New Leaders · 23 hours ago
Director, Development & Donor Impact
United States
Full-time
Remote
Director/Executive
$83K/yr - $99K/yr
7+ years expNew Leaders develops transformational school leaders and advances policies and practices that ensure high academic achievement for all children—especially students from under-resourced communities. The Director is responsible for managing a donor portfolio that includes both the stewardship and expansion of existing philanthropic relationships and the cultivation of new donor opportunities.
Education Management
Hiring Manager
Anise Ross, M.S.
Responsibilities
Advance a defined set of new donor opportunities within assigned portfolio, while prioritizing stewardship, renewal, and expansion of existing relationships
Lead the development of a robust prospect pipeline of funders through sophisticated prospect identification, qualification, and cultivation strategies, fully leveraging the talents and connections of leadership staff and prioritizing the fundraising activities of the CEO and CERO to ensure the organization meets its annual funding and revenue goals
Generate bold and compelling funding proposals, concept papers, and other fundraising collateral for prospective donors, crafting compelling narratives that: treat donors as true partners in our work; accurately represent New Leaders’ mission, vision and impact; and meet the interest and expressed needs of donors
Lead the identification, assessment, and submission of RFPs/RFQs by leveraging and creating project plans, drafting contextualized content, managing freelancers’ contracts and deadlines, and liaising with other New Leaders teams for additional support and input as necessary
Own primary stewardship, renewal, and expansion responsibility for an assigned portfolio of existing donors, ensuring high retention, donor satisfaction, and multi-year commitment growth
Work closely with the Senior Executive Director, Partnerships in establishing clear and ambitious annual revenue goals for assigned portfolio
Execute a best-in-class and donor-centric stewardship strategy for assigned portfolio, partnering with the Senior Director of Donor Engagement to lead approaches that expand and enhance donors’ experiences with New Leaders and build new avenues of engagement
Work with donors directly within assigned portfolio to gain insight and understanding of current experiences and expectations of engagement, proactively planning thoughtful, personalized relationship-based stewardship plans
Evaluate and assess the effectiveness of donor engagement and stewardship strategies, leveraging best practices and other innovative solutions to improve donor retention and satisfaction
Regularly and intentionally connect New Leaders’ donors to the results of their philanthropy, showcasing the impact of their support, with the ultimate goal of encouraging the donor engagement cycle to repeat and increase over time
Generate bold and compelling funding renewal proposals, reports, and other fundraising collateral for existing donors, crafting compelling narratives that: treat donors as true partners in our work; accurately represent New Leaders’ mission, vision and impact; and meet the interest and expressed needs of donors
Regularly meet with existing donors, both in-person and virtually, serving as an external face of New Leaders while providing deep and meaningful stewardship touchpoints, including school visits, observation sessions, and funder meetings and events, leading all appropriate preparation and follow-up steps
Partner with appropriate staff to identify, define, design, and execute reports and presentations to meet the needs and questions of donors within assigned portfolio
Cultivate and convey a deep level understanding of New Leaders’ programs and their impact on underserved and underrepresented students while engaging in fundraising work grounded in the principle of excellence for all students
Build strong personal relationships and work closely with teams across the organization to gather, interpret and synthesize information that will be used to craft proposals and reports and ensure compliance with funder requirements
Manage assigned portfolio with thoroughness and efficiency, tailoring actions to bring together resources related to donor requests, and ensuring colleagues are well-prepared to meet each donor’s needs
Organize and meet all proposal and reporting deadlines and prepare/follow-up on all funder meetings in an excellent, timely manner
Create and manage systems and tools that facilitate the exchange of knowledge and information within and across teams
Ensure accuracy of data related to progress to goal and fundraising outcomes for reporting to internal and external stakeholders
Maintain accurate and functional internal databases and reports, including cash reports, overdue payment reports, progress to goal reports, development dashboards, and opportunities and next steps
Represent the Development Team in meetings with external stakeholders and internal colleagues, including cultivation and stewardship, status update and planning meetings
Perform other duties as assigned
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's degree required
Minimum of seven years of professional experience required, including 2-4 years of fundraising and/or grant writing, ideally in a nonprofit setting, required
Meaningful demonstrated experience fundraising from corporations, high net-worth individuals, foundations, and government entities
Proven ability to collaborate effectively with individuals across a variety of backgrounds and experiences; must be results-driven while maintaining a collaborative and inclusive leadership style
Passionate belief in academic excellence for every student, aligned with New Leaders' mission
Experience managing a fundraising portfolio of $1M+ strongly preferred
Demonstrated ability to influence laterally and manage 'down'/'up' to execute on tight timelines; able to operate with purpose, urgency, nimbleness, and accuracy in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment
Demonstrated comfort level with ambiguity in an ever-changing context
Strong data analysis capabilities, with a demonstrated ability to synthesize compelling narratives from a wide range of sources and data points
Demonstrated proactive approaches to problem-solving with strong decision-making capability
Demonstrated ability to achieve high performance goals and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment
Forward looking thinker, who actively seeks opportunities, proposes solutions, and is able to adapt to change
Flexibility in a dynamic environment and demonstrated ability to work independently on assigned work with minimal supervision
Proficient in MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
Superior communication skills, including active listening and the ability to compellingly articulate what is inspiring about our work and why it is critical to the broader education reform movement
Energetic, self-motivated, and a team player
Must be energized by external communications, fundraising, and relationship management
Experienced in leading funder meetings and highly comfortable working with national and/or regional foundation and corporate executives
Highly organized, detail-oriented, and strong at prioritization and time management
Must excel at planning, writing, storytelling, and creating compelling collateral
Must be able to travel up to approximately 20% of the time aligned to New Leaders' Travel and In-Person Activities policy
Preferred
Experience engaging with and writing grants/reports for national and/or regional funders strongly preferred
Experience working with Salesforce, HubSpot, or another CRM tool preferred
Benefits
Employees may be eligible for merit awards and/or bonuses depending on their role, organizational guidelines, and individual performance.
Company
New Leaders
A quality K-12 education can—and should—be accessible to all children in the U.S.
51-200 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Growth StageLeadership Team
Lisa Herring
Chief Executive Officer
Recent News
2025-09-15
Company data provided by crunchbase