Institutional Development Director

Background

 About the Washington Area Community Investment Fund (Wacif)

The Washington Area Community Investment Fund (Wacif) advances equity and opportunity in the Washington, D.C. area’s underserved communities by providing financial capital, business advisory services, and strategic networking support to underinvested entrepreneurs. Since its inception in 1987, Wacif has deployed more than $50 million in capital, served more than 3,500 entrepreneurs with business advisory services, and helped create or retain more than 20,000 local jobs. To learn more about Wacif’s work, visit www.wacif.org.

Summary

The Washington Area Community Investment Fund (Wacif) seeks a full-time Institutional Development Director, who will be responsible for driving institutional revenue strategy and acquisition throughout the opportunity lifecycle (from opportunity identification to award acceptance); building and implementing an institutional stewardship strategy; developing capture strategies and tactics; managing the production and writing of winning proposals; and, identifying and implementing systemic investments needed to support continued scale in institutional support Wacif’s impact. The Director will also supervise the Development Specialist and provide employee direction, coaching and development.

Responsibilities

Development Strategy – 20%

• Collaborate with the CDO to develop and manage an institutional development strategy that results in Wacif receiving and deploying resources needed to deliver on its mission of equity and economic opportunity. Specific responsibilities include:
  • With direction from the CDO, lead Wacif’s institutional development function and manage the institutional development team;
  • Advise CDO on needed policies, procedures, systemic, and human capital needs with regard to development;
  • Work with Wacif’s executive team to understand future and current programming and capital deployment needs;
  • Develop, identify, and internally socialize and communicate multi-year resource needs based on programming and capital deployment priorities;
  • Identify, elevate, and recommend strategies to address current and potential out-year institutional funding shortages;
  • Work with the communications department to ensure that, wherever possible, content is aligned with and supports acquisition of new institutional opportunities.

Lead Generation/Market Research – 20%

• Manage Wacif’s efforts to generate a complete, upstream understanding of institutional funding opportunities to include philanthropic, corporate, and other institutional opportunities. Efforts include but are not limited to:
  • Ensure that development staff, and others as necessary, are plugged into all relevant email distributions
  • Ensure that development staff, and others as necessary, receive all relevant Google alerts;
  • Identify strategic data sets, from the Foundation Center to GovTribe and others, for opportunity identification.
• Manage a strategic, coherent process for including internal and external stakeholders – to include staff, Board, partners, and others as appropriate – in institutional market analysis and opportunity triage activities;
• Develop and implement a strategic, comprehensive approach to opportunity prioritization and decision-making related to the pursuit or non-pursuit of specific opportunities;
• Support the development of market analytics, helping Wacif quantify its total addressable market and establish realistic revenue scenarios and year-ahead development planning;
• Support the team’s identification of emerging trends aligned with Wacif strengths and community needs;
• Build staff awareness of key market opportunities and solicit their expertise on capture strategies.

 Proposal Management and Development – 40%

• Lead the development and management of a rational and collaborative process that results in the submission of timely, winning proposals, including but not limited to:
  • Lead the kickoff of proposal development efforts;
  • Read funding solicitations in detail and develop proposal outlines;
  • Create and manage staff assignments as relates to proposal input development, specifically gathering program and budget design inputs from internal and external partners and refining them into final text;
  • Lead proposal review sessions, capturing and reflecting staff feedback;
  • Package supporting documentation in collaboration with internal team;
  • Write and develop winning proposals in collaboration with internal team; and,
  • Ultimately submit proposals ahead of deadlines and monitor their status.
• Identify opportunities to repurpose proposal inputs for strategic communications, in support of opportunity capture.

 Partner Stewardship – 10%

• Support the organization’s efforts to keep current donors engaged with Wacif and its work, by:
  • Working with Executive, Program, and Development teams to identify and prioritize key relationships;
  • Support in developing stewardship strategies for consideration by the CDO;
  • Manage implementation, in collaboration with development and communications teammates and others.

 Internal Analytics and Forecasting – 10%

• Develop and maintain organizational infrastructure related to internal development analytics, including:
  • Maintain Wacif’s institutional development pipeline, including specific data elements related to current and upcoming opportunities, including but not limited to opportunity status, partner, funder, timing, and next steps; and,
  • Facilitate recurring leadership team sessions to review funding forecasts, discuss funding scenarios, model fundraising targets, and key capture next steps;
  • Contribute to and facilitate Board discussions related to institutional development.

 Other

• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned by management.

Requirements

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in relevant field required;
• At least 7 years of previous fundraising and development experience, ideally including public and private sector opportunities;
• At least 5 years of demonstrated success managing and writing proposals for public and private sector partners;
• Strong strategic acumen, with the ability to accurately read the strategic environment, develop and socialize potential approaches, and lead a team to success;
• Supervisory experience, providing direction, guidance, coaching, and development of team preferred;
• Strong management (including people management) skills, with the ability to plan, coordinate, organize, prioritize and simultaneously implement multiple projects requiring inputs from partners across the organization;

A high level of motivation, initiative and attention to detail demonstrated by the proactive inclination to identify, highlight, and respond to development needs;

• Successful track record working in fast-paced, opportunity-rich environment;
• Proficiency in MS Office suite (Excel, Word, Outlook and PowerPoint);
• Outstanding written and oral communications skills;
• Experience handling confidential information with high level of discretion;
• A friendly, collegial personality with compulsive integrity and a well-conditioned sense of humor;
• Interest in and commitment to Wacif’s mission of working with low- and moderate-income individuals and underserved communities.

Compensation and Benefits

Competitive salary commensurate with experience.  Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA, FSA, DCA, Life & Disability coverages available. 401(k) retirement plan (employer matching contribution eligible); paid time off (increased with tenure), paid holidays and sick leave days, transportation benefits, and education assistance benefits (professional development, tuition reimbursement, and student loan repayment).

How to Apply

Interested candidates should email a resume/CV, thoughtful cover letter that outlines how your skills and experience meet the qualifications of the position, and salary requirements to opportunity@wacif.org with “Institutional Development Director” in the subject line.