Director of Leadership Giving

Amherst College

Amherst College, located in Amherst, MA and one of the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges, announces an exciting opportunity for three experienced Advancement professionals to join its accomplished, highly functioning team. Renowned for its dedicated faculty, open curriculum, generous financial aid policies, and scenic 1,000-acre campus, Amherst offers a bachelor’s degree in 39 majors across the arts, natural and social sciences, and humanities. For the past several years, more than 45 percent of Amherst’s students have identified as domestic students of color, plus 9 percent international students. Amherst is one of the few truly need blind colleges in the nation: students are admitted without regard to their financial situations, and each admitted student is guaranteed financial aid equal to their financial need. The College’s financial aid packages are consistently among the most generous in the nation, including a policy of not packaging loans with financial aid awards. These policies have made Amherst the most economically diverse among its peer universities and colleges.

Amherst College is committed to recruiting candidates from historically marginalized or underrepresented backgrounds and identities, as well as individuals whose prior experience demonstrates leadership in equity, diversity, and inclusion. 

Director of Leadership Giving

The Director of Leadership Giving will expertly lead the stewardship and solicitation efforts of both leadership and principal gift prospects. The director will work to incorporate the division’s diversity, equity and inclusion goals with respect to leadership giving and advise leadership giving officers on how to formulate effective cultivation and solicitation strategies that will maximize the life-time engagement of prospects. This is an outstanding opportunity to join Amherst’s advancement senior leadership team during its $625 million campaign launched in 2018, Promise: The Campaign for Amherst’s Third Century. To date, the campaign has raised over $520 million from more than 23,000 donors and is on target to meet its goal by 2023.

As a member of the advancement senior leadership team, the director will contribute to discussions related to campaign planning, volunteer management, diversity, equity and inclusion within the division, and goal setting. The director’s prospect portfolio will include both leadership and principal gift prospects (those with assumed gift capacity of $5 million+), and they will serve as a part of the College’s principal gifts team. 

With responsibility for leading a team of approximately 16 professionals with up to eight direct reports, the successful candidate will collaborate with colleagues across advancement research, annual giving, and alumni and parent programs, to create a robust and diverse pipeline of leadership and principal gift prospects. The director will also ensure best practices with regard to staff inclusion, engagement and development, working collaboratively to actualize the division’s DEI and anti-racism goals and strategies. The ideal candidate will possess the authenticity and cultural competence necessary to promote an environment of teamwork, collaboration, and shared ideas.

Amherst College has retained Jack Gorman of Isaacson, Miller, a national executive search firm, to assist in this recruitment. To apply, please visit https://www.imsearch.com/search-detail/S7-945.