Senior Director Of Advancement

Are your exceptional fundraising skills making a difference for the next generation? Join the Wily Network as their first Senior Director of Advancementand apply major gift savvy and strategic fund development expertise to support a group of talented scholars navigating college without a safety net.

The Wily Network partners with college students in the greater Boston area who are working toward their degrees without academic, emotional or financial support from family. Wily provides that critical safety net for scholars as they navigate college independently. As part of a comprehensive revenue strategy, the Wily Network has developed a strong network of donors and friends, and seeks an experienced advancement professional to broaden and deepen its philanthropic efforts.

In less than ten years, the Wily Network has identified this need, enrolled Wily Scholars, and partnered with young people as they move through the joys and struggles of college life, celebrating more than 65 graduates and currently coaching 80 students across Boston colleges and universities. Join the Wily Network as their next Senior Director of Advancement and ensure the Pack continues to grow.

The Wily Network

Wily Scholars bring unique experiences, challenges, strengths, and goals to the college journey. Some have experienced homelessness or foster care, some have been denied family support due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, some have lost their parents, and some have family members dealing with addiction, mental illness or incarceration. All are talented and motivated, and all are braving college on their own. Wily offers weekly clinical coaching, financial assistance, community-building support, and networking opportunities to help Scholars move from surviving to thriving. For more information, please visit the website.

The Position

The Senior Director of Advancement will build and lead a fund development strategy that accelerates Wily’s already substantial major gift program, and synthesizes events, foundation fundraising, and other philanthropic efforts to catalyze the next ten years of Wily’s promise to scholars. This is a new position reporting to the Executive Director and Founder. Fundraisers who excel at both strategy and execution should apply. The Wily Network hires individuals committed to the mission and enthusiastic about roles in which strategy mixes with the hands-on tasks that are necessary within a nimble, early-stage organization.

As Wily prepares to enter its second decade, the Senior Director of Advancement will serve as the chief strategist for advancement, ensuring that Wily’s dedicated and generous donors are stewarded respectfully, while positioning the organization to secure the funds necessary to more than double the number of students served over the next ten years. Building and implementing the system needed to better meet the substantial need for Wily’s support is the central responsibility for this role. The Wily Network’s board and leadership recognize that there are many more talented students that could partner with Wily, if resources were to grow. The Senior Director should embrace the opportunity to leverage Wily’s generous base of investors, while recognizing that Wily’s mission is one that a broad diversity of donors and institutional funders could adopt with more impactful messaging and marketing and a strategic roadmap for growth.

The Senior Director will collaborate with and manage the Director of Development & Communications, the Communications & Grants Manager, and the Development Coordinator. The Senior Director will serve on Wily’s leadership team, working closely with the Director of Clinical Coaching and the Director of Scholar Engagement to ensure Wily’s growth and revenue strategies amplify Scholars’ achievements and treat their personal journeys with dignity. The Wily Network’s Board of Directors is in the process of finalizing a Strategic Plan that will be implemented, in part, with the support of a talented and engaged Fundraising Committee. The Senior Director will partner with the Committee to ensure that Wily has the resources to enter and succeed in this next chapter.

Responsibilities

The Senior Director of Advancement’s responsibilities will be strategic, analytical, and tactical. They will include the following, but every member of the Wily team supports one another and should demonstrate flexibility and resilience, like our Scholars!

• Assess past, current, and future funding opportunities, and identify any additional systems or resources needed to pursue and secure five, six, and seven figure gifts.
• Develop a clear and compelling strategy that can be shared across the Wily community of stakeholders, for growing philanthropic support, focusing on individual donors, particularly major gifts.
• Maintain authentic relationships across the Wily donor community, managing a portfolio of up to 100 prospects and donors with six and seven figure gift potential.
• Respectfully and effectively steward all donors, particularly the many, generous early investors in the Wily Network, who have enabled its rapid growth to date.
• Collaborate with the Wily leadership to refine and communicate Wily’s unique value proposition for Scholars and the singular place Wily holds within the constellation of university and independent resources for similar students.
• Combine current technology and advancement techniques with people-centric relationship building to bring data to efforts to grow the community of Wily investors.
• Move gracefully between personally representing Wily, and strategically deploying the Executive Director and Board members, with prospective donors.
• Train and mentor Wily staff and board members in advancement best practices to enable Wily’s many fans to effectively engage their networks on behalf of the work.
• Demonstrate an attention to detail that represents Wily’s own thoughtful commitment to each Scholar, ensuring that every communication vehicle demonstrates Wily’s important organizational impact and worthiness for sustained and increasing investment.
• Partner with the Executive Director and others to regularly produce timely revenue projections for the Board.
• Embrace the opportunity to cultivate a culture of philanthropy that mirrors Wily’s community of diverse, nontraditional, and exceptionally dedicated Scholars.
• Participate enthusiastically in all Wily Community activities with the Pack.

Qualities and Qualifications

In building a fund development strategy for the Wily Network, the successful candidate must demonstrate and believe in the fundamental difference a college education can make for a young person. Essential to that orientation is a commitment to making the college experience available and viable for students from a diversity of races, cultures, family backgrounds, LGBTQ+ identities, and socio-economic status. The Wily Network expects candidates will demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The successful candidate should possess the authenticity and cultural competence to effectively represent the Wily Network and Scholars as Wily expands its collaborations with partners, donors, and external constituencies. Candidates ideally will demonstrate most if not all of the following:

• An authentic commitment to the Wily Network’s mission and its Scholars, ideally demonstrable through one’s own commitment to higher education.
• Seven to ten years, or other suitable experience, of progressive fundraising responsibility as a Director of Advancement, Campaign Director, or Director of Major Gifts.
• Demonstrated success in assessing funding pipelines and prospects and crafting individual and campaign-wide strategies that have attracted both unrestricted and restricted gifts of 5 figures or more.
• Demonstrated success in working with an engaged Board of Directors to leverage their networks, communicate the mission, and successfully support donor cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship.
• Aptitude for managing and collaborating across functions, with the sensitivity to join an established team while leading new initiatives.
• Facility using donor databases in all aspects of moves management.
• Outstanding written and oral communications to represent Wily Scholars with sensitivity, accuracy, and conviction.
• Proven experience asking for and securing five, six, and seven-figure gifts, ideally for a small and/or newer nonprofit or initiative.
• Previous responsibility for managing a small team, ideally in a collaborative and fast-paced environment.
• Experience or professional expertise in the multiple issues confronting higher education in the mid 2020’s is preferred.

Successful candidates will also have many of the following qualities:

• Exceptional cultural competence, enthusiasm for testing and learning, and a flexible and adaptive approach to growing an organization.
• Strong strategic and systems thinking, alongside creativity to adapt to changing circumstances and available resources.
• Optimism and enthusiasm, combined with an appreciation for the many routes success may take.
• Outstanding interpersonal skills and high emotional intelligence to bridge the sometimes different constituencies that a Wily leader may engage with over the course of a day or week.
• Ability to work well under pressure, embrace ambiguity, and concurrently manage a wide range of responsibilities. Willingness and ability to occasionally work outside of traditional work hours, and travel, particularly across Greater Boston.

Compensation

The Wily Network offers a competitive total compensation package and anticipates the salary range for this position will be between $110-$130,000. Benefits also include 20 days PTO at hire, which increases to 25 on year 3; 7 holidays plus one floating holiday; health and life insurance; 401k; and multiple optional insurances.

The Wily Network’s offices are at 189 Wells Avenue, Suite 301, Newton, Massachusetts. The Wily team works in the office Monday through Thursday, and at home on Fridays.

To Apply

Submit a thoughtful cover letter, detailing your interest in serving in this new role at the Wily Network, your past success with major gifts and developing an advancement strategy, and your enthusiasm for being hands-on! Title your cover letter and resume as a pdf with your last name (e.g., “Smith cover letter.pdf” and “Smith resume.pdf”). Submit your cover letter and resume (pdf files only) to our search consultant, Carolyn O’Brien Consulting, LLC at the link on the Wily website, https://thewilynetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Wily-Network-Senior-Director-of-Advancement-PD-1-24.pdf . Candidate nominations are also welcome.

All Wily Employees undergo a Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) check which is a record of all criminal court appearances for a particular individual, including arrests, convictions, dismissals, and serious violations.

The Wily Network is especially committed to recruiting candidates from historically marginalized backgrounds and identities as well as those whose leadership style fosters diversity, equity and inclusion. The successful candidate will possess the authenticity and cultural humility necessary to be an effective representative of Wily and the Wily Scholars.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $110,000.00 - $130,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Flexible schedule
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off

Schedule:

• 8 hour shift

Ability to Relocate:

• Newton Center, MA 02459: Relocate before starting work (Required)

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Newton Center, MA 02459