Philanthropic Service Advisor

Position: Regular, Fulltime, Exempt

Department: Philanthropic Services

Reports to: Director, Philanthropic Services

Supervises: N/A

Organizational Overview: Founded in 1914, the Cleveland Foundation (“TCF”) is the world’s first community foundation. Visionary Frederick Goff, a banker and an attorney, was inspired to pool the charitable resources of Clevelanders from all walks of life, both living and deceased, into a single, great, permanent trust administered for the betterment of the community. It was such a good idea that there are currently over 2,000 community foundations worldwide.

Until recently, TCF was grateful to call Playhouse Square home for nearly 40 years. During that time, TCF had the opportunity to play a key role in the community effort to redevelop the theater district and downtown Cleveland. After careful and thoughtful exploration of a wide range of options for a future home, TCF’s board and staff determined that there was an opportunity to play a similar role in the development of a different Cleveland neighborhood.

In the Spring of 2023, TCF moved to Midtown representing an investment in Greater Cleveland’s neighborhoods and a fundamental change in the way it interacted with the community it served. On August 1, 2023, Lillian Kuri made history by becoming the first female President & CEO of TCF, the world’s oldest and one of the largest community foundations with over $3 billion in assets under management. Lillian is currently leading TCF’s transformation with an innovative strategic plan to shape the “Community Foundation of the Future.” TCF’s vision is “A vibrant Northeast Ohio in which no Clevelander is left behind.”

Summary: The Philanthropic Advisor is responsible for attracting, retaining, and growing the Philanthropic support of donors and organizational fund partners by building strong relationships, establishing themselves as a trusted advisor, connect donors' philanthropic giving to transformative impact. Provide services that inform, advise, and curate opportunities aligned with our mission to enhance the lives of Greater Clevelanders, helping donors achieve their personal goals to make a difference.

Responsibilities and Expected Outcomes:

Actively cultivate relationships within an assigned portfolio of donors to inspire and engage their philanthropic interests and goals. Donors may include individuals, families, corporations, non-profit organizations, and distribution committees (such as supporting organizations and committee-advised funds).

• Serve as the primary contact for assigned donors regarding the status of their funds and fund grantmaking in accordance with the Foundation’s core and enhanced service options and fee structure.
• Respond to donor requests for information and serve as a link to Foundation resources.
• Identify donor’s philanthropic interests and serve as a conduit to opportunities for philanthropic impact.
• Curate donor experiences around interests, including site visits, salon invitations, and meetings with focus area and content experts to educate donors on current community needs.
• Proactively align donor interests with grantmaking opportunities, including Foundation priorities to increase impact.
• Lead personalized sessions for donors and other stakeholders, focusing on multigenerational perspectives, identifying values and establishing a vision and mission statement for their philanthropic legacy.
• Produce and present effective pitches and presentations to existing donors, new prospects, boards of directors, and development and investment committees.
  • The information presented will include communicating the full capabilities and accomplishments of the foundation, specific information on the growth of their fund and services and educational opportunities that we offer.
• Enable Organizational Fund partners to increase their endowments through the services we provide.
  • These include working with executive directors and development staff to implement fundraising strategies, gift planning education and back-office support, and educational opportunities to strengthen and grow their funds at the Foundation.
• Report and measure outcomes related to donor satisfaction with the assigned donor officer and with the Cleveland Foundation. Additional measures will include meetings, touchpoints and new additions to funds that add to the impact in the community and meet Foundation priorities for growth.

Growth of Donor Officer’s Portfolio: Increase Donor, Supporting Organizations and Organizational Fund contributions.

• Create a portfolio strategy to review and create stewardship opportunities that result in additional dollars to the funds.
• Set goals for increasing contributions.
• Work with portfolio to encourage funding opportunities including:
  • Opening additional funds
  • Creating a planned giving strategy with donors to transfer their DAF’s to Named Funds
  • Establishing the Cleveland Foundation to receive charitable dollars from their estates.
• Report and measure increase to assigned funds.

Work collaboratively with other Philanthropy Department staff on joint opportunities for cultivation and engagement when appropriate.

• Partner to open new funds and attract additional gifts from assigned donors.
• Serve as a content expert on the services that we provide.

Create impact opportunities for our donors and partners to connect to Foundation leadership and other donors to generate new ideas; advancing new ways of collaborating; leveraging their grantmaking dollars with foundation initiatives and supporting public policy, awareness, and advocacy.

• Collaborate on initiatives related to the Foundation’s strategic direction including program planning for the Center for Philanthropy, aligning donors and their grantmaking across equity initiatives and impact areas.
• Cultivate relationships with Community Responsive Grantmaking and Proactive Grantmaking Teams to understand strategic impact priorities to engage donors in partnership.
• Establish a team approach with grantmaking directors and officers to present mission and priority related opportunities to donors.
• Facilitate donors’ use of the Foundation technology platforms that provide donors with access to fund information and information about grantmaking opportunities through the Foundation’s website and donor portal.

Other duties and responsibilities:

• Actively collaborate with Philanthropic Services and Philanthropy colleagues on team-wide initiatives and events.
• Assist Director, Philanthropic Services on strategic projects, as assigned.
• Participate as a member of cross-disciplinary teams with foundation colleagues as requested on special assignments that serve to enhance the foundation’s strategic work.

Essential Qualifications, Credentials and Technical Skills required:

• A bachelor’s degree and five to seven years’ experience in a service environment where responsibilities included providing philanthropic advice and personalized service to a diverse group of high-net-worth donors/clients. Additional credentials are a plus.
• Demonstrated experience attracting, retaining, and managing a portfolio of donors/clients.
• Proven ability to build successful and lasting relationships and interact effectively with existing and prospective donors/clients, community leaders, professional advisors and representatives from for-profit and nonprofit organizations.
• Proven ability to successfully manage multiple complex projects simultaneously.
• Experience with creating and maintaining programs and communications designed to steward donors as a group, matching the approach to specific subsets within the donor population.
• Experience working as part of a multidisciplinary team and working effectively with persons and communities from diverse cultural, social, and ethnic backgrounds and age groups.
• Proven ability to promote teamwork and collaboration amongst peers, both departmentally and throughout an organization.
• Proficiency in utilizing technology to conduct research, provide information and/or services as well as video meeting/conferencing and team collaboration tools. Intermediate proficiency in all Microsoft Office programs and working knowledge of database programs.
• Exceptional writing and presentation skills.

Other Highly Desirable Qualifications Include:

• Knowledge of fund development, planned giving, and philanthropy, and the ability to knowledgably assist donors in formulating plans, goals and/or strategies for their philanthropic giving.
• Knowledge of the Greater Cleveland nonprofit community and the ability to research areas of interest on behalf of donors.

OUR COMMITMENT TO EQUAL OPPORTUNITY & DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION:

The Cleveland Foundation exists to enhance the quality of life for all citizens of Greater Cleveland. The ability to carry out our mission and to foster our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion can best be pursued if our workforce, grantees, donors, partners, and governing body are inclusive of individuals of diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and perspectives.

We believe that diversity encompasses, but is not limited to, age, color, education, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental abilities or characteristics, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and/or other characteristics that make an individual unique.

The Cleveland Foundation is committed to equal employment opportunities for all, and our policy is to ensure that employees are selected, developed, retained, and promoted based on the individual’s ability and job performance, and without regard to that individual’s status or characteristics protected by federal, state or local law.