Vice President of Major Giving, The Atlanta Humane Society

The Atlanta Humane Society recently celebrated 150 years of service to the greater Atlanta community helping keep pets and people together. The Vice President of Major Giving (VPMG) works closely with the Atlanta Humane senior leadership and philanthropy team creating and executing strategic plans for major giving and planned giving. Increasing major and planned gifts is essential to strongly support the organization’s mission, vision, and growth goals. The VPMG is responsible for the direct supervision of two major giving officers and managing the major giving (individual donations $10,000+) work plan to meet or exceed both annual and multi-year strategic fundraising goals. Opportunity to also potentially structure and lead a silent phase of a significant endowment campaign as well as support a pending statewide fundraising program. Responsibilities include maintaining a personal portfolio for direct major gifts solicitations, overseeing major donor cultivation and engagement, designing creative stewardship experiences, growing year over year, $10,000+ individual giving and collaborating with donors and financial advisors on expectancies and estate gifts. An elevated level of sophistication working with high-net-worth individuals, professional finesse, tact, quality control, and rigorous oversight on all projects and processes is required.

The Opportunity

The newly created role of Vice President of Major Giving presents an exciting opportunity for a forward-thinking, strategic leader to contribute to Atlanta Humane’s best-in-class development program. Overseeing Atlanta Humane’s major gifts and gift planning programs, the VPMG will lead a talented team to strengthen donor engagement and build a robust prospect pipeline.

The VPMG will work closely with colleagues in community engagement and annual giving to drive key initiatives and increase levels of integrated philanthropic support across the organization that advance fundraising priorities. In this role, the VPMG will have a unique chance to shape the future endowment fund and gift planning strategy with a highly capable team and develop new approaches to engage major donors. This is an extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to contribute to Atlanta Humane’s legacy and elevate its fundraising success through innovative leadership, data-driven decisions, and strategic planning.

Duties & Responsibilities:

• Lead, develop and manage annual major gifts fundraising plans including timeline, KPIs and metrics to support the goals of the strategic plan

• Continue creative planned giving marketing and significantly grow year over year participation in Legacy Circle of planned giving expectancies

• Provides strategic thinking, planning, and leadership to promote, grow, and support major gifts (President’s Circle $10,000+) fundraising and other development functions including donor cultivation, effective solicitation and fostering ongoing donor relationships

• Responsible for focused and assertive pipeline growth of major giving prospects

• Facilitate work plan with development team on a bi-weekly basis

• Evaluate each aspect of the major gifts fundraising program(s) for effectiveness and growth opportunity and adjust strategy/work as needed to remain on track for goal achievement

• Oversee confidential prospect research and analysis on key donors including biographical, philanthropic, professional, and personal financial information

• Maintain awareness and analysis of philanthropic trends in the Metro Atlanta community and within the animal welfare industry to generate long and short-range goals for major gift fundraising

• Ensure compliance and accountability standards for donors and funding sources are maintained

• Manage preparation and oversight of major and planned giving budget

• Working closely with the marketing team, implement donor communication and fundraising initiatives to positively influence individual giving renewal rate, upgrades, average gift size, and frequency of gifts

• Continued stewardship of Capital Campaign donors

• Generate and analyze donor reports

• Help create a culture of philanthropy across the organization

• Develop talented team members; promote professional development and goal setting of direct reports through 1:1 meetings and through an annual performance review

• Foster a highly collaborative and effective team through direct management, guidance, and positive, timely communication

• Other duties as assigned