Chief Philanthropy Officer [The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA]

Description

TITLE:                                      Chief Philanthropy Officer

ORGANIZATION:                   The Contemporary Jewish Museum

LOCATION:                            San Francisco

REPORTS TO:                         Executive Director

MISSION

The Contemporary Jewish Museum makes the diversity of the Jewish experience relevant for a 21^st-century audience. It accomplishes this through innovative exhibitions and programs that educate, challenge, and inspire.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

The Contemporary Jewish Museum (The CJM) promotes and celebrates the diversity and vitality of contemporary Jewish art and culture. The Museum opened its new facility to the public in June 2008. The award-winning 63,000-square-foot building, designed by Daniel Libeskind, provides a dynamic setting for a range of programs including exhibitions, music, theater, literary events, film screenings, school tours and gallery activities, professional development opportunities for educators, youth programs, family programs, artist talks and scholarly lectures, and special events.

Since opening its new facility, The CJM has welcomed nearly 800,000 visitors, mounted 49 exhibitions, and provided educational programming for over 100,000 children, youth, and family members. The Museum has garnered extensive and positive press locally, nationally, and internationally from numerous media outlets including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, Tikkun, and The San Francisco Chronicle, to name a few.

The CJM, which is a non-collecting institution, actively attracts a diverse group of visitors through its programming and outreach, consistent with its mission of making the Jewish experience relevant for a 21st-century audience. Its exhibitions—while centered on ideas and practices as it relates to that experience—feature artists from a variety of ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds, and are designed to engage a broad audience through interactive installations and companion educational programming. Surveys indicate that 50% of The Museum’s audience is from the broader community, and that over 40% of participants in its family and youth programs are low-to-moderate income and/or people of color.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum has a dedicated staff of 44, an annual operating budget of $8 million, an endowment of $27.5 million, and membership of approximately 6,000.

ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY

This is an opportunity to play a leadership role in a preeminent Bay Area cultural institution that is one of the most closely watched Jewish museums in the world. The successful candidate will join a highly regarded, collegial, and innovative team who are some of the best at what they do. As The Museum approaches its 10-year anniversary, this is an opportunity for an experienced leader to help shape and strengthen this extraordinarily innovative and exceptional institution as it embarks on the next phase in its evolution.

Working closely with the Board of Trustees, staff, volunteers, and outside counsel, the Chief Philanthropy Officer will create and manage a multi-year fund development plan, designed to achieve The Museum’s goals, institutionalize best practices, and establish a culture of philanthropy across the entire organization. In addition, the Chief Philanthropy Officer will oversee a complete suite of fund development strategies, including a large-scale comprehensive campaign, major and planned gifts, membership, annual fund, events, and foundation and corporate giving. Significantly, the Chief Philanthropy Officer will play a major role in readying the museum for a multi-year comprehensive campaign, and will serve as the internal lead for the campaign.

The Chief Philanthropy Officer reports to the Executive Director, serves on the senior management team, and supervises a staff of nine development professionals, with the ability to grow staff in preparation for the campaign.

Responsibilities

Specifically, the Chief Philanthropy Officer is responsible for:

• Planning Develop and lead a comprehensive, multi-year development plan, to reimagine and strengthen how The Museum implements development, and development best practices, across all levels of the institution. Planning will also include a restructuring and staffing up of the development department to increase donor engagement, grow annual donor support, and internally prepare The Museum for its upcoming comprehensive campaign.

• Leadership Function as an organizational leader and a highly collaborative member of the senior management team. Provide staff leadership to Board committees for development, governance, and planning. Hold organizational responsibility for the success of fundraising programs, including comprehensive campaign, membership, foundation and corporate giving, direct mail, special events, planned giving, and on-line giving.

• Staff Management Provide overall leadership to the Development team, and motivate, inspire, manage, and develop staff so they are informed and passionate about the mission, and committed to working effectively toward continual process improvement.

• Capital Campaign Design and oversee a comprehensive capital campaign and work in close partnership with the Board of Trustees, the Executive Director, and outside counsel to align and coordinate campaign fundraising activities with annual fundraising.

• Major Gifts Ensure that major donor cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship best practices are institutionalized within the development department. Continuously cultivate relationships with donors and the community by maintaining reputation, visibility, and responsiveness. Working with the Executive Director and the Board, identify top individual and institutional (foundations, corporations, and government) gift prospects who can advance funding priorities through multi-year, six-figure and above gifts.

• Board Development Work in close partnership with the Executive Director, Board Chair, and board members to build the Board’s capabilities in major donor engagement, solicitation, and stewardship.

• Financial Accountability In partnership with the COO, develop and manage fundraising budgets; assume clear responsibility for meeting or exceeding budgeted revenue goals; and ensure best practice use of analytics, data, and metrics to forecast and track progress and success of fundraising goals, strategies, and tactics.

Requirements

Experience/Skills:

• Extensive (10+ years) experience in fundraising with deep knowledge of fundraising principles that span capital and endowment campaigns as well as annual giving, and in planned giving, preferably in a large institutional setting; at least 7 years as a manager of others
• Proven ability to create and successfully execute a multi-strategy, multi-year fund development plan
• Proven ability to build and manage a highly efficient and effective development function
• Both broad and deep fundraising experience employing a wide array of strategies to support a diverse suite of programs (e.g., membership, major gifts, foundation, corporate giving, direct mail, special event, planned giving, on-line giving, endowment, and capital campaign)
• Proven ability to help the Board become more engaged and effective in fund development
• Significant campaign experience
• Prior success in the development and negotiation of high-level gifts and a track record of successful solicitation of six- and seven-figure individual and institutional gifts (foundations, corporations, and government)
• Experience playing a significant role in major event planning and execution
• A track record of successful collaboration with marketing and media professionals
• Strength in coaching, supporting, and collaborating with board members and high-level donors
• High comfort level with improving systems, analyzing data, and using data and metrics as management tools: proven ability to forecast accurately, manage to budget
• Deep familiarity with best practices in moving donors up the ladder of giving, and ability to implement and manage a multi-level donor engagement and stewardship plan
• Experience with cultural institutions

Knowledge:

• Expert knowledge of current and evolving trends in major gifts giving and comprehensive campaigns
• Knowledge of Jewish philanthropic community in the greater Bay Area a plus

Personal Characteristics:

• Generates innovative solutions; challenges paradigms; leverages diverse resources; thinks expansively; evaluates multiple solutions; ensures relevance
• Develops collaborative relationships to facilitate the stated goals; seeks opportunities, facilitates agreement and commitment

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree required, master’s degree and/or CFRE preferred

COMPENSATION

A highly competitive compensation and benefits package will be made available to the qualified candidate.

TO APPLY
Leadership Search Partners is conducting this search on an exclusive basis on behalf of The Contemporary Jewish Museum. Interested candidates should apply via email by sending a letter outlining qualifications, brief bio, and resume as PDF or Word documents to Ann Kletz at Ann@leadershipsearch.com, with “CJM” in the subject line. All applications and inquiries will be held in confidence.

THE CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, national origin, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, including genetic characteristics, ancestry, or any other characteristic protected by law.

LEADERSHIP SEARCH PARTNERS is a search firm focused exclusively on the nonprofit sector. Based in Berkeley, the firm works with local, regional and national nonprofits across California to help them hire exceptional senior-level leaders.