Director of Advancement
The Director of Advancement role is a full-time, exempt and salaried position within the Platform Division of LegacyWorks Group. Ideally this role will be located in one of LegacyWorks Group’s regions, though the role will be remote. The Director of Advancement will report to the Executive Director.
About LegacyWorks Group
LegacyWorks Group (LWG) facilitates ambitious collaborative initiatives to address today’s biggest challenges. Through community-driven, place-based initiatives and client-centered consulting services, we advance programs and projects that deliver transformative impact while building community resilience and capacity. Funders, impact investors, community based organizations, and government agencies engage us for strategy consulting and planning, collaborative facilitation, impact finance, data dashboarding, and initiative incubation and support. We see ourselves as a collective of changemakers, and endeavor to make LegacyWorks the best home for this work possible. Together we build and strengthen networks, amplify and accelerate collaboration, and enable highly effective collective effort at the scale of landscapes, sectors and systems. LegacyWorks Group is a growing, 65-person organization with an annual budget of approximately $15 million currently operating in 22 USA and 4 Mexican states.
About the LegacyWorks Platform
The LegacyWorks Platform is the backbone of LegacyWorks, providing the Administration, Finance, Advancement and People & Culture support that allows programmatic teams to focus on advancing mission-driven work. Rooted in our values of trust, care, and collective action, the Platform aligns teams, strengthens shared systems, and safeguards integrity across the organization. The Platform fosters belonging, access, and opportunity, ensuring that our workplace reflects the inclusivity we hope to build in the world. More than infrastructure, it is the foundation that empowers our teams to thrive, innovate, and generate impact in the communities and with the clients we serve. As our programmatic teams show up to facilitate partnerships and enable diverse groups and leaders to collaborate effectively, the Platform team models our collaborative impact model as a cohesive, collaborative team providing all the services and support our programmatic teams and leaders need to thrive.
What You’ll Do
The Director of Advancement is responsible for leading LegacyWorks Group’s fundraising and communications efforts spanning strategy development, planning, systems improvement, and team capacity and skills development. This role manages a small core team and coordinates and supports the fundraising and communications efforts of a wider community of leaders across the organization. Success in this role requires cultivating and stewarding relationships internally and externally with individual, corporate, foundation, government, and nonprofit donors and partners to strengthen awareness of, commitments to, and funding for LegacyWorks Group and all its initiatives. They will lead and manage advancement efforts and staff across the organization, directly supervising the Platform advancement team (including the Communications Manager and other staff as hired), while weaving initiative leaders and advancement team members into a cohesive, organization-wide advancement team.
We strive to embody our theory of change and impact model in our external work and in how we operate and show up internally. The Director of Advancement role is integral in this and will:
Foster and deepen connectedness, relationships, and trust between LegacyWorks and philanthropic partners
Build capacity across LegacyWorks to cultivate and steward philanthropic relationships
Convene engagement across the LegacyWorks team in fundraising and communications modalities
Catalyze collective action and investment towards investment in community priorities across the geographies of LegacyWorks
Unlock the power of data and storytelling within the programmatic teams of LegacyWorks to channel commitment and share impact with philanthropic partners
Your Primary Responsibilities
Advancement Strategy and Leadership
Lead organization-wide advancement efforts, integrating fundraising and communications into a unified program to advance our mission, support our teams and initiatives, and ensure our financial wellbeing and resilience
Collaborate with senior leadership and initiative advancement team members to develop and implement advancement strategies and plans that holistically integrate fundraising and communications
Develop the strategies and materials needed to demonstrate the efficacy of our theory of change and impact model raise to enable us to raise funding for operations, strategic initiatives, and organization developmental efforts
Design and implement evaluation efforts to enable organization-wide learning and improvement while fueling communications and fundraising efforts
Drive continuous improvement in fundraising and communications strategy and outcomes through active, adaptive management
Learn from and replicate the success of other organizations in all of the above
Fundraising
Design, implement, and coordinate fundraising activities for LegacyWorks Group —including multi-year giving, grant writing, annual campaigns, planned giving, events, and donor cultivation—delivering high-quality results that advance the organization’s mission and long-term sustainability
Closely coordinate and support initiative advancement efforts within programmatic teams to meet initiative fundraising goals while building each team’s internal advancement capacity
Research new grant opportunities, write (and support initiative teams writing) compelling grant proposals
Track and coordinate grant submissions organization-wide
Partner closely with leadership and advancement team members throughout the organization to cultivate and steward relationships with public and private donors, moving at the speed of trust through authentic engagement and consistent follow-through
Utilize donor and foundation management software and systems to prospect, cultivate, and steward existing donors and a pipeline of potential new donors
Support initiative leaders and advancement teams in identifying new prospects for annual, major, and planned gifts and in making effective asks
Lead donor cultivation and make direct asks where best positioned
Donor Reporting and Donor Systems Management
Coordinate and manage grant reporting and ensure compliance with grant reporting requirements
Work with initiatives teams to identify relationship leads and to closely coordinate cultivation and stewardship efforts
Manage donor and gift recordkeeping, acknowledgments, and stewardship communications in a timely fashion
Collaborate with the Director of Executive Administration and Director of Finance to ensure accurate donor reporting, financial reconciliation, and communications
Communications
Lead LegacyWorks Group communications efforts at the organization level and closely coordinate with initiative leads and team members on initiative communications
Supervise the LWG communications team and closely coordinate with initiative team members playing communications roles
Design and prepare LegacyWorks Group’s Annual Report, ensuring clear, accessible, and high-quality storytelling that brings our impact to life
Lead the design development and distribution of each quarterly edition of LegacyWork Group’s organization-wide newsletter, LegacyThreads
Support each initiative’s quarterly newsletter and periodic communications updates through active ideation, co-creation, and/or other support as needed to help ensure high quality communications materials are developed throughout the organization
Manage the ongoing and timely improvement and ongoing updates to the LegacyWorks Group website to maintain liveliness, relevance, visitor engagement, and desired actions
Drive iterative improvement in the website, newsletters, collateral, storytelling, reporting, and communications systems by actively engaging team members and partners for feedback and inviting them into co-creation
Team & Culture Cultivation
Directly supervise the Platform Advancement team, including regular check-ins, timesheet and expense approvals, vacation and sick time management, and employee review and growth management processes
In collaboration with the People & Culture team, lead hiring, onboarding, development, and exiting of Advancement team members
Model trust, active listening, and accountability within the LWG Platform team, fostering a culture where diverse voices contribute meaningfully
Build team capacity through knowledge sharing, co-created goals, and guidance that strengthens collective leadership
Embrace complexity and encourage reflection in team decision-making, supporting thoughtful problem-solving
Ensure belonging, access, and opportunity internally by creating an environment where team members feel valued, supported, and empowered to lead
Organizational Collaboration
Contribute to the evolution of LPW’s collaborative impact model and support initiatives centered around belonging, access and opportunity
Participate actively in team meetings, gatherings, and working groups to advance LWG initiatives and goals
Work to foster a cohesive team environment
Comply with all LPW’s systems and policies including, but not limited to, time tracking, credits card expense reporting, reimbursement requests, requesting leave and vacation, and other organizational requirements
Who We’re Looking For
We’re looking for someone who approaches work with enthusiasm, curiosity, openness, and care; someone who develops possibilities, brings both courage and creativity to exploring ways to strengthen LWGs financial growth and stability. They listen deeply and center the voices of others, embracing growth with honesty and vulnerability, seeing mistakes as part of the learning process. They move with intention, balancing clear direction with openness to surprise and change, and thrive in the space between steady progress and emerging possibility. They are comfortable working in an organization with widely distributed leadership roles, supporting, coordinating and actively facilitating collective efforts to communicate and raise the support need for LegacyWorks Group’s widespread community-driven, place-based change initiatives. Their core skills and experience include:
5-10 years of professional fundraising experience
Advancement leadership experience with increasing levels of responsibility
A demonstrated track record of building and implementing an advancement strategy, including but not limited to annual fund, major gifts, corporations, foundations, planned giving and events
Experience developing highly effective and visually appealing communications
Significant experience in stewarding donors and cultivating major gifts
Bringing vision to life by co-creating goals and driving disciplined, focused execution
Communicating candidly and compassionately, keeping messages clear, timely, and accessible
Adept at writing proposals, solicitation letters, donor correspondence, and other content and materials to enhance fundraising
Embracing distributed leadership, stepping up while creating space for others to contribute and collaborate
Channeling systems thinking by connecting perspectives to make sense of complexity
Harnessing technology creatively, using current and emerging tools to advance projects and organizational goals
Exceptional financial, organizational and administrative skills
Experience and competency using various development software systems
Compensation & Benefits
The salary range for the Director of Advancement position is $115,000-125,000 based on relevant qualifications and experience. We offer a comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, vision and dental coverage, a 401(k) retirement plan with employer match, remote work stipend, and unlimited vacation time alongside sick leave.
To Apply
Apply for this position using our application form to submit a resume, cover letter and references. In your cover letter, be sure to speak to your values and skills. Applications are only accepted via our application form. Applications will be accepted until February 27, 2026.
LegacyWorks is proud to be an affirmative action equal-opportunity employer and is committed to cultivating a diverse and inclusive work culture. LegacyWorks is committed to increasing the diversity of the team, including board and staff, and continuing to improve compensation and benefits. We welcome candidates of all backgrounds and value life experience and achievements. All employees and applicants for employment are not to be discriminated on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information (including family medical history), political affiliation, military service, or other non-merit-based factors.