Major Gifts Officer

The Houston Landing is growing our team of passionate people on a mission to advance democracy in our communities and strengthen the lives of all Houstonians one story at a time. Houston Landing is launching as an independent, nonprofit digital news operation that will cover a broad range of topics serving the Greater Houston community. Houston Landing is initially supported by a coalition of three of Houston’s leading philanthropies including Arnold Ventures, The Houston Endowment, and the Kinder Foundation.

At Houston Landing, we are expanding our operations team to include a Major Gifts Officer. The Major Gifts Officer will report directly to the Chief Development Officer and will materially contribute to achieving fundraising goals across the organization.

We will consider applications on an ongoing basis, but we encourage those who are interested to apply ASAP.

Requirements

What you’ll do

• Create a strategic development plan for annual major individual giving.
• Identify, prospect, cultivate, solicit, and steward high-capacity individual donors.
• Developing and executing support materials for donor solicitation and stewardship such as:
  • Small, intimate fundraising gatherings, as necessary.
  • Talking points to brief the CEO, editor or board members prior to donor meetings they attend.
  • Updates for donors prior to in-person meetings.
  • Written donor proposals that showcase funding opportunities that align with prospects' interests and Houston Landing's mission and vision.
  • Prompt, creative and engaging recognition of major gifts.
• We will look to you to blaze your own path to achieving our major donor goals.

Who you are

You have a strong ability to organize and synthesize information to drive alignment and decisions that lead to membership growth. You are a passionate believer in independent media as a tool for positive change and you thread that belief through all of your work with members and potential members.

• Experience - You two to three years of experience in membership growth in development.
• Mission-oriented - You’re committed to our mission to advance democracy and improve the lives of all Houstonians.
• Self-starter - You’re ready to experience the chaos of an early stage startup, and have a proven ability to roll up your sleeves to get things done.
• Communicator - You have excellent communication skills and the ability to communicate with executives, cross departmental teams, donors, and potential donors.
• Multi-tasker - You’re able to set priorities while remaining flexible in an ever-changing environment.

Our Values

EXCELLENCE: We wake up every day with the intent to be the best at what we do. We hustle. We have grit. When we make mistakes, we’ll learn from them.

INCLUSION: We aren’t all the same, and those differences are what make us better. We’ll respect each person’s uniqueness. Perspective, context and life experiences help us to tell the story.

AMBITION: We will be bold and creative, open to all ideas big or small. We really mean it.

FUN: We are not making widgets, although there is nothing wrong with widgets. We tell stories and stories are often fun, so we believe in having lots of fun.

‍COLLABORATION: We are all in this together. We may not always agree, but we will listen to each other and communicate candidly and respectfully.

Benefits

• Compensation commensurate with experience.
• 401(k)
• Healthcare 100% premium paid for employee and 50% for dependents
• 20 vacation days
• Ten sick days
• Generous paid parental leave
• Hybrid work policy (initially we all work together to build culture)
• Stipend for development / learning

We’re committed to building an inclusive organization that represents the people and communities we serve. We encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, veterans, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities.