Chief Development Officer

Overview

About Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. EFF’s mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world.

Even in the fledgling days of the Internet, EFF understood that protecting access to technology was central to advancing freedom for all. In the years that followed, EFF used their fiercely independent voice to clear the way for open-source software, encryption, security research, file sharing tools, and a world of emerging technologies.

Today, EFF uses the unique expertise of leading technologists, activists, and attorneys in our efforts to defend free speech online, fight illegal surveillance, advocate for users and innovators, and support freedom-enhancing technologies. EFF has helped forge a vast network of concerned members and partner organizations spanning the globe, and specifically developed a grassroots network inside the U.S. EFF advises policymakers and educates the press and the public through comprehensive analysis, educational guides, activist workshops, and more. EFF empowers hundreds of thousands of individuals through our Action Center and has become a leading voice in online rights debates.

For more information on Electronic Frontier Foundation, please visit its website.

The Opportunity

EFF is seeking a Chief Development Officer to lead the organization’s fundraising programs.  The Chief Development Officer will lead and oversee the day-to-day management and operations of the development team, co-develop and manage all aspects of our development strategy and help build our membership, major donor and fundraising capacity.  The Chief Development Officer also serves as a member of the senior management team and works with the Board of Directors.

The Chief Development Officer leads the development team and is a member of the senior management team, helping develop both short-term objectives and long-term vision for the organization.  The Chief Development Officer also works closely with the Executive Director and the Board of Directors.

The Chief Development Officer’s responsibilities include:

Help the development team set priorities and clear the way for the team to achieve everything from daily necessities to big-picture donation goals;
Directly manage the leaders of the Membership, Development Operations, Major Donor, and Grants/Institutional Giving sub-teams;
Work with the development team to support and create systems to keep fundraising rolling like a well-oiled machine;
Help develop, manage, and support projects for improving Development Team workflows, including those that involve changes in technologies and staff on other EFF teams, including Engineering and Design, Activism, Legal, Tech Projects, Operations, and Finance;
Lead the Development Team and the Executive Director to plan and execute a comprehensive fundraising strategy that includes an annual membership program, major gifts, third-party fundraiser support, in-person engagement events, planned giving, corporate and other institutional giving, and grant and foundation support;
Handle or develop strategies to handle bequests, stock donations, cryptocurrency and other nonstandard donations;
Ensure the development team successfully meets all fundraising benchmarks while maintaining a work/life balance;
Ensure that the development team members receive opportunities for growth as well as honest feedback and support;
Ensure that fundraising and donor concerns are appropriately represented in important internal conversations;
Ensure that the fundraising is conducted consistent with the organization’s values and policies concerning donors and donations;
Work as part of the leadership team to make thoughtful strategic decisions for the organization as a whole;
Generate monthly revenue projections to present to the Executive Director;
Generate annual revenue projections which help serve as the basis for the organization’s annual budget;
Lead the presentation of our income projections and results to the Board of Directors; and
Other projects and tasks as determined in collaboration with the Executive Director.
Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate will have most, if not all, of the following professional and personal qualities, skills, and characteristics:

Development Strategy & Leadership

Drive an integrated fundraising strategy to support programmatic and operational sustainability and flexibility;
Excellent judgment and strategic thinking, especially around appropriate funders, strategies, and key philanthropic trends for an organization that depends on its reputation as being fiercely independent of government, corporate or donor influence;
Rich experience, joy, and skill in fundraising, talent for creating authentic relationships, resistance to fundraising cliches and passion for the roles of online privacy, free expression, and innovation in a successful democracy.
Comfort and interest in learning and using unusual technical tools;
Ability to understand and articulate with accuracy EFF’s mission, positions, and work;
Team Management

Strong people management skills and experience with the aptitude to resolve conflicts and overcome challenges positively and collaboratively;
Contributes to the creation of a diverse, equitable and inclusive work culture that encourages and celebrates differences including race, ethnicity, age, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, disability and socio-economic circumstance;
Ability to inspire a team to reach ambitious fundraising goals while maintaining their work/life balance;
Highest level of integrity, judgment and professionalism;
A strong leader that colleagues can depend upon.
Relationship Builder & Collaborator

Demonstrates care and respect toward coworkers, outside partners, members of the public, donors, and others with whom this role interacts;
Available and responsive to colleagues, outside partners and others over email, phone, and online chat, with the ability to respond and reliably to time-sensitive requests for assistance and opportunities during agreed upon working hours;
Exceptional skill synthesizing complex concepts and ease communicating the profound importance of online rights for a lay audience, both in writing and in person;
Joy building rapport with people across all manners of backgrounds, interests, and experiences’.
Essential Skills and Qualifications

Experience leading fundraising efforts that can raise $10-20 million in annual revenue.
An energetic leader with 10-plus years of experience in development, with demonstrable achievements in management, leadership, coaching, and personal fundraising success; and broad knowledge of all areas of fundraising including major, planned, and annual giving, events, as well as corporate and foundation support;
Strong management skills, both strategic and operational, and a demonstrated ability to build, manage, mentor, and motivate an effective team;
Experience with database-driven development management and gift-processing programs;
High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office tools (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), and experience with constituent relationship management (CRM) systems and CRM transitions;
Openness to and comfort with open source and other nonstandard computer systems;
Proven ability to personally cultivate, solicit, and steward major donors and foundations
Experience and confidence managing a team of over 10 dedicated development professionals with at least 4 separate pillars of work;
Experience working in a collaborative setting, especially team writing projects;
Excellent written and oral communication skills, with careful attention to detail.  Ability to translate the Electronic Frontier Foundation mission and programs into fundraising initiatives that garner financial support;
A track record of successfully raising projected funds; and
Grant writing experience.
Compensation & Benefits

Compensation for this position will be between $190,000 – $230,000, depending on the candidate’s experience. This position is based in San Francisco and currently requires (2) days in the EFF offices each week, with flexibility to work from home the other days. In addition, EFF offers competitive benefits including healthcare coverage options, student loan reimbursement, housing benefits, transit benefits, life insurance, a retirement contribution, and a generous leave and holiday schedule.

Please be advised, this position requires travel to events in and around San Francisco, including some evening and weekend events as well as travel of up to 10% of the time for events and donor meetings outside of the Bay Area.

Contact

Trisha Sutrisno and Shelby Woods of Koya Partners have been exclusively retained for this search. To express your interest in this role please submit your materials here. All inquiries and discussions will be considered strictly confidential.

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As an advocacy organization, EFF is committed to being part of a diverse community. Diversity of life experiences makes a big difference in how we identify and litigate legal issues, design privacy-enhancing software, and organize our activism. To that end, we deliberately seek applicants with different perspectives, identities, and experiences to build an inclusive workplace to better inform our advocacy and defense of freedom in our digital world. EFF is an equal opportunity employer and encourages people of all races, genders, ages, abilities, orientations, ethnicities, and national origins to apply. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Koya Partners is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals living with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual living with a disability and need assistance expressing interest online, please email NonprofitSearchOps@divsearch.com. If you are selected for an interview, you will receive additional information regarding how to request an accommodation for the interview process.

About Koya Partners

Koya Partners, a part of the Diversified Search Group, is a leading executive search and strategic advising firm dedicated to connecting exceptionally talented people with mission-driven clients. Our founding philosophy—The Right Person in the Right Place Can Change the World—guides our work as we partner with nonprofits & NGOs, institutions of higher education, responsible businesses, and social enterprises in local communities and around the world.

For more information about Koya Partners, visit www.koyapartners.com.