Planned Giving Officer (Principal level role)

Planned Giving Officer (Principal level role)

Summary

The Planned Giving Officer will serve as a front-line fundraiser on a team charged with securing annually increasing revenue targets through major, planned, and blended gifts. This newly created high-level role will report to the Director of Major Gifts and Planned Giving (MG&PG) and will bring an increased depth of planned giving expertise to the department. The MG&PG team also includes a senior planned giving specialist, a part-time planned giving contractor, and three major gift officers, in addition to other members of the broader Major Gifts, Foundations, and Endowment team who support functions such as prospect research, stewardship, and events. 

You are responsible for:

• Partnering with the Director of Major Gifts & Planned Giving to develop planned giving program strategies.
• Managing a portfolio of 150-200 planned gift donors and prospects; soliciting 30-50 planned gifts of $10,000+ per year, with emphasis on 6- and 7-figure gifts.
• Fostering strong, life-long relationships with a diverse portfolio of individual donors as well as their advisors and other outside professionals, with a focus on securing documented planned gift commitments.
• Soliciting and securing present, future, and blended/complex gifts, both independently and in collaboration with colleagues and senior executives, making use of professional knowledge of various planned giving instruments, including charitable gift annuities. 
• Developing and executing follow-up strategies for high-capacity leads generated by FreeWill and other planned gift marketing. 
• Preparing detailed meeting briefings for senior leaders who are engaging with our top planned gift donors and prospects. 
• Helping manage the development and production of planned giving marketing materials, such as email, website, advertising materials and other educational materials for donors and their professional advisors. 
• Stewarding existing members of the Wikipedia Legacy Society in order to retain and increase their commitments. 
• Identifying prospective major gift donors within Legacy Society membership and developing appropriate strategies for their cultivation and solicitation. 
• Following IRS regulations regarding planned gift fundraising 
• Attending meetings, conferences, seminars and planned giving training sessions (when appropriate and within the budgetary limits), and sharing learnings with the team.
• Ability to travel occasionally to meet with donors in person and to attend Foundation gatherings.

Skills and Experience:

• Work experience or equivalent degree plus work experience. (Bachelor’s + 12 years related work experience; Master’s + 8 years related work experience.)
• Knowledge of and experience with the complexities of gift planning, including but not limited to bequests, beneficiary designations, qualified charitable distributions, charitable gift annuities, and their tax treatment in the US.
• A solid working knowledge of estate, gift, and income tax laws. A desire to continue advancing knowledge of these areas is required.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate and interact effectively with a wide variety of people; especially with donors and their professional advisors. 
• Ability to work in an open, transparent, and collaborative environment, while respecting donor confidentiality and data security. 
• Ability to communicate complex issues in easily understandable language.
• A finely-tuned sense of discretion. 

Additionally, we’d love it if you have:

• Experience working in an organization with a distributed workforce.
• Global perspective, with experience living or working internationally.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge, and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge freely. We host Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects, build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content, support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible, and advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia and free knowledge to thrive. 

The Wikimedia Foundation is a charitable, not-for-profit organization that relies on donations. We receive donations from millions of individuals around the world, with an average donation of about $15. We also receive donations through institutional grants and gifts. The Wikimedia Fo