Job Description

About This Role

KIPP Team & Family is at an inflection point in our fundraising work. We have ambitious goals, a committed team, and strong mission alignment—but we want to significantly level up our fundraising infrastructure, systems, and practice to raise $10M+ annually across both states.

We’re looking for an experienced fundraising leader who can be both strategist and builder: someone who will roll up their sleeves to strengthen our operations, develop our team’s capabilities, and model excellent major gifts practice—all while helping us grow revenue and build a sustainable, professionalized fundraising operation across New Jersey and Florida.

This is a “build the plane while flying it” opportunity for someone who gets energized by developing people, fixing systems, and creating something stronger than what exists today.

Who You’ll Work With

You’ll report to the Chief Growth & Advancement Officer, who oversees Development, Advocacy, and Growth across both states. You’ll directly manage our Director of Institutional Giving and Manager of Development Operations, and provide coaching and professional development support to our state-based advancement directors.

Our team is hardworking, mission-driven, and knows our work deeply, but have varying levels of experience in their fundraising careers. You and the CGAO will be the most senior fundraising practitioners on the team, and people will look to you both to raise the bar on what excellent fundraising looks like.

What Success Looks Like

In Year One, you will:

• Stabilize and strengthen our core fundraising systems (Raiser’s Edge, reporting, donor tracking, finance coordination) working closely with our operations manager
• Establish baseline metrics and accountability rhythms that drive consistent activity and results
• Assess the team’s capabilities and design a professional development roadmap that addresses our highest-leverage gaps
• Build and manage your own portfolio of major donor relationships (25-40 donors), modeling best-in-class cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship
• Create annual and multi-year fundraising plans that are ambitious, realistic, and aligned with current philanthropy trends
• Establish yourself as a trusted partner to our finance team and internal stakeholders

In Year Two and beyond, you will:

• Deepen training and coaching as systems stabilize and the operations function matures
• Scale effective practices across both states
• Expand portfolio strategies and increase the team’s major gifts capacity
• Position the organization to meet and exceed increasingly ambitious revenue goals

What You’ll Do

Build Fundraising Excellence and Capacity

• Provide hands-on coaching, training, and professional development to fundraising staff across multiple disciplines: major gifts, institutional giving, events, stewardship, cultivation, and donor relations
• Model best practices through your own portfolio work—demonstrating what excellent donor engagement looks like in real time
• Evaluate and upgrade our full stack of fundraising materials, event plans, cultivation strategies, and donor communications to meet industry standards
• Work alongside the CGAO to ensure our strategies are ambitious, evidence-based, and calibrated to efficiently meet/exceed goals

Strengthen Systems and Operations

• Partner closely with the Manager of Development Operations to troubleshoot, build, and implement fundraising systems and tools that drive week-to-week productivity
• Help develop the operations manager’s skills and capabilities so they can increasingly own day-to-day systems management
• Design and implement frontline fundraiser metrics that create accountability, track progress, and foster a collegial, results-oriented culture
• Ensure our systems for internal collaboration—especially with finance—are accurate, timely, and sufficiently detailed

Manage Revenue and Relationships

• Build and manage a portfolio of 25-40 major donor relationships, generating significant revenue while demonstrating cultivation and solicitation best practices for the team
• Partner with state directors on their most complex donor relationships and opportunities
• Directly manage the Director of Institutional Giving and Manager of Development Operations
• Serve as a proxy for the CGAO on decision-making when needed

Drive Planning and Collaboration

• Lead annual and multi-year planning for Development, incorporating input from the CGAO and state directors
• Serve as the primary liaison between Development and Finance, ensuring we provide timely, accurate data and maintain strong cross-functional relationships
• Identify and sequence capacity-building priorities, making strategic choices about where to invest time and resources for maximum impact

Qualifications

Who You Are

Required Experience and Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive fundraising experience** in nonprofit organizations, with significant time in multi-site or complex organizational environments
• Proven track record** of personally raising major gifts ($1M+) and meeting/exceeding ambitious revenue goals
• Demonstrated experience building fundraising infrastructure**—you’ve strengthened systems, established metrics, and created processes that didn’t exist or weren’t working before
• Track record of developing fundraising talent**, particularly with staff who are earlier in their careers or transitioning into fundraising roles
• Strong technical skills** with donor databases (Raiser’s Edge experience strongly preferred), CRM systems, wealth screening tools, and data reporting
• Hands-on experience** with budget development, financial reporting, and cross-functional collaboration with finance teams
• Comfort with ambiguity and ability to prioritize and sequence work in a resource-constrained environment

The Right Fit Will Have

• A builder mentality: You’re energized by creating something better than what exists today, not just maintaining what’s already working
• Genuine talent for teaching: You can break down complex fundraising concepts, model skills effectively, and give feedback that helps people grow
• Patience and persistence: You understand that capacity-building takes time and you’re willing to be hands-on when needed
• Strong donor instincts: You know how to read people, build authentic relationships, and create compelling cases for support
• Systems thinking: You can see how pieces connect, identify bottlenecks, and design solutions that address root causes
• Flexibility: You can shift between strategic thinking and tactical execution, between coaching a team member and cultivating a major donor
• Comfort with being the expert in the room: You’re the most experienced fundraiser on the team, and you’re comfortable with that responsibility

Preferred Experience

• Experience in planning and executing fundraising events, including galas
• Familiarity with planned giving vehicles and campaign strategies
• Experience working across multiple geographic regions or sites
• Background in education nonprofit fundraising

What You Should Know

This role requires:

• Travel to support events, donor meetings, and team collaboration across New Jersey and Florida (expect 15-25% travel)
• Flexibility in prioritizing—some weeks will be donor-facing, others will be systems or coaching-intensive
• Comfort with a hands-on role—you’ll be building and fixing things, not just directing others to do so

We’re committed to:

• Giving you the authority to make decisions and set priorities
• Being realistic about what can be accomplished and supporting thoughtful sequencing of work
• Investing in this team’s development—this isn’t a one-person rescue mission

Additional Information

Compensation & Benefits

KIPP Team & Family offers a market-competitive salary range of $185,000-$210,000. Salary ranges at KIPP are set based upon the role level and function using benchmarks in the education and non-profit sector and allow for growth within the role. Individual compensation within this range will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to: relevant professional experience and qualifications; education, skills and training; and market conditions.

In addition to a competitive salary, we a generous benefits package including, but not limited to, the following:

• Robust benefits that include medical, dental, and vision
• Optional participation in the KIPP NJ 403b retirement plan, including matching contributions
• A school-issued laptop
• Transportation benefits for TEAMmates commuting into Newark from the New York City area
• Generous Time-Off including 3.5-4 school vacation weeks (depending on the year), allocated sick and personal days, and an extended summer break
• Up to 12 weeks 100% parental leave for primary caregivers
• Employer paid life insurance
• Extensive optional ancillary benefits including, short term and long term disability and accident and hospital indemnity

Our organization is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, sex, gender, age, religion, national origin, citizen status, marital status, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Our organization will make a reasonable accommodation to known physical or mental limitations of a qualified applicant or employee with a disability unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of the organization. No questions on this application are asked for any unlawful purpose.

#LI-NJ