Senior Director, Business Development

CLASP seeks a seasoned development professional to take CLASP’s fundraising functions and capacity to the next level.

The successful candidate will be an exceptional, strategic proposal writer and have expertise in building and managing development infrastructure and processes. We are seeking an agile professional with well-honed listening skills, a flexible interpersonal approach, adept at distilling complex information into clear messages, and who can adapt to evolving contexts and priorities.

This inaugural position will be based out of CLASP’s Washington, DC office, report to the Chief Communications & Development Officer, and collaborate closely with the CEO, Chief of Staff, and others across CLASP’s leadership and communications teams. The candidate will join this highly decentralized fundraising team, coordinate across the group, and provide new processes to professionalize and streamline their work.

Key Responsibilities

Proposal development: Lead the development of and contribute to solicited proposals, in collaboration with program leads, senior leadership and the communications team as needed. Proposal process: Collaborate with colleagues across the CLASP team to build more standardized proposal development processes. Lead these processes, e.g. for grant renewals. Content development: Develop presentations, concept notes, and other collateral for current and potential donors. Work with senior leadership, program leads, and the communications team to review and refine such content. Donor diversification: In partnership with senior leadership, develop a pipeline of prospective donors and associated engagement plans. Manage their implementation. Work with leadership to assess whether CLASP should diversify to new types of investment, e.g. individual giving. Donor engagement: Develop standards, processes, and plans for managing and engaging current donors. Work with senior leadership to implement these across the organization. CRM management: Work with the IT / Operations department and administrative colleagues to build and maintain donor contacts in CLASP’s CRM. Team oversight: Over time, develop a fundraising team and mentor colleagues on that team. Work with senior leadership to design and build that team. Project management: Strong project management skills and the ability to meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment. Board of Directors: Support the leadership team in developing content for and supporting the relationship with the CLASP Board, as needed. Set Fundraising Goals & Track Progress: Set individual goals and contribute to organization-wide fundraising goals; track against those goals. Adapt and respond to work priorities: You adapt initiatives, priorities, and methods based on changing operational/external conditions and client need. You tailor work based on team capacities, organizational priorities, resources, client needs, and operational/external context Persuade: You advise managers and teams on new approaches that sustain project/program quality or delivery. You build collaborative networks with clients and external stakeholders that assess performance, anticipate needs, and enable adaptation of projects and programs. Adapt the Project and Program Cycle: You sustain quality and timeliness of delivery while incorporating new learnings, policies and procedures based on evolving client feedback, stakeholder needs and operational demands.