Senior Director, Annual Giving & Donor Relations

At Creighton, you are part of something big. Your skills and passions unite with thousands of faculty, staff and students inspired to change the world. Here, we offer meaningful work driven by a 475-year-old Jesuit tradition committed to social justice and serving others. Through this tradition, we push the boundaries on innovation. We pursue new knowledge for the betterment of society. We seek to improve our world through Catholic and Jesuit values. And it all starts with you.

The Senior Director of Annual Giving & Donor Relations provides strategic leadership of University Relations’ annual giving and donor relations programs. They plan, organize, implement, and evaluate mass solicitation and stewardship strategies for 14,000+ University donors. The Sr. Director is a champion for pipeline development, and they partner with gift officers and alumni relations colleagues to increase donor acquisition and retention from alumni, parents, faculty/staff, students, and friends.

The Sr. Director provides direct management of the Annual Giving and Donor Relations teams and reports to the Assistant Vice President, Operations & Strategic Initiatives. Annual Giving leadership responsibilities include raising over $2M in unrestricted and annual scholarship support across all giving channels:  direct mail, phone, email, video, and social media. Donor Relations leadership responsibilities include overseeing a structured gift acknowledgement process, financial and impact reporting, donor recognition activities and other stewardship plans, events, and correspondence.

Key Responsibilities

• Plans, develops, and implements a strategic plan of action with objectives, timelines and reporting for the annual giving program, to include identification, cultivation, and solicitation of annual gifts.
• Raises $2M in unrestricted operating and scholarship support annually.
• Provides supervision of the annual giving team members (3+).
• Plans, develops and implements a comprehensive donor relations and stewardship program that appropriately and consistently promotes interaction with and recognition of donors at all giving levels. 
• Oversees the acknowledgement, reporting, events, and other stewardship strategies to increase donor retention.
• Provides supervision of the donor relations team members (3+).
• Manages the annual giving and donor relations budgets (direct mail, Phonathon, digital, events, etc) and sets annual goals in support of donor pipeline growth and retention.
• Develops KPIs and outcome reporting in alignment with the Division’s and University’s strategic plans.

Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s Degree in business, marketing, communications, or related field. Master’s Degree preferred.
• 7-10+ years professional experience working for a non-profit or higher education institution in annual giving, development, donor relations, or related field.
• 5 years of progressive management Experience in a leadership role
• Experience working with a CRM.
• Working knowledge of Ellucian’s Advance Web a plus.
• Experience developing and managing programmatic and/or event budgets.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

• Knowledge of development/fundraising concepts and corresponding mass solicitation and donor stewardship techniques  
• Must have knowledge of and ability to create, execute and support comprehensive annual giving and donor relations plans
• Knowledge of direct mail and direct marketing program management  
• Knowledge of phonathon or telemarketing program management  
• Strong interpersonal/human relations skills  
• Strong verbal and professional written communication skills  
• Demonstrated analytical skills regarding program performance  
• Proficient software skills in Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) and donor database software programs  
• Must be detail-oriented, goal-oriented, and have a high level of initiative