Senior Development Officer

Job Description

Senior Development Officer

Reports to: Chief Growth Officer

Salary Range: $110,000 - $130,000

Background:

Vision To Learn (VTL), a nonprofit 501(c)(3), provides vision screenings, eye exams, and glasses to children in low-income communities at no cost to the children or their families. The organization uses mobile “vision clinics”—optometric exam rooms on wheels—to provide services on-site at schools and community organizations. Vision To Learn is funded by private philanthropy—foundations, corporations, and individuals—along with public funding from Medicaid, CHIP, school districts, cities, counties, and states.

Vision To Learn is the largest school-based vision care provider in the country. Millions of children go to school each day without the glasses they need to see the board, read a book, or participate in class.

Since 2012, Vision To Learn has provided more than 3.8 million children with vision screenings, 750,000 with eye exams, and more than 630,000 with glasses. We operate in more than 850 cities in 14 states and Washington, DC.

The Role:

Reporting to the Chief Growth Officer, the Senior Development Officer will strengthen Vision To Learn’s fundraising program by leading donor stewardship, donor communications, and moves management across a portfolio of individual and institutional supporters. The role will create a disciplined, donor-centered experience—ensuring that each relationship has a thoughtful strategy, timely next steps, compelling communications, and consistent follow-through.

The Senior Development Officer will manage an assigned portfolio while also helping the Chief Growth Officer and organizational leaders advance priority donor relationships. This person will translate program impact into tailored engagement, coordinate leadership touchpoints, maintain reliable portfolio data, and use moves-management practices to move donors from initial engagement through cultivation, solicitation, renewal, and deeper commitment.

This role will also cultivate and solicit donors and funders directly and support selected grant and fundraising activities. A successful candidate will be an exceptional writer, a proactive relationship builder, and a highly organized portfolio manager who pairs strong judgment with warm, personalized donor engagement.

Specific Responsibilities:

Donor Stewardship & Experience

• Lead stewardship planning for an assigned portfolio of individual donors, foundations, and corporate partners, with an emphasis on retention, renewal, and increased engagement.
• Develop tailored stewardship plans that reflect each donor’s interests, giving history, relationship stage, and preferred channels of engagement.
• Ensure donors receive timely acknowledgments, impact updates, reports, recognition, and other meaningful touchpoints throughout the year.
• Coordinate donor meetings, briefings, site visits, events, and other engagement opportunities, including preparation, staffing, and follow-up.
• Partner with the Chief Growth Officer, President and CEO, board members, and other organizational leaders to plan and execute high-value donor engagement.
• Track stewardship commitments and donor preferences and ensure that Vision To Learn consistently delivers a thoughtful, accurate, and responsive donor experience.

Moves Management & Portfolio Strategy

• Manage donors and prospects through the full relationship cycle: identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, stewardship, renewal, and upgrade.
• Create and maintain clear relationship strategies, next actions, target asks, timelines, and ownership for each assigned donor or prospect.
• Facilitate regular portfolio and pipeline reviews with the Chief Growth Officer and other colleagues, surfacing stalled relationships, emerging opportunities, risks, and decisions needed.
• Coordinate moves for priority relationships managed by senior leaders, preparing briefings and ensuring that agreed-upon follow-up occurs promptly.
• Use portfolio data and donor behavior to segment outreach, prioritize effort, and recommend strategies for increasing retention, engagement, and giving.
• Maintain complete, current, and accurate donor, prospect, gift, contact, and activity records in Salesforce or the organization’s designated development CRM.

Donor Communications & Content

• Develop and manage a coordinated donor communications and stewardship calendar in partnership with the Chief Growth Officer and Communications colleagues.
• Draft and edit high-quality donor-facing materials, including personalized outreach, acknowledgments, thank-you letters, impact updates, meeting briefings, proposals, reports, and renewal communications.
• Translate program activity, data, and stories into clear and compelling messages tailored to different donor audiences and stages of the relationship.
• Maintain consistency in voice, messaging, facts, and recognition across donor communications while preserving an appropriate level of personalization.
• Identify opportunities to improve donor communications, templates, workflows, and content based on portfolio insights and donor feedback.

Fundraising & Relationship Management

• Cultivate, solicit, and steward an assigned portfolio of individual and institutional donors and prospects, working toward agreed-upon relationship and revenue goals.
• Build and deepen relationships with foundations, corporations, individuals, and other philanthropic partners connected to Vision To Learn’s national and regional work.
• Prepare tailored funding opportunities and asks that align donor interests with Vision To Learn’s mission, programs, and organizational priorities.
• Support selected grant proposals, reports, renewals, and funder communications, coordinating inputs from program, Finance, Operations, and other colleagues.
• Represent Vision To Learn in donor and funder meetings, regional events, site visits, and other external engagements as appropriate.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Performance

• Work closely with Communications, Operations, Finance, Human Resources, and program teams to gather accurate information and deliver coordinated donor engagement.
• Help establish and monitor practical measures of portfolio health, including meaningful contacts, completed next steps, retention, renewals, upgrades, pipeline movement, and data quality.
• Provide the Chief Growth Officer with clear, timely updates on portfolio progress, opportunities, risks, and resource needs.
• Contribute to a collaborative, accountable development culture and undertake other fundraising and donor-engagement priorities as needed.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree or relevant professional credential in nonprofit management, fundraising, communications, business, or a related field preferred.
• Minimum of 5 years of fundraising and development experience, including direct responsibility for donor stewardship, portfolio management, and donor communications.
• Demonstrated ability to apply moves-management practices and advance individual and institutional donor relationships through multiple stages of engagement.
• Excellent writing and editing skills, with the ability to translate complex program information into clear, compelling, and donor-centered communications.
• Experience cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding donors and funders; experience with major gifts, foundations, or corporate philanthropy strongly preferred.
• Strong relationship-management skills and sound judgment when working with donors, executives, board members, and colleagues across functions.
• Exceptional organization, project management, attention to detail, and follow-through across multiple relationships and deadlines.
• Ability to use data and portfolio insights to prioritize activity, evaluate progress, and improve donor engagement.
• Proficiency with development CRM systems; Salesforce experience preferred.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a geographically distributed organization.
• Location: Remote.
• Travel: Ability to travel regularly for donor engagement, site visits, regional events, and organizational meetings.
• Passion for Vision To Learn’s mission.