Vice President of Development

HR Media & Co. is seeking a Vice President of Development for our client, a national foundation, to join their team!

Position Title: Vice President of Development

Location: Dallas, TX (Hybrid)

Reports to: CFO

Job Type: Full Time

THE MANDATE: Build a disciplined, diversified development operation capable of generating $5M+ in sustainable annual unrestricted philanthropic revenue while producing meaningful near-term fundraising traction.

Position Summary:

The Vice President of Development is a senior executive fundraising leader responsible for building and leading a high-performing, sustainable development function. This is a builder role for a proven fundraiser who can quickly assess the current operation, strengthen the team, create a robust major-gift pipeline, establish disciplined systems, and translate relationships into measurable philanthropic revenue.

Reporting to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the Vice President will work in close partnership with the President & CEO, Board of Directors, executive leadership, programs, marketing, finance, and operations. The successful candidate must be equally comfortable building the fundraising engine and personally cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding donors.

The first-year mandate is intentionally demanding: demonstrate substantial fundraising progress while putting in place the people, processes, systems, pipeline, and accountability required for long-term sustainability.

The Opportunity & Challenge

The organization has strong mission visibility, meaningful relationships, and significant programmatic reach. The next phase requires transforming those assets into a more disciplined, diversified, and consistently executed fundraising operation.

The incoming Vice President will be expected to:

• Diversify philanthropic revenue. Sustainable growth requires materially increasing unrestricted support and reducing reliance on concentrated or opportunity-dependent funding.
• Build while fundraising. CRM discipline, prospect qualification, moves management, portfolio strategy, stewardship, forecasting, and reporting are being strengthened. The VP must improve this infrastructure while simultaneously generating fundraising results.
• Create a qualified major-gift pipeline. The VP will identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward high-capacity prospects while establishing a diversified portfolio discipline necessary for predictable growth.
• Assess and strengthen the team. The VP will lead an approximately five-person development team and evaluate roles, capabilities, performance expectations, and capacity.
• Activate CEO and Board relationships. The CEO will remain an active fundraiser and external ambassador, and Board members provide important access to corporate leaders, foundations, family offices, and major donors. The VP must create the structure and follow-through that convert those relationships into philanthropic opportunities.
• Create durable fundraising infrastructure. The organization is seeking a leader who will institutionalize systems, processes, donor knowledge, and accountability so that fundraising progress is sustainable beyond any one individual.

Responsibilities:

Fundraising Strategy & Revenue Growth

• Develop and execute a comprehensive fundraising strategy to achieve aggressive annual and multi-year unrestricted revenue goals, including a credible pathway toward $5M+ annually.
• Lead fundraising strategy across major gifts, individual giving, corporate philanthropy, foundations, sponsorships, and other appropriate channels.
• Personally cultivate, solicit, and steward significant philanthropic opportunities.
• Establish annual fundraising targets, forecasts, performance measures, and pipeline expectations in partnership with the CEO and CFO.
• Identify gaps between fundraising goals, qualified pipeline, activity, and results and take action to address them.

Major Gifts & Donor Pipeline

• Build and manage a portfolio of major donors and high-capacity prospects.
• Establish disciplined prospect identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, stewardship, renewal, and re-engagement practices.
• Create prospect portfolios with clear ownership, strategy, next actions, potential asks, and expected timing.
• Build sufficient qualified pipeline coverage to support reliable forecasting and long-term revenue growth.
• Develop strategies for donor acquisition, retention, upgrading, and lapsed-donor reactivation.

Development Infrastructure & Performance

• Assess the current fundraising operation and identify the highest-priority barriers and opportunities for growth.
• Establish disciplined CRM utilization, moves management, donor segmentation, portfolio management, stewardship, proposal tracking, and reporting.
• Implement dashboards and reporting that provide leadership and the Board visibility into pipeline, fundraising activity, commitments, cash received, forecasts, and risk.
• Ensure donor relationships, institutional knowledge, and next actions are documented in organizational systems and not dependent on individual team members.

