A mission-driven organization is seeking a strategic and growth-oriented Chief Advancement Officer (CAO) to lead fundraising, revenue growth, stakeholder engagement, and financial stewardship efforts. This executive leadership role will be responsible for driving philanthropic investment, building high-performing teams, strengthening donor and partner relationships, and ensuring the financial resources necessary to support long-term organizational success. Position Overview Reporting to executive leadership and serving as a key member of the senior leadership team, the Chief Advancement Officer will oversee advancement functions, donor engagement, revenue growth initiatives, advancement operations, and finance leadership. The successful candidate will bring a track record of building scalable growth strategies, leading teams through change, and developing meaningful relationships that result in significant revenue generation and organizational impact.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead and execute short- and long-term strategies to drive revenue growth and organizational sustainability.
- Build, develop, and lead a high-performing advancement and revenue-generating team.
- Establish metrics, forecasting processes, accountability systems, and performance management practices.
- Cultivate and manage relationships with high-capacity donors, corporate partners, foundations, sponsors, and key stakeholders.
- Lead major gift, institutional funding, strategic partnership, and campaign initiatives.
- Partner with executive leadership to align organizational priorities with funding opportunities and growth strategies.
- Provide executive oversight of finance and accounting functions, including budgeting, forecasting, reporting, resource allocation, and financial planning.
- Serve as a collaborative leader across multiple departments and stakeholder groups to achieve enterprise-wide objectives.
Qualifications
- Senior leadership experience driving revenue growth through fundraising, philanthropy, business development, strategic partnerships, sales leadership, customer growth, or similar functions.
- Proven ability to build and lead high-performing teams focused on measurable results.
- Experience managing goals, metrics, forecasting, and performance accountability systems.
- Demonstrated success securing significant funding, partnerships, contracts, grants, sponsorships, enterprise accounts, or other major revenue opportunities.
- Strong financial acumen with experience overseeing budgeting, planning, forecasting, analytics, and organizational performance.
- Exceptional communication, relationship-building, and stakeholder management skills.
- Experience navigating complex, matrixed organizations and leading through influence.
Preferred Backgrounds Candidates may come from nonprofit advancement, fundraising, healthcare, higher education, life sciences, animal health, research organizations, enterprise sales, strategic partnerships, customer success, or other relationship-driven growth environments. Prior experience securing large-scale philanthropic commitments or leading advancement organizations is highly valued.
For immediate consideration, please reach out to Leigh Goings on LinkedIn!!