Director of Advancement

The Position

Trinity Valley School is seeking an experienced fundraising professional to partner with the Head of School to build philanthropic support for the school and the engagement of key stakeholders. The start date is on or before July 1 2025. Reporting to the Head of the School the Director of Advancement is the chief architect of development efforts including creating implementing and supervising appropriate fundraising efforts to meet the financial goals of the School including annual capital planned giving stewardship and alumni relations. Along with the Head of School and the Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications s/he is responsible for strengthening a positive public perception of Trinity Valley in the community communicating the mission and objectives of the school building relationships with donors and obtaining the financial support necessary to ensure a strong and vibrant future.

Trinity Valley School is committed to attracting and retaining exceptional faculty and staff by offering the following: highly competitive salaries; fully paid employee health disability and life insurance; family dental insurance; TIAACREF 403(b) plan with immediate vesting; vision insurance; flexible spending accounts; professional development opportunities; tuition reimbursement for advanced degrees; and more. Faculty members at Trinity Valley School value the camaraderie support and sense of purpose among their peers. TVS considers its faculty experts in education and affords them a fertile teaching environment.

TVS actively seeks to recruit and hire faculty and staff whose diversity is reflective of our community. TVS is deeply committed to the Schools mission and goals of equity Inclusion and belonging.

Strengths of the School

As the Director of Advancement they will understand and appreciate that Trinity Valley is a highly respected and successful day school with extraordinary strengths and resources.

Exceptional Faculty: Since its founding Trinity Valleys faculty is the cornerstone of its success. The dedicated creative and caring teachers deliver instruction fostering a stimulating and empowering learning environment.

Engaged Students: As the heart of the school students thrive both academically and socially embodying the schools core values through active participation in all aspects of the school and through meaningful relationships with their teachers.

Successful Programs: The school offers strong academic athletic experiential learning and leadership programs that prepare students for college and future success. The programs both academic and cocurricular are designed to produce confident capable students and alumni who become thoughtful and engaged citizens.

Supportive Parent Community: Parents are actively involved and deeply invested in their childrens academic extracurricular and personal success. Historically the parent community is a pillar of support and partnership.

Impressive Campus and Facilities: The campus is welldesigned with modernized classrooms athletic and arts facilities and learning spaces that support innovative education. The campus has been well maintained over its 25year life.

Sound Financial Practices: Trinity Valley has a decades long history of conservative and sound financial practices both in terms of operating practices and capital expenditures. The school is wellpositioned to invest in future growth and programs.

Fort Worth Texas: Fort Worth is the 12th largest city in the United States with a dynamic growing economy. Trinity Valley is situated in southwest Fort Worth which is one of the fastest growing geographic segments in the robust DallasFort Worth metroplex.

Opportunities & Challenges

The Director of Advancement at Trinity Valley School will first assess recent fundraising history performance and strategies and formulate a comprehensive plan moving forward to engage all constituencies; focus on increased financial support from alumni; and develop strategies to meet goals for both new and existing initiatives. The successful candidate will be someone who can easily integrate into the entire school community and is willing to do the work in the trenches. S/he will need to be a person of high emotional intelligence someone who will take full ownership of the development function but still work collaboratively. The candidate will provide thoughtful strategies to retain and reinvigorate a constituency that has significant capacity to support the schools operations and capital needs going forward while optimizing the departments infrastructure in order to meet and exceed goals.

Major Duties & Responsibilities

• Ensure that the fundraising functions of the school can sustain the institution over the long term through a clearly articulated vision the application of a set of fundraising best practices a willingness to model successful fundraising practices and strong relationships with donors
• Establish and maintain both short and longrange goals for capacity assessment cultivation stewardship annual and capital fundraising and planned giving that will increase the culture of philanthropy across all constituencies of the school
• Using a datadriven approach create a longrange strategy for giving
• Mentor support and provide supervision to staff members
• Ensure that the department functions in an efficient and costeffective manner
• Anticipate future programmatic needs and take initiative to address them thoughtfully and creatively
• Cultivate solicit and steward a number of the schools top prospects
• Activate support and elevate the Head of Schools engagement and leadership in fundraising
• Act as administrative liaison to the Advancement Committee of the Board
  • Prepare regular reports
  • Advise on and prepare agendas for meetings
  • Support the decisions of the Committee
  • Assist the Committee in developing policies and procedures to guide the Schools fundraising efforts

Other Duties:

• Serve on the Senior Leadership Team
• Attend all TVS Board meetings including subcommittee meetings as needed.
• Participate in professional development that provides for continual learning about best practices and trends in the field.
• Perform other duties as requested.

Qualifications & Qualities of the Person

TVS seeks a Director of Advancement who possesses proven leadership communication and interpersonal skills and can lead with imagination initiative vision energy and drive.

The ideal candidate will have:

• At least five 5 years of fundraising experience including annual fund and major gifts ideally in an independent school
• Proven track record of conceptualizing planning and cohesively integrating a full range of development programs
• Excellent communication skills both oral and written and an understanding of what should be communicated to different audiences
• Thorough grasp of the current trends in development and issues facing independent schools

Additionally the ideal candidate will be:

• A firm believer in the Schools values and the capacity to articulate the case for support of TVS
• A contributor to the overall strategic planning of the School
• A decisive and confident leader embracing the Schools culture
• A highly professional team player with a strong sense of integrity and desire to work effectively with colleagues volunteers and Board members

How to Apply

Interested candidates should provide a rsum a cover letter highlighting their interest in and fit for the position and a list of five 5 professional references with contact information as a single attachment by June 1 2025. These materials should be sent to the consultant for this search listed below:

Search Consultant

MARCI MCLEAN