Harvard University

Senior Regional Director of Development, Major Gifts

Cambridge, MA, United States · Director · Full-time

No sponsorship$85k-$100kDetected 7 days ago

SpringNGSResearchLeadershipCommunicationCollaborationOrganizational Skills

About the role

Acquire a deep understanding of assigned prospects' philanthropic interests, capacity, and inclination through face-to-face and virtual meetings.
Foster relationships between prospective donors and academic leadership, faculty, and other members of the Harvard community to deepen a prospect's engagement with Harvard.
Travel frequently with senior academic and administrative leaders.

Manage a targeted portfolio of approximately 85-100 households in the West Coast Region.
Utilize knowledge of prospects' interests to develop and execute robust, multi-step prospect strategies which strategically leverage academic leadership, faculty, and other members of the Harvard community leading to successful solicitation and closure of six- and seven- ﬁgure gifts.
Embrace collaboration with these partners to deepen each prospect's relationship with the university to maximize giving potential through broad interests.
Support for families and caregivers

Bachelor's degree required.
Minimum of 8 years of experience in university fundraising or relevant transferable experience required.
Must be drawn to a challenge and exhibit the patience necessary to advance solutions in a complex and collaborative organization.
Demonstrate a personal commitment to excellence as well as an ability to admit mistakes and forgive faults in others.
Other responsibilities as needed or required.

Strong active listening skills, including an ability to ask sensitive questions with tact.
Demonstrated ability to uncover interests, motivations, and objections from prospective donors, clients, or others strongly preferred.
Someone who is pleasantly persistent while exhibiting sound judgement.
Willingness to learn and embrace new ideas and be ﬂexible and open to change.
Must be a professional, conﬁdential, honest and trustworthy person.
Must have an even disposition and be able to deal eﬀectively and politely with people from all types of backgrounds and experience and in all types of diﬃcult or challenging situations.
Must be able to evaluate problems accurately and display good, sound judgment.

Knowledge of complex academic institutions and experience staﬃng academic leaders in development work strongly preferred.
Highly sophisticated and comprehensive understanding of fundraising best practices.
Proven track record of closing six and seven figure gifts and/or relevant transferable experience strongly preferred.
Ability to exercise good judgment in the handling of confidential information.
Computer literacy required and experience with Windows-based PCs and prospect management databases.
Standard Hours/Schedule: 40 hours per week

Our benefits include, but are not limited to:
Generous paid time off including parental leave
Medical, dental, and vision health insurance coverage starting on day one
Retirement plans with university contributions
Wellbeing and mental health resources
Professional development opportunities including tuition assistance and reimbursement
Commuter benefits, discounts and campus perks
Learn more about these and additional benefits on our Benefits & Wellbeing Page.

We seek talent from all parts of society and the world, and we strive to ensure everyone at Harvard thrives.

This listing is sourced directly from Harvard University's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.