Senior Director of Major Gifts

Overview

The Sr. Director of Major Gifts leads the Central Health Foundation’s major-gifts function and develops and executes strategies to generate significant philanthropic support for Central Health’s mission, strategic priorities, and community impact. Reporting to the Foundation Chief Executive Officer, the Sr. Director manages a portfolio of qualified major-gift prospects and donors through identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. The Sr. Director personally solicits significant philanthropic gifts and partners closely with the Foundation CEO on transformational and selected major-gift opportunities requiring executive involvement. The position establishes disciplined prospect- and moves-management practices, develops individualized donor strategies, prepares compelling proposals, and maintains reliable pipeline and revenue forecasts. The Sr. Director leads the execution of the major-gifts strategy and supports campaign implementation in partnership with Foundation Strategy, which retains responsibility for overarching campaign architecture, strategic prioritization, and organizational readiness. The Sr. Director also works closely with Grants, Annual Giving, Donor Stewardship, Communications, Foundation Operations, Central Health leaders, clinicians, Board members, and community partners to coordinate fundraising activity and donor engagement. The Sr. Director builds and leads the major-gifts team as approved staffing plans develop. The position may initially operate as a senior individual contributor and player-coach but is accountable for establishing the structure, practices, performance expectations, and team capacity needed to support a mature major-gifts program.

This is a hybrid position. Individuals in this position may work both at an approved off-site location and onsite at a primary location or multiple locations based on business needs.

Responsibilities

Essential Functions

Major-Gifts Strategy and Portfolio Management:

- Develop, implement, and evaluate a multiyear major-gifts strategy aligned with Central Health priorities, the Foundation’s approved fundraising plan, and overarching campaign architecture.

- Establish annual and multiyear major-gift revenue goals, pipeline expectations, activity measures, performance indicators, and portfolio standards.

- Personally manage assigned prospects and donors through identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.

- Develop individualized donor strategies based on philanthropic interests, giving capacity, readiness, relationship history, and alignment with Foundation priorities.

- Identify and pursue opportunities to increase philanthropic support from individuals, families, corporations, foundations, and other strategic partners.

- Monitor portfolio activity, proposal status, expected revenue, donor movement, relationship ownership, and

- fundraising risks.

- Prepare regular forecasts, performance updates, portfolio analyses, and recommendations for the Foundation CEO and other appropriate leadership audiences.

- Evaluate portfolio distribution and recommend reassignment of prospects as gift officers are hired and the majorgifts function develops.

Principal, Transformational, and Executive-Led Gifts:

- Partner with the Foundation CEO to develop and execute strategies for transformational, principal, and selected major-gift prospects.

- Personally solicit assigned major-gift prospects and participate in transformational and principal-gift solicitations with the Foundation CEO and other designated leaders.

- Conduct or coordinate research, donor strategy, relationship mapping, and next-step planning for CEO-led and executive-led relationships.

- Prepare the Foundation CEO, Board members, Central Health executives, clinicians, and community leaders for donor meetings and solicitations.

- Develop briefing materials, talking points, proposals, presentations, solicitation strategies, and follow-up plans for significant gift opportunities.

- Coordinate the participation of executives, Board members, clinicians, volunteers, and other relationship partners in donor engagement.

- Clarify relationship ownership, solicitation roles, decision points, timelines, and follow-up responsibilities.

- Track commitments and next steps associated with transformational, principal, and major-gift strategies.

Campaign Execution and Case Development:

- Lead major-gifts execution within the Foundation’s broader campaign and fundraising strategy.

- Partner with Foundation Strategy, which leads overarching campaign architecture, funding themes, initiative sequencing, readiness requirements, and strategic prioritization.

- Provide donor-market, portfolio, and pipeline insight to inform campaign priorities, feasibility, leadership engagement, solicitation planning, and fundraising goals.

- Participate substantially in prospect strategy and solicitation planning.

- Assess campaign readiness from a fundraising perspective, including prospect strength, donor interest, volunteer leadership, case development, and stewardship capacity.

- Develop or coordinate cases for support, donor proposals, initiative summaries, presentations, and solicitation materials.

- Partner with Foundation Strategy, Communications, Strategic Alignment and Impact, Foundation Operations, and Central Health leaders to ensure donor materials accurately reflect approved organizational priorities, budgets, outcomes, readiness, and community impact.

- Recommend adjustments when donor response, portfolio information, or fundraising readiness indicates a need to revise solicitation plans, campaign assumptions, or sequencing.

- Ensure major-gift activity is coordinated with Annual Giving, Grants, Donor Stewardship, and other fundraising channels.

Donor Cultivation, Solicitation, and Stewardship:

- Build and maintain trusted relationships with major-gift prospects, donors, families, corporations, philanthropic leaders, and community stakeholders.

- Conduct donor discovery and qualification activities to assess interests, motivation, capacity, relationships, and engagement opportunities.

- Cultivate prospects through meetings, briefings, site visits, events, volunteer engagement, and mission-focused experiences.

- Develop and present tailored philanthropic opportunities and personally solicit assigned prospects for significant gifts.

- Coordinate proposed gift terms, restrictions, recognition expectations, payment schedules, and reporting commitments with Foundation Operations, Finance, Legal, and other appropriate partners.

