Senior Director, Development/PHL

ABOUT CRADLES TO CRAYONS:

Cradles to Crayons (C2C), founded in 2002, provides children living in homeless or low-income situations, with the essential items they need to thrive—at home, at school, and at play. We supply clothing, shoes, diapers, school supplies, and more, free of charge. Our vision is that one day all children will have the essentials they need to thrive.

Two in 5 kids in the United States are currently facing Clothing Insecurity, going without basic essentials like pants, shoes, diapers, and school supplies during their critical development years. Three of the top 10 reasons kids miss school are rooted in Clothing Insecurity—just one example of the significant short- and long-term social and economic costs when these needs go unmet. Cradles to Crayons keeps Clothing Insecurity at the core of our mission and is the only large-scale nonprofit organization to focus on this resource gap. Since its founding, Cradles to Crayons has distributed more than six million customized packages of essentials to children in Massachusetts, Greater Philadelphia, Chicagoland, and nationally, through Giving Factory Direct—a first-in-kind online product donation platform launched in 2021.

Cradles to Crayons takes a three-pronged approach to mitigating Clothing Insecurity:

1. In-person Engagement—through tens of thousands of children and adults volunteering at our Giving Factory warehouses to sort and package high volumes of new and like-new donations from our communities for our Service Partners to distribute to the children they serve.
2. Online Product Donations—Giving Factory Direct matches product donors directly to children who need the items they have to donate, with service partners in 5 US cities including New York and San Francisco.  
3. Advocacy and Awareness—Cradles to Crayons is uniquely positioned to raise Clothing Insecurity as a national issue through awareness campaigns, data/evaluation, and legislative outreach. 

Cradles to Crayons’ strong financial health and ongoing effectiveness and reliability have helped it earn a Four-Star Rating from Charity Navigator every year since 2009. C2C has a budget of $20M for FY26 and a total staff of approximately 100. Cradles to Crayons has a thriving Family Leadership Circle program and robust corporate engagement programs that fuel its mission and provide opportunities for families, organizations and communities to engage in direct service.

POSITION OVERVIEW:

The Senior Director of Development is responsible for leading the development team and for managing all aspects of development, stewardship and cultivation for Cradles to Crayons Philadelphia to achieve a $4M goal and support the VP of Philanthropy to realize the organizational goal of $18M. The Senior Director of Development leads Cradles to Crayons’ development activities in the Philadelphia market including traditional fundraising from foundations, corporations, and individuals together with earned revenue opportunities and capital campaigns. The Senior Director of Development is responsible for leading the major donor program and for managing all aspects of corporate, individual and family donor stewardship and cultivation for Cradles to Crayons Philadelphia. The Director plans and manages all development events in conjunction with the Senior Family Philanthropy Manager and Operations Team. The Senior Director of Development is a member of the Leadership Team working creatively with the Executive Director and other directors to realize organizational goals.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Model and lead a positive “One Cradles” culture, underpinned by Cradles’ Cultural Values and related behaviors.

Fundraising

• Responsible for realizing the annual Philadelphia budget goal of $4M from corporations, individuals, families, government and foundations.
• Responsible for donor/prospect identification, research, cultivation, engagement, solicitation, and stewardship with a particular focus on major donors $50,000+
• Identifies new prospects and cu