General Overview: 

The Senior Director, Philanthropic Giving reports to the Assistant Vice President for Philanthropic Giving + Digital Engagement and is responsible is for leading an omni-channel, data-driven, annual giving program at the University of Miami. The Senior Director manages a team of six and has three direct reports. The leader is responsible for designing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated solicitation program for each development unit that incorporates all channels of giving direct mail, email, phone, and text-to-give and other means including Venmo, Cash App, etc. They will create and manage a strategy for the university’s crowdfunding platform, CaneFunder. The Senior Director will partner with Philanthropic Giving and Digital Engagement leadership, including Digital Engagement and UHealth/ Grateful Patient Annual Giving to assist in managing institutional days of giving, grateful patient renewal strategy, and other special initiatives.

Responsibilities: 

• Provides strategic segmentation strategy around securing current use, expendable funds as well as building and retaining a long-term pipeline of philanthropic support. Establishes a robust solicitation process that has a focus on alumni and undergraduate alumni to assist in growing the donor count needed to bolster the university’s ranking in USN&WR.
• The Sr. Director will regularly evaluate programming, emerging digital technologies, dual ask, and other partnerships with gift officers, and strategies for leadership annual donors. The leader will also partner with the Development Resources team to identify how to utilize and optimize annual giving scores and multi-variable predictive indices.
• The leader will partner with colleagues in Donor Experience to establish a solicitation and stewardship program for targeted constituencies, including but not limited to first-year donors, young alumni, and consecutive donors. The Sr. Director will also create and manage the university’s annual giving calendar, ensuring all solicitations are segmented, targeted, maintain key performance metrics, and delivered on time.
• The Sr. Director will develop a strong working partnership with the various development and alumni departments including but not limited to, Lifelong Engagement, Volunteer Leadership, and Family Relations.
• The leader will be aware of and conversant about best practices and benchmarking with peer institutions. The Sr. Director will also establish annual revenue goals and associated metrics, utilize dashboards and reports to monitor progress and share ongoing results regularly with the team unit, and divisional leadership.

Qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree preferred. At least seven years of experience in non-profit, fundraising, marketing, or data management. An equivalent combination of education/experience may be considered. At least three years of management experience required.
• Comfortable working in a complex, multi-divisional, results-oriented environment
• Ability to establish priorities, set objectives, and achieve goals.
• Strong desire to succeed and an excellent work ethic.
• Ability to organize and interpret complex data sets and utilize analytic techniques and platforms.
• Demonstrated ability to influence and drive consensus.
• Strong understanding of annual giving and direct marketing best practices across nonprofit sectors, including knowledge of relevant research.
• Extensive experience in testing and evaluating annual giving or direct marketing propositions, copy, and design.
• Extensive experience in working strategically with vendors to support annual giving programs.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills including presentation capabilities
• Preference is given for candidates with demonstrated experience using data visualization tools (i.e., Tableau or similar) as well as, Filemaker Pro, Crystal Reports, R and/or Python.
• Extensive experience working with non-profit databases, with preference given to CRM.