- Develop individualized stewardship strategies for assigned donors, including impact reports, program updates, recognition, meetings, and site visits.

- Partner with Donor Stewardship and Strategic Alignment and Impact to ensure donor commitments and reporting obligations are fulfilled accurately and timely.

- Maintain clear, consistent, and appropriate communication with donors throughout the relationship lifecycle.

- Ensure donor engagement and solicitation practices reflect ethical fundraising standards, donor intent, organizational policy, and public accountability.

Prospect Management, Reporting, and Fundraising Operations:

- Establish and maintain consistent prospect-management, moves-management, portfolio-review, relationshipmanagement, and pipeline practices.

- Lead regular prospect-strategy, portfolio, and pipeline-review meetings.

- Establish clear relationship ownership and coordination practices to prevent duplicate, conflicting, or uncoordinated donor outreach.

- Ensure timely and accurate documentation of donor activity, strategies, proposals, commitments, next steps, and stewardship requirements in the Foundation CRM.

- Develop and monitor major-gift dashboards, forecasts, activity measures, proposal conversion, pipeline movement, portfolio performance, and progress toward revenue goals.

- Partner with Foundation Operations to establish effective workflows for CRM use, gift documentation, acknowledgments, donor records, restricted funds, reporting, and reconciliation.

- Identify workflow, data, system, staffing, or resource gaps and recommend improvements to strengthen fundraising effectiveness.

- Maintain appropriate confidentiality and access controls for donor, prospect, wealth, relationship, and gift information.

Organizational and External Collaboration:

- Partner with Annual Giving and Donor Stewardship to establish qualification, referral, migration, and handoff processes for donors with major-gift potential.

- Coordinate with Grants leadership when individual, corporate, or foundation relationships also involve institutional funding opportunities.

- Partner with Foundation Strategy and Central Health leaders to confirm that proposed philanthropic initiatives are approved, fundable, operationally feasible, and supported by credible budgets and outcomes.

- Work with Strategic Alignment and Impact and Communications to develop accurate donor-facing impact information, cases for support, and stewardship materials.

- Represent the Foundation in donor, healthcare, civic, philanthropic, and community settings as assigned.

- Provide fundraising guidance, coaching, and technical support to staff, executives, Board members, volunteers, clinicians, and other leaders involved in donor engagement.

- Coordinate external relationship activity with Foundation Strategy, Grants, Communications, and other designated relationship owners.

- Lead assigned fundraising projects and coordinate consultants, vendors, volunteers, or temporary resources within delegated authority.

Team Leadership and Development:

- Build and lead the major-gifts team as organizational needs and approved staffing plans develop.

- Recruit, onboard, develop, coach, and evaluate assigned gift officers and other advancement employees.

- Establish clear portfolio expectations, revenue goals, activity standards, performance measures, and accountability.

- Assign and rebalance donor portfolios based on organizational priorities, relationship ownership, staff capacity, donor potential, and program needs.

- Conduct regular portfolio reviews, coaching sessions, and performance discussions.

- Promote disciplined fundraising practices, collaboration, professional development, and ethical donor engagement.

- Evaluate future staffing, organizational design, systems, and resource needs and recommend investments necessary to support growth.

- Lead employees, consultants, vendors, volunteers, and temporary resources in accordance with organizational policies and delegated authority.

Qualifications

Education Level

- Bachelor's Degree (higher degree accepted) in nonprofit management, business administration, communications, public relations, marketing, healthcare administration, public administration, public health, or a related field. - Required

- Master's Degree (higher degree accepted) in nonprofit management, business administration, communications, public relations, marketing, healthcare administration, public administration, Preferred public health, or a related field. - Preferred

Work Experience

- 8 years of progressively responsible experience in major gifts, principal gifts, advancement, fundraising, development, strategic philanthropy, nonprofit leadership, or a related field. - Required

- Demonstrated success managing a portfolio of majorgift prospects and donors through qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. - Required

- Demonstrated experience personally soliciting and closing significant philanthropic gifts. - Required

- Experience developing donor strategies, proposals, engagement plans, solicitation approaches, and stewardship strategies. - Required

- Experience using prospect-management, movesmanagement, pipeline, forecasting, portfolio, and CRM practices. - Required

- Experience partnering with senior executives, Board members, volunteers, clinicians, program leaders, or other organizational representatives in donor engagement. - Required

- Experience translating complex organizational or community priorities into compelling philanthropic opportunities. - Required

- Experience leading employees, consultants, volunteers, project teams, or other fundraising resources and establishing clear goals and accountability. - Required

- Experience within a healthcare foundation, health system, public-health organization, public hospital district, academic medical center, or similarly complex mission-driven organization. - Preferred

- Experience supporting transformational or principal gifts. - Preferred

- Experience with comprehensive, capital, or multiyear campaigns. - Preferred

- Experience building, scaling, or leading a major-gifts program. - Preferred

- Experience engaging governing Boards and executive leaders in fundraising. - Preferred

- Experience developing corporate, philanthropic, civic, or community partnerships. - Preferred

- Knowledge of Central Texas donors, philanthropic institutions, corporations, civic organizations, and community leaders. - Preferred