The Leadership Annual Giving Officer (LAGO) is an essential member of Colorado State University’s Annual Giving team. Reporting to the Associate Director of Annual Giving, this position will focus on developing and executing strategies to identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward leadership annual giving donors.

The LAGO will manage a portfolio of approximately 150-200 donors, with a particular focus on securing gifts of $1,000 or more from alumni, parents, faculty, staff, and friends of the university. This position is responsible for creating and managing a strategy for a continuous pipeline of donors, including but not limited to initial outreach (i.e. cold calling), identifying appropriate engagement opportunities, and collaborating with other units to ensure effective donor transitions. The LAGO will manage, track, and allocate expenses for the Leadership Annual Giving program for projects, travel, events and/or programs with responsibility to make recommendations for additional resource needs. The LAGO will contribute to the growth and development of the donor pipeline, ultimately leading to increased support for university initiatives.

The ideal candidate will be a consummate professional and will thrive in a fast-paced, metrics/results-driven fundraising environment. The candidate will have a demonstrated ability to maintain focus and employ adaptability while working collaboratively with donors, prospective donors, alumni, colleagues, faculty, staff, and students.

This position requires working non-standard hours, including early mornings, evenings, and weekends. This position requires a valid driver’s license with reliable transportation or access to a driver. This is a 12-month, full time appointment and will work from the Colorado State University campus in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Essential Duties

Portfolio Management and Solicitation

• Solicits, retains, and upgrades prospective leadership annual giving donors who have the capacity to give between $1,000 – $24,999.
• Manage a portfolio of 150 – 200 leadership annual giving prospects capable of making gifts of $1,000 or more.
• Qualify prospects and develop personalized cultivation and solicitation strategies.
• Track and manage donor interactions using the university’s CRM system, ensuring accurate records of engagement and solicitations.
• Provide regular reports on progress toward fundraising metrics and donor moves.
• Uses fundraising principles to develop and implement best strategies to initiate contact and develop relationships with a goal of building and maintaining a pipeline of prospects for the University at large.
• Achieves agreed upon performance metrics including but not limited to number of contacts, number of opportunities/asks delivered, number of opportunities/asks secured, dollars raised, and percent of portfolio retained.
• Develops marketing and communication strategies to solicit, upgrade, and retain leadership annual giving donors via email, mail, digital, and phone.
• Collaborates with the Analytics Team to develop strategies around identification and segmentation of leadership annual giving prospects.
• Works closely with college and unit development officers to strategically identify leadership annual giving prospects.
• Submits timely contact reports and produces reports for University leadership involved in the development process.
• Independently tracks and analyzes contact attempts, success rates, new qualified prospects, and donor manager transitions, and shares this information with leadership and development professionals throughout campus.
• Oversees, tracks, and allocates expenses for the leadership annual giving operating budget used for projects, travel, events and/or programs with responsibility to make recommendations for additional resource needs.

Events and Stewardship

• Develops strategies to steward leadership annual giving donors and partner with the Alumni Association, and Donor
• Relations teams to implement strategies. This will include onboarding of qualified giving society donors to the 1870 Club.
• Organize and participate in events to engage and cultivate donors, including regional events, homecoming activities, and special stewardship events.
• Organize personalized campus visits and host alumni, donors and potential donors on campus as appropriate.
• Ensure effective donor stewardship through consistent follow-up and recognition.

Division Collaboration and Unit Impact

• Establishes meaningful, collegial working relationships with development colleagues and other University offices.
• Understands the roles of each program in order to recommend and connect donor interest to appropriate programs.
• Exercise initiative, sound judgment, creativity and discretion in performing work assigned, anticipating and addressing concerns, responding to requests for information, and organizing and maintaining confidential files and records.
• Actively participate as a staff member in the Division of University Advancement, attend Division-wide meetings and trainings, support Division-wide priorities and initiatives and serve as an Association representative on University committees as assigned.
• Demonstrated knowledge of, and relevant ability with, culturally diverse communities among potential target and constituent populations.
• Other work related duties not specified above may be assigned.

Required Job Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts, Communication, Business, Engineering, or the Sciences
• 1-3 years full time professional experience in development/advancement, marketing or sales
• A demonstrated ability to engage and effectively communicate with diverse audiences
• Ability to travel and work non-standard hours, including early mornings, evenings, and weekends.
• Must have a valid driver’s license or the ability to obtain a driver’s license or access to a licensed driver by the employment start date.

Preferred Job Qualifications

• Excellent communication skills with proven written ability and expertise in use of grammar.
• Proven ability to analyze quantitative and qualitative metrics for making data driven decisions.
• Frontline fundraising or sales experience with defined dollar goals
• Strong ability to develop fundraising analysis, capacity and affinity assessment
• Adept at building rapport over the phone and using virtual tools
• Understanding of higher education and Colorado State University
• Working knowledge of the campus, including its vision, mission, goals, objectives, achievements and infrastructure.

Proposed Annual Salary Range: $55,000 – $60,000