Director of Development

ONLY APPLICANTS WITH 5+ YEARS OF DIRECT FUNDRAISING EXPERIENCE CONSIDERED

Choose Creativity seeks a strategic and skilled development director with a commitment to help expand and strengthen our organization at a time of significant growth and momentum. Thanks to a successful evidence-based model, growing earned income, and a clear vision for expansion, Choose Creativity is investing in its development capacity. The ideal development director will play a leadership role in our expansion by securing support from individual donors and institutional funders, overseeing communications with donors, and managing all fundraising operations.

Decades of research confirm that creativity for children is intrinsic to the motivation to learn and develop the social and emotional skills critical in navigating our complicated world. Funded by the non-profit Lulu & Leo Fund, Choose Creativity works in schools, community centers, shelters, and summer programs in NYC and across the country to implement its Learn with Creative Confidence curriculum focused on improving teaching and learning. Our mission is to help youth and adults develop resilience, creative confidence, and social-emotional skills through engagement with our 10 Principles of Creativity. Since 2012, Choose Creativity has trained 1,000+ instructors and reached nearly 20,000 kids.

Marina and Kevin Krim established the Lulu & Leo Fund in memory of their children Lulu and Leo, who were lost in a tragedy in October 2012. Marina and Kevin developed the 10 Principles of Creativity directly from their experience of rebuilding their family and lives. The 10 Principles articulate how creativity can help youth and adults face any opportunity or challenge with possibility, openness, and a growth mindset. The 10 Principles of Creativity are authentic, resourceful, curious, unconventional, patient, expressive, intuitive, present, inventive, and inspired.

Development Leadership. Our ideal director of development is motivated by our vision and the opportunity to set the strategy for generating and maintaining revenue from individuals and foundations. This is a chance to impact Choose Creativity, ensuring our continued long-term growth and success.

Building on our fundraising and programmatic accomplishments, you will be responsible for our development program, focusing on growing our base of individual donors, securing foundation and corporate support, and managing our external communications. Working collaboratively with the senior director of programs, founders, and board of directors, you will help to strengthen development operations, provide voice for external fundraising communications, and steward major donors.

Individual Donors. You will oversee the growth and development of our large individual donor base. This includes successfully engaging, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding all individual donors as well as a small portfolio of major donors and prospects. In addition, you will work with our events consultant to manage the Choose Creativity Awards and solely manage smaller donor cultivation events. Success will not only be measured by the amount of money raised but by the number of new donors acquired and overall donor retention.

Institutional Support. Working closely with the senior director of programs, you will leverage our widely implemented evidence-based model to best position Choose Creativity to receive institutional support. You will cultivate and steward relationships with foundations and corporations to secure five- and six-figure grants. You will operate as a frontline fundraiser, shepherding the foundation pipeline from prospects to relationships to reporting.

Development Communications. Helping to grow awareness, you will be a compelling communicator, helping to amplify our messaging to inform, educate, and inspire key audiences, including longtime supporters, school and organizational partners, potential institutional funders, future donors, and the board of directors. Drawing from our successful partnerships and the compelling stories that emerge from our work, you will communicate the Choose Creativity narrative—our impact, portfolio of partnerships, and strategies to expand current funding. This will require both a broad overview and detailed understanding of our programs and partnerships, our impact, and the field of education and social and emotional learning.

Development Operations. So that our fundraising efforts are managed, recorded, measured, and reported according to fundraising best practices, you will take ownership of our CRM Kindful and conceptualize new processes as needed. You will establish performance measures, monitor results, and evaluate the effectiveness of our fundraising efforts to ensure and accurately forecast consistent year-over-year contributed income growth. In addition, you will provide revenue projections and reports, support the quarterly and annual reconciliation process, and support the annual audit.

Overall responsibilities for the above areas of focus include:

• Develop and execute a fundraising plan with strategies, targets, and a timeline to reach our revenue goals
• Grow individual giving, relationship building, stewardship, and digital engagement
• Develop and implement time-framed individual donor cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship strategies
• Plan and manage the event consultant to produce the annual Choose Creativity Awards event and smaller donor cultivation events
• Identify foundation and corporate funding trends relevant to Choose Creativity and formulate strategy and time-framed plans for securing foundation and corporate grants
• Execute short- and long-term foundation outreach strategies, including initial outreach, letters of intent, and full proposals with clear budgets, etc.
• Oversee external communications and coordinate with the founder and senior director of programs to share our stories of success through strategic channels, including digital strategies and print
• Maintain and improve our use of Kindful, our CRM to include planned cultivation, donor database maintenance, and outreach tracking

Required Candidate Qualifications

• Passion for Choose Creativity's mission
• At least five years of direct fundraising experience
• Proven track record of working in a collaborative environment, with demonstrated success in raising funds from individual and institutional donors
• Prior experience in planning and managing fundraising events
• Exceptional writing skills
• Strong communication, interpersonal skills, and relationship-building skills
• Strong ability to prioritize and work effectively with leadership
• Flexibility and ability to adapt to rapid change
• Creative and strategic
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to work independently
• Bachelor’s degree required
• Ability to use Google Docs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat Pro, and reporting tools

Personal Qualities

• Passionate and knowledgeable about education, creativity, and social and emotional learning
• Positive and personable
• Highly organized and conscientious with the ability to prioritize effectively, juggle multiple responsibilities, and meet deadlines
• Self-motivated and entrepreneurial
• Strong moral compass; able to maintain highly sensitive and confidential information
• Committed to fostering an environment of trust, transparency, and mutual respect
• Appreciation of and sensitivity to a diverse environment, inclusive of staff, donors, and organizational partners from many sociocultural, economic, ideological, racial and ethnic backgrounds

Commitment to Diversity. We actively seek candidates from diverse backgrounds. We are committed to embracing diversity within our organization because we firmly believe that diverse employee teams help us achieve our best organizational outcomes. As an equal opportunity employer, Choose Creativity is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified individuals and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, marital status, veteran status, pregnancy, parental status, genetic information or characteristics, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

We value diversity and seek actively to build an inclusive applicant pool and pursue a thoughtful hiring process, including a diverse hiring committee, carefully designed interview questions, and mindfulness about unconscious biases.

Location. ​New York City - this opportunity is open to U.S. residents in the New York Metro Area. We are currently a fully remote workplace with NYC-based events.

Salary and Benefits. $110,000-$125,000. 403(b) Retirement Savings Plan and Health Reimbursement Arrangement available.

How to Apply. Please send a cover letter and your resume to katherinewdefoyd@gmail.com with Choose Creativity in the email's subject line.