Senior Director Of Development

KUOW has an exciting opportunity for a dynamic fundraising professional to join the station asSenior Director of Development. This role will play a key leadership position in advancing KUOWs mission by strengthening philanthropic support and deepening relationships with the community that powers the stations journalism and public service.

KUOWs Senior Director of Development is a leader with a successful record of philanthropic fundraising. The Senior Directors 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 KUOWs culture of philanthropy and connect the stations 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.

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 Officers 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.

JOB SUCCESS SUMMARY

The Senior Director is responsible for setting the vision strategy and implementation for fundraising at the station. This includes both acquiring and retaining individual members (donors who give up to $999) as well as setting strategy and implementation for fundraising from mid-level ($1000-$9999) and major donors ($10000) legacy giving and capital campaigns. Combined the revenue generated from these channels represents more than $18M in yearly donations and roughly 78% of KUOWs annual revenue.

The Senior Director will do this by creating revenue and expense forecasts setting annual fundraising strategy and establishing personal cultivation and stewardship plans for donors and prospects to realize major ($10000) multi-year commitments and planned gifts. The Senior Director also sets vision for fundraising and membership campaigns across a variety of digital offline and broadcast channels. This includes leading ancillary programs such as vehicle donations matching gifts and miscellaneous local giving campaigns. The Senior Director oversees annual cultivation and stewardship activities for KUOW members and invents coordinated strategies and activities that move individuals through stages of the donor journey from awareness in content discovery to engagement to giving to major gifts. The Senior Director collaborates with internal and external experts to ensure our annual fundraising revenue and to re-invent our fundraising future and scale new philanthropic revenue and membership opportunities.

KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Fundraising Strategy and Program Development (60%)

• 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 UWs 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 KUOWs 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.

Leadership and Team Management (40%)

• Build lead and maintain a high-performing Donor Engagement team of eight to meet or exceed annual fundraising goals. Develop strategies and oversee the teams 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.

• Other duties: Participate in strategic planning revenue development and budget planning and preparation marketing community outreach and special event activities.

• Provide other management functions as assigned.

SUPERVISION

Position reports to the Chief Revenue Officer.

Position supervises Campaign Strategy Manager 2 Donor Services Managers (one of which is a people manager) 3 Philanthropy Officers Project & Production Officer and a Work Study student.

POSITION QUALIFICATIONS

• A bachelors 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.

Preferred:

• Familiarity with and appreciation of public radio programming.

• Working knowledge of fundraising databases preferably Salesforce.

WORKING CONDITIONS

• Duties may occasionally require evening and weekend work when necessary to meet critical deadlines and/or to attend station events.

• Ability to travel when necessary to meet donors and to attend station events.

• Ability to lift / move 20 pounds regularly and up to 40 pounds occasionally for event setup and tear down.

• • During Events (from setup to tear down) or on Event days:

• • Ability to stand 4 or more hours continuously.

• • Ability to walk 4 or more hours continuously.

• • Ability Standing: duration of 4 hours for events

• • Ability to work greater than a 10-hour day

• Position is suitable/eligible for Hybrid/Occasional Telework.

KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio is Seattles NPR news station. We are an independent nonprofit news organization producing award-winning journalism podcasts and events in service to the 3.9 million people in our coverage area. As a self-sustaining service of the University of Washington our mission is to create and serve a more informed public with a vision to broaden conversations and deepen understanding.