[Hiring] Managing Director, Principal Giving @United States Fund for Unicef

Role Description

Reporting to the Vice President, Principal Giving, the Managing Director, Principal Giving will be a driving force enabling ambitious fundraising goals in line with the organization’s Strategic Plan and fostering a culture of philanthropy, collaboration, and innovation within the organization. The Managing Director will manage a principal gift growth portfolio of approximately 40-50 seven-, eight-, and nine-figure prospects, with a special focus on qualifying new prospects and enhancing all individual fundraisers’ ability to build transformational gift strategies. This role will also focus on understanding and leveraging the emerging new wave of philanthropy catalyzed by the success of AI and tech companies to raise transformational gifts for UNICEF.

In addition, the Managing Director, Principal Giving will also co-create qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship strategies with prospect managers across the Individual Philanthropy continuum – primarily on the Major Gifts team - as guided by the Vice President, Principal Giving. The Managing Director, Principal Giving will be a team player and partner to all individual fundraisers. Their role will include securing and retaining new principal gifts and amplifying the principal gift work of Major Giving team members, respecting each prospect manager’s ability to close a principal gift.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with 8-10+ years of fundraising or relevant experience
• Experience personally cultivating, soliciting, closing, and stewarding a minimum of seven-figure gifts
• Experience with complex and blended gifts, requiring negotiation and collaboration with institutional leaders
• Proven track record of creating multi-layered, transformational gift proposals for donors at the Principal Giving level
• Ability to build effective relationships internally and to collaborate with staff and share team successes
• Ability to work independently but also be a highly engaged team player on a small, close-knit team of top-tier fundraisers
• Must have the patience and acute emotional intelligence to build long-term relationships with UHNW donors and prospects over time with the goal of ultimately co-creating meaningful giving opportunities
• Familiarity with broader philanthropic community, influencers, and trends, particularly in the tech and AI community
• Strong organizational and time management skills, with exceptional attention to detail
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral
• Ability to influence and engage a wide range of donors and build long-term relationships
• Knowledge of fundraising best practices, including all aspects of donor qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship
• Must possess a strong work ethic, and be a motivated, enthusiastic team player who deeply embraces the mission of UNICEF USA
• Must demonstrate a strong interest in the programmatic work of UNICEF’s work for children around the world, and must be willing to invest significant time upon arrival in learning about the work in depth
• Experience with CRM databases and data-driven decision strategies
• Must be willing to travel domestically and occasionally internationally (25%)
• Demonstrated commitment to UNICEF USA’s and UNICEF’s stated mission(s).

Requirements

• Manages Principal Giving growth portfolio, qualifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding portfolios of approximately 40-50 individuals/families and their related charitable giving vehicles, with a specific focus on unqualified prospects new to UNICEF USA who can give at the 7-, 8-, and 9- figure levels
• Establishes and cultivates a strong growth portfolio, with a revenue goal of $1-2M in year one, followed by growth year over year that builds to a portfolio raising a minimum of $10M annually
• Builds a pipeline of principal solicitations, submitting at least 10 proposals each year through donor retention and growth of existing principal donor relationships
• Develops a deep understanding of UNICEF’s program areas and uses this knowledge to build innovative funding proposals to inspire transformational partnerships
• Leverages relationship mapping, referrals, networking, event follow up, etc., to build the Principal Giving program holistically across the Individual Philanthropy team
• Works closely with Prospect Development and Principal Giving colleagues to identify prospects with an estimated giving capacity of $1 million or more in the existing new leads pool and to prospect externally based on industry knowledge
• Participates in regular pipeline and prospect strategy meetings to support Individual Philanthropy’s optimization of strategies and progress on their principal prospects

Benefits

• Opportunity to work remotely
• Travel opportunities domestically and internationally
• Engagement with high-net-worth individuals and philanthropic leaders
• Professional development in fundraising strategies and practices