Hiring a New Development Director – Mid- to Large Orgs

In your development director search, being able to offer a competitive salary is not enough.  More than likely you will need to hire your new director away from another organization, so be prepared to show how you will work with them, support them, and evaluate their work.

Even large nonprofits have a difficult time finding a well-qualified development director (sometimes called VP for Development or Chief Development Officer) to run their fundraising operation.  And beyond finding and hiring the new director lies a challenging terrain to be navigated – defining accountability and performance expectations, along with helping them navigate the culture of your organization.

Both parties must be flexible, available and open-minded as the new development director gets started. The first six months will be the most challenging, with the new development director feeling under pressure and the CEO and the Board watching carefully. Rather than just watching them, the CEO and Board need to be helping the new director by introducing them and going with them to see current donors, foundations, and other key supporters, and by making sure the new DD gets a rapid but meaningful orientation to the organization’s history, internal culture and its volunteer leadership culture.

The more intentional your leadership can be about helping the new DD, the more likely you can hire an accomplished person and the more likely she or he will be successful.

The Multi-Person Development Shop
Larger organizations – $1.5 – $2M annual budget and above – have development directors supervising several development professionals or managers, often reflecting the various program areas in development. They might even supervise a special campaign manager.

The large-shop development director needs to have deeper and wider experience in fundraising than the one-person shop director. Out of the five or so major development program areas, this development director should have real experience (and success) in two if not three of the areas. Experience in individual fundraising, probably major gifts fundraising, should be a requirement since we know that 80% of the funds raised in the U.S. are from individuals.

Some of the most important areas of accountability are these:

• Working as an effective senior staff team member with the CEO’s other direct reports, especially the financial director and the program director and contributing to strategic and business planning;

• Continually informing the CEO of changing needs/opportunities and recommending action or not based on the strategic plan, previous investments in fund raising and whether results are satisfactory in existing strategies;

• Projecting fund raising goals for the following year that are reasonable given history and the status of all cultivation efforts but also respond to the leadership’s plans and vision;

• Working with the CEO and Board Development Committee, to design a development work plan for every Board member, making sure Board members are supported to accomplish their work plans when needed.

• Staffing the CEO to engage, cultivate, solicit, and steward those making the largest gifts to your organization, and to identify promising new major donor prospects. (About 50% of the CEO’s time is spent here.)

• Engaging staff, volunteer leadership and other volunteers to organize and accomplish ongoing development programs and new projects;

• Understanding and articulating the case for support of your organization and being able to help others articulate it;

• Understanding the costs and return on investment of every fund raising program and project;

• Developing and managing the development department’s annual budgetand budgets for any special fundraising projects or campaigns;

• Developing/updating the organization’s dashboard of important fund raising indicators;

• Knowing the current status of every fund raising effort the organization has underway, including their own individual donor cultivation plans;

• Understanding what it takes to undertake and run a Campaign, and serving as the internal campaign leader for the first phase of campaign readiness assessment;

• Managing the work of fundraising staff – hiring, supervising, evaluating, and supporting the professional development of his/her staff.

While the development director in a larger organization does less hands-on fundraising than the one-person shop director, the fundraising they do will involve bigger gifts. They need to be personally accountable for working with a set of key donor prospects – either a group of individuals or a group of foundations or corporations, or a mix, depending on his or her strengths. However, working this portfolio should probably take no more than 40% of their time. Most of their time will be spent ensuring that the staff reporting to them are successful in raising funds through their assigned programs and in supporting the ED/ CEO and the Board to meet with key prospects and donors.

The chief development position for a larger nonprofit is a big, high-impact job, and as a hiring organization, you are competing in a sophisticated marketplace. You should plan accordingly.

Next month we will examine ways of helping your development director meet your organization’s financial fundraising goals, once you’ve hired them.