The Director of