Senior Manager, Major Gifts & Planned Giving

at  Wikimedia Foundation

SUMMARY

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia – one of the most popular websites in the world, serving nearly half a billion users every month. It is the only non-profit in the top 50 websites, supported by a community of millions of individual donors. Join the Wikimedia Foundation in our ambitious project to empower people to create and share the sum of all human knowledge.
We are looking for a Senior Manager, Major Gifts & Planned Giving to lead the team who are responsible for our $10,000+ fundraising and planned giving efforts. These fundraising programs support both the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia Endowment. The person in this role will play a critical part in our growing major gifts program, as it becomes an increased focus of our diversified revenue plan. They will also lead the strategy and implementation driving the maturation of our planned giving program.
Succeeding in our global and distributed environment requires taking an entrepreneurial approach to strategy, using both traditional fundraising methods and a willingness to try new techniques that fit the needs of our current and prospective donors and align with our strategy and values.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

• Seven plus years of successful fundraising experience, including direct experience and success in raising money from individual major donors and through planned gifts in the 6 to 7-figure range
• Experience creating and implementing successful fundraising strategy, ideally for an endowment and/or planned giving
• Experience leading teams, including mentoring and developing staff with a wide range of experience
• Broad-based knowledge of various development campaign activities including: direct solicitations, planned giving, event planning and management, institutional grantmaking, and leveraging fundraising databases
• Experience building relationships through mission-supporting ventures; a comfort with major donors and a respect for and understanding of their goals and objectives;
• Ability to create and maintain strong internal relationships and balance the needs of multiple stakeholders
• Demonstrable track record as an exceptional communicator, in writing as well as verbally; adept at writing solicitation letters, donor correspondence, and other kinds of material for publication; experience preparing and making effective presentations to diverse groups large and small
• Ability to maintain confidentiality of donor information and a finely-tuned sense of discretion
• Experience working in an organization with a distributed workforce, using asynchronous and synchronous communication methods, and an ability to work with a high degree of autonomy and accountability
• Comfort with ambiguity and the ability to adapt to a rapidly changing business environment.

• Retaining, recruiting and managing a team of fundraising professionals and consultants; establishing work plans, performance objectives, and goals for each team member and regularly reviewing performance; providing professional development and training required to cultivate staff skills and professionalism
• Achieving annual major gifts ($10K+) and planned giving targets; collaborating with other leaders in the fundraising program to develop donor journeys that funnel mid-level prospects into the major donor audience.
• Collaborating with the Sr. Director of Development on the development of a sustainable major giving strategy for the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia Endowment, including the implementation of the major gifts portion of the second 10-year, $100M campaign for the Wikimedia Endowment
• Leading the ongoing development of the planned giving program and building a robust pipeline of planned giving commitments that will provide support for the Wikimedia movement for decades to come
• Partner with the Sr. Director of Development, Major Gifts Stewardship Manager, and Fundraising Events Manager to further develop the events strategy to support increasing individual and planned giving fundraising; strengthening the stewardship and donor recognition program, with the objective of establishing a life-long, relationships with major and planned giving donors
• Collaborate with the Endowment Board of Trustees to develop fundraising strategy, lead fundraising implementation and identify potential new board members
• Ensuring the cultivation and stewardship of a diverse portfolio of existing donors and donor prospects, including undertaking direct individual donor solicitations and cultivating high value relationships. As appropriate, working closely with top-level executives and board members on these efforts, by matching senior leaders to development opportunities and specific donors
• In collaboration with the Major Gifts Stewardship Manager, overseeing portfolio management, major donor prospecting, and systems support for gift officers to identify and qualify new major donors
• Partner with managers and subject matter experts across the fundraising program to define cross-team strategies, goals, and help set up the structure for execution, including for planned giving marketing
• Generate creative solutions to improve donor experience and fundraising performance, considering current capacities and donor interests
• Coordinate with other teams and departments in the Wikimedia Foundation to realize opportunities and enhance organizational impact