Team, CEO & Board Leadership

• Lead, assess, coach, and develop an approximately five-person development team, establishing clear roles, goals, portfolios, performance expectations, and accountability.
• Recommend changes in team structure, staffing, training, or external support when needed.
• Develop and manage a focused CEO prospect portfolio and identify where CEO involvement can materially advance donor relationships.
• Prepare the CEO and Board members for cultivation and solicitation opportunities and ensure disciplined follow-up.
• Build a structured Board engagement model that converts introductions and access into qualified prospects, donor movement, and philanthropic investment.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner with the CFO on fundraising forecasts, revenue projections, cash expectations, and financial planning.
• Collaborate with programs and marketing to translate outcomes and impact into compelling fundable opportunities and donor communications.
• Ensure fundraising commitments align with programmatic and financial capacity.
• Represent the organization professionally with donors, corporate leaders, philanthropic institutions, and community partners.

First-Year Performance Expectations

First 30 Days
Complete a development audit covering team capability, donor data, pipeline, systems, prior fundraising efforts, Board relationships, stewardship, and support case. Identify and begin advancing the highest-probability near-term opportunities.

By 90 Days
Present a data-informed 12-, 24-, and 36-month fundraising strategy; establish qualified pipeline and moves-management discipline; define CEO and Board prospect strategies; and implement core reporting and accountability rhythms.

By 6 Months
Demonstrate measurable pipeline expansion and prospect movement; have significant cultivation and solicitations underway; show initial unrestricted commitments and results; activate CEO and Board relationships against prioritized prospects; and establish reliable forecasting.

By 12 Months
Demonstrate substantial unrestricted fundraising progress and a credible trajectory toward $5M+ annually; establish a diversified, qualified pipeline; build a high-performing development team; and demonstrate that the fundraising system is repeatable and sustainable.

Leadership Style

Builder: Creates systems, teams, pipeline, and sustainable fundraising capacity.

Fundraiser: Personally develops relationships, makes significant asks, and closes gifts.

Strategic: Connects organizational priorities with sophisticated philanthropic opportunities.

Accountable: Uses pipeline quality, forecasting, activity, and results to drive performance.

Collaborative: Effectively engages the CEO, CFO, Board, development team, and cross-functional partners.

Urgent and Disciplined: Moves quickly on high-value opportunities while maintaining sound judgment and execution quality.

Agile and Entrepreneurial: Operates effectively in a fast-moving, relationship-driven environment where priorities and opportunities can evolve quickly.

Comfortable With Ambiguity: Makes thoughtful decisions and moves work forward even when complete information or established precedent is unavailable.

Highly Responsive: Understands that executive leadership and major-gift fundraising occasionally require flexibility and responsiveness beyond traditional business hours.

What We're Looking For

The ideal candidate is a proven fundraising builder, not simply a manager of an established development program.

• Significant senior-level fundraising and development leadership experience.
• Demonstrated success building, rebuilding, or materially scaling a development operation.
• Track record of generating substantial philanthropic revenue, preferably with multimillion-dollar annual fundraising responsibility.
• Strong major-gift cultivation and solicitation experience, including personally making significant asks and closing gifts.
• Demonstrated ability to build qualified donor pipelines where limited infrastructure or pipeline previously existed.
• Experience developing diversified unrestricted revenue and reducing funding concentration.
• Experience leading, coaching, and holding fundraising teams accountable.
• Strong knowledge of CRM discipline, moves management, prospect research, forecasting, stewardship, and fundraising performance measurement.
• Demonstrated ability to engage a CEO, senior executives, and Board members effectively in fundraising.
• Strong executive presence, judgment, communication, relationship-building, and organizational skills.
• Ability to operate with urgency and adaptability while building systems for long-term sustainability.

Strongly Preferred

• Experience helping an organization reach or move materially toward $5M+ in annual philanthropic revenue.
• Previous formal development or fundraising training or certification.
• Demonstrated success significantly increasing unrestricted fundraising.
• Experience building a development function rather than solely inheriting a mature fundraising operation.
• Experience managing a development team of comparable size or complexity.
• Experience fundraising across multiple markets and engaging corporate, foundation, family-office, and major individual donors.

Definition of Success

Success means meaningful near-term unrestricted fundraising progress plus a repeatable development system capable of sustaining $5M+ annually. The VP must leave the Foundation with the people, pipeline, systems, relationships, and operating discipline to continue growing beyond any one donor, executive, or development leader.

Travel Requirements

Periodic overnight travel is required to support donor meetings, prospect cultivation, Board engagement, fundraising events, and relationship-building activities in Dallas, Atlanta, and other markets as appropriate.

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Tuition reimbursement
• Vision insurance