Director, Foundation Giving

Arlington, VA • External Engagement • Posted 04/21/2023

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WHO WE ARE

Rooted in community for more than 40 years, Communities In Schools (CIS) strives to bring community resources inside public schools, where they are accessible, coordinated, and accountable. Founder Bill Milliken said, “It’s relationships, not programs, that change children. A great program simply creates the environment for healthy relationships to form between adults and children. Young people thrive when adults care about them on a one-to-one level, and when they also have a sense of belonging to a caring community.” 

CIS programs are conducted annually throughout the United States, serving 3,270 schools; 1.8M students with over 15,000 community volunteers and 114 CIS affiliate organizations across the country. Their programs for students include providing needs assessments, support teams with corresponding plans to address academic and non-academic needs, delivery of multiple tiers of support for both students and families, progress monitoring and evaluation and assessment with parents and student support systems.

MISSION AND VALUES

Communities In Schools (CIS) is “all-in” for kids. It is our passion—it is our mission. At the National Office, CIS collaborates with local affiliate organizations to provide resources and create communities of caring adults who work hand-in-hand with educators to make sure young people have the tools they need to stay in school and achieve in life. We are the nation’s largest dropout prevention organization, and we achieve our mission by hiring bright, creative, and innovative team members who demonstrate a passion for what they do. 

CIS also holds the following talent beliefs: 

• Every staff member is passionate and committed to the mission.
• As a National Office, CIS employees have a responsibility to live our values and integrate principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion across the organization and lead by example.
• In turn, CIS is committed to continuously improving decision making, incentivizing creativity, and building engagement. We do this by building a diverse workforce, fostering a climate of inclusion, and shaping business practices and policies that promote equity.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Director, Foundation Giving, reporting to the VP of Advancement, leads the organization’s cultivation of prospective and current foundation funders and the team managing the organization’s portfolio of foundation grants. This person is a skilled relationship manager with deep experience handling the entire lifecycle of foundation grants, including building a robust pipeline, conducting effective meetings with prospective funders, writing compelling proposals, developing budgets, stewarding relationships, and upselling renewals. 

The Director, Foundation Giving, demonstrates exceptional initiative, anticipating market trends, developing strong funder communications, managing challenges, and constantly seeking new opportunities. The Director, Foundation Giving, should be able to take a long view on the cultivation and stewardship of relationships with the goal of consistent revenue growth. They are proactively keyed into shifts of internal programmatic strategy and can translate those topics effectively for a funder audience. Likewise, they keep current on philanthropy trends in the education field.

PRIMARY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES 

• Externally focused relationship management: Leads the cultivation and stewardship of prospective and current foundation funders. Builds the existing prospect pipeline and accelerates the number, quality, and speed of grant submissions. Guides the team in identifying and strategizing opportunities for renewal and upselling. Leads regular funder meetings and timely programmatic updates, identifying opportunities to deepen funder engagement and being highly responsive to funder’s changing priorities.
• Staff supervision and coaching: Guides the Foundation Giving team in their efforts, providing training, coaching and mentoring. Develops clear objectives, revenue goals and professional development for each team member.
• Content Development: Collaborates with program teams and senior leadership to maintain up-to-date knowledge of current organizational goals, initiatives, and funding requirements to deliver high-impact content to prospects and existing funders.
• Other duties as needed, including specific campaigns.

ABOUT YOU

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skills and ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Required skills & qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree with a minimum of 8 -12 years’ experience in foundation fundraising.
• Experience with corporate and private foundation funders.
• Demonstrated ability to develop compelling proposals and reports for funders.
• Ability to leverage senior CIS leaders to deepen relationships with institutional funders.
• Proven ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and meet deadlines.
• Highly adaptable and collaborative.
• A demonstrated ability to quickly become a subject matter expert.
• Experience with Salesforce and foundation software systems.

TRAVEL

10% - 25% - Will travel periodically for in-person meetings with funders, CIS national meetings, training, retreats, and school site visits.

ABOUT US

CIS staff continue to work in a virtual environment; however, the national office is open and available for staff to use as appropriate. 

To ensure the health and safety of staff and job applicants, all interviews will be conducted by phone and/or video conference.

BENEFITS & PERKS

Work that makes a difference—the opportunity to contribute to an important mission!

Competitive and comprehensive compensation and benefits package, including:

• Five weeks of Paid Time Off
• Generous 403b Retirement Savings Plan contribution
• 9 Paid Holidays
• 90% of employee health care premiums paid by the organization
• Summer Work Schedule and Winter Break
• Employer-paid short-term and long-term income replacement programs, and much, much more!

Communities In Schools is committed to a workforce that is representative of the varied communities we are privileged to serve. We provide a work environment that does not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information or any other basis protected by applicable law. CIS prohibits harassment of applicants or employees based on any of these protected categories. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

For more information on Communities In Schools please visit our website.