Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC) partners with clients and communities across Virginia to fight for racial, social, and economic justice. Together, they are dismantling the systems that create and perpetuate poverty. They fight for justice by combining direct legal advice and representation to clients with community-driven systemic advocacy. They organize alongside community partners, file impactful lawsuits, advocate for broad-level policy change, and amplify their clients’ stories, all with the goal of building power in low-income communities and creating lasting change.
Opportunity:
The Director of Development (DOD) will lead a team of development professionals providing guidance, mentorship, and counsel on all aspects of development, including annual giving, major/principal giving, foundation and government giving, estate and gift planning, donor relations, and donor operations. With a remarkable history and track record and an even greater opportunity ahead, LAJC seeks to reach heightened impact and meet increased constituency and programmatic demand. The DOD will report to LAJC’s Executive Director, Angela Ciolfi, and participate on the leadership team of the organization. The DOD oversees four direct reports within a Development Department of seven. Primary responsibilities include:
- Create and oversee the execution of annual fundraising plans to increase revenue in pace with projected organizational needs. As such, the successful candidate will show demonstrated success in growing fundraising programs throughout their career.
- Manage and guide an Institutional Division that consists of two grant writers in identifying, completing, and reporting on a complex array of private and public grants that can meet growing programmatic demand through FY28.
- Manage and guide the Associate Director of Development in their oversight of the Individual Division, incorporating best practices in prospect management and in the cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of over 500 individual annual donors and DAFs.
- Manage and guide the Senior Development Associate in their oversight and deployment of CRM (Donor Perfect) and other operational resources that support and enhance the work of the two divisions primarily via sophisticated data management.
- Ensure that all team members establish and work effectively and efficiently toward annual and long-term revenue goals that align with LAJC’s current operating and special purpose funding needs and future budget projections. In particular, the Director will work closely with program staff to broaden the Development Department team’s understanding of the organization’s program priorities and overall work while communicating regularly with program staff on existing funder requirements and potential prospects.
- Oversee coordination of the Development Department with the Communications Department in a successful execution of joint projects that include Annual Impact Reports, landing pages/URLs to support specific annual appeals, and social media/e-blasts to support specific annual appeals.
- Serve on the organization’s Leadership Team and on LAJC committees, and/or ad hoc work groups as needed.
- See Position Overview, linked above, for additional responsibilities.
Ideal Candidate:
The successful candidate will have extensive development, donor communications and management experience, working in complex fundraising systems that raise funds from both public and private donors. LAJC requires evidenced skill in creating data informed strategy, building or improving technology and person-based processes and systems to coordinate the solicitation of individual and institutional prospects and manage/coach teams to successful fundraising outcomes.
Competitive applicants will view this as a remarkable and transformative professional opportunity and a chance to work with a group of exceptional and committed colleagues. Candidates will also demonstrate a commitment to Community Centric Fundraising (CCF) and ensure that the development team incorporates facets of CCF into fundraising practices and promotes a mix of revenue that supports community-driven advocacy. Those with experience in development shops that exceed $10M in philanthropic revenue will be strongly considered. In addition, candidates should have:
- Deep understanding of effective fundraising strategies and practices.
- Proven ability to collaborate closely with the Executive Director (ED) and Director of Finance.
- Experience serving on senior leadership teams and committees.
- Ability to engage the Executive Director in cultivating individual and institutional funders.
- Strong advocacy skills for the organization’s mission, with the ability to represent and promote LAJC.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with a track record of managing and leading teams (4 direct reports).
- Minimum of 5+ years of management experience in a complex philanthropic environment.
- Strong leadership in managing people, projects, and multifaceted fundraising efforts.
- Demonstrated experience working in complex fundraising systems, successfully raising significant funds from both public and private donors.
- Experience managing and guiding an Institutional Division with a team of grant writers (at least 2).
- See Position Overview, linked above, for additional qualifications.
DRiWaterstone is proud to lead this search on behalf of Legal Aid Justice Center.
