Director of Leadership Giving

Local journalism is critical to strong communities, public accountability, and a thriving democracy.

The Connecticut Mirror (CT Mirror) is a local journalism success story that has grown rapidly to be THE source of statewide news. We’re nonprofit and nonpartisan.

We seek a Director of Leadership Giving to advance our mission of informing the public about policy, holding government accountable, and amplifying and engaging diverse voices and perspectives as we move into our next phase of growth.

This role will focus on generating significant new philanthropic support from prospective high-capacity individual donors and from foundation funders who are awakening to the value of adding journalism funding to their portfolios.

The ideal candidate is an innovative self-starter who likes to experiment with new approaches to prospecting, is a strong planner, and can execute on their plan quickly. That candidate is energized by building relationships with our awesome donors and prospects and by deepening the impact of our journalism.

Over the next few years we’re focused on building on the success of the last five years: scaling up operations to digest and sustain our recent rapid growth, making investments in growing audience, and continuing to strategically grow staff and capabilities. If you join the team, you will generate the new funding CT Mirror needs to achieve these ambitious goals and forge our path to sustainability. How you do that will be largely up to you, but would include:

• Creating a strategic development plan for significantly increasing annual major individual giving by the end of 2026.
• Identifying, prospecting, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding high-capacity individual donors giving at least $5,000.
• Researching and writing grants for community foundations and individual family foundations.
• Developing and executing support materials and activities for donor solicitation and stewardship such as small, intimate fundraising gatherings, as necessary in collaboration with the Chief Growth Officer.
• Writing updates for donors and funders prior to in-person or virtual meetings and developing funding proposals that showcase support opportunities aligning a prospects’ interests and CT Mirror’s mission and vision.
• Ensuring prompt, creative and engaging recognition of major gifts.
• Providing periodic updates to donors and funders as the centerpiece of stewarding efforts.
• We will look to you to blaze your own path to achieving our major donor goals. Our expectation is that your emphasis will be on prospecting new donors and foundation funders, with a secondary focus on upgrading existing small donors.

You will also collaborate with:

• The Chief Growth Officer who will maintain a portfolio of major donors.
• The Publisher who will participate in some major donor meetings with a strategic purpose.
• The Editor and news staff to become familiar with their work, understand upcoming newsroom initiatives and innovations, and seize opportunities for donor cultivation and stewardship.
• Board members to leverage their networks for prospecting, stewarding and enhancing donor relationships

We’re interested in candidates who have:

• Meaningful development experience, with a strong preference for a candidate who has initiated new individual donor relationships that led to gifts of $10,000 or more.
• Built a successful development plan and program.
• A passion for great journalism that covers policy, government, and politics.
• Strong written and verbal storytelling skills with the ability to evangelize about the importance of local news for a thriving democracy and engaged communities.
• A collegial presence and excellent interpersonal, networking, and relationship-building skills.
• A track record of fundraising experience, but steps outside the mold of legacy fundraising institutions to find new approaches that engage our donors.
• A willingness to share their general knowledge about major gifts with us and to learn what major gift approaches have worked in nonprofit news from us.

Here’s our commitment to the candidate whom we hire:

• A competitive salary designed to attract a top-notch development professional.
• Medical and dental benefits, generous paid-time-off policy, and a 403b retirement savings program with company match.
• Professional development and the opportunity to learn from peers at industry conferences.
• Flexibility to work remotely several days a week, as appropriate.
• Transparent internal review and feedback process.
• New PC or refurbished MAC.
• You’ll work hard because we’re serious about our mission, but you’ll laugh plenty along the way because we can’t always be serious!

We embrace the American Press Institute’s Guiding Principles for Nonprofit Newsrooms.

The Director of Leadership Giving position is based in Connecticut and reports to Chief Growth Officer Clare Dignan.

Please apply, using this form, https://airtable.com/appmPgbUU6FJ7IgXB/shrwEuKQBc8E5o6UJ by October 24. Questions? Contact Clare Dignan (CDignan@CTMirror.org). No phone calls please.

CT Mirror is committed to building an inclusive organization that represents the people and communities we serve. We do not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of our hiring, procurement, volunteer recruitment, or other activities or operations. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of our staff, board, volunteers, subcontractors, vendors, and readers. 

https://airtable.com/appmPgbUU6FJ7IgXB/shrwEuKQBc8E5o6UJ