from annual giving to mid-level to major, planned and capital campaign investments.
Ensure that all creative and collateral accurately represents the KUOW brand, meets a high-quality bar, and that donor solicitation practices conform to State, Federal, University and station policies.
Leverage a deep understanding of KUOW’s organizational needs to set and track revenue goals and expense budgets for donor engagement programs.
Conduct monthly planning/analysis sessions and budget development and tracking.
Develop and oversee annual fundraising program revenue and expense budgets.
Ensure cost-effective and productive relationships with vendors, partners, and other contracted obligations.
Build, lead, and maintain a high-performing Donor Engagement team of eight to meet or exceed annual fundraising goals.
Develop strategies and oversee the team’s successful planning and execution of a comprehensive philanthropic fundraising program, including multi-channel fundraising campaigns, membership and donor engagement efforts, with a focus on monthly sustainers, acquisition, renewals, and additional gifts, in addition to building capacity for major, principal, and capital campaign investments and programs.
Participate in strategic planning, revenue development and budget planning and preparation, marketing, community outreach and special event activities.
Provide other management functions as assigned.