Job openings/Development
From the Wikimedia Foundation
WMF Job Description: Head of Development
- Title
Head of Development, Wikimedia Foundation
- Purpose
As head of development, your job is to develop and execute a fundraising strategy for the Wikimedia Foundation in the context of its overall mission, vision, values and goals. This position reports to the Chief Financial and Operating Officer.
- Summary
This position will develop and execute a fundraising strategy for the Wikimedia Foundation in the context of its overall mission, vision, values and goals. This is a critical role: 96% of the Foundation’s revenue is derived from individual donations. The role will include a mix of major donor cultivation and online fundraising, as well as other fundraising initiatives.
- Responsibilities
- Develop and execute a fundraising strategy to ensure financial sustainability for the Foundation;
- Identify and cultivate major donors (100K+);
- Manage projects such as the annual online fundraiser and special donor events;
- Develop new initiatives such as donations-by-SMS, donations-on-Facebook, etc.;
- Explore other sources of funds such as foundations, grants development, etc.;
- Develop and maintain a database of donors and prospective donors;
- Develop and manage a responsive and effective donor communications program including query response, appeal and acknowledgement letters;
- Achieve annual financial targets, as established during the budgeting process.
- Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred;
- 7+ years of non-profit fundraising experience, preferably in a well-known organization that is active internationally;
- Experience creating and executing strategic plans, staging special events, and measuring project success;
- Good knowledge of donor pools, trends in giving and the process of foundation, corporation and individual prospect research, cultivation and solicitation;
- Basic understanding of tax, financial and estate planning issues;
- Excellent interpersonal communication skills including the ability to persuade, motivate and negotiate with a diverse array of people, both verbally and in writing;
- Technology literate; comfortable and proficient using a wide variety of communications and networking tools (e.g., mailing lists, IM, IRC, wikis, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.);
- The ability to speak multiple languages is a major plus;
- Experience living or working outside the United States is a major plus.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a US-registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible non-profit charity dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the world's 10 most visited websites, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikinews and the Wikimedia Commons media repository. The organization has received numerous honors for its work, among them the Webby Award, the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, the Japan Advertisers Association's Web Creation Award and the World Technology Award in Communications Technology.
The Wikimedia Foundation was created in 2003 to manage the operation of Wikipedia and its sister projects and is based in San Francisco, California. It currently employs 33 staff members. Wikimedia is supported by local chapter organizations in 27 countries or regions.
Apply
Please send a CV and cover letter to jobs
wikimedia.org before December 15, 2007. Please put the position title (Development) in your subject line.
Applications that do not include a cover letter will not be considered. In your cover letter, please lay out some opening thoughts about how, in your view, the Foundation might best approach major donor cultivation.
Please copy and paste the text of your CV into the e-mail, in addition to attaching the file.
Due to the volume of applications we receive, we regret that only those selected for an interview will be contacted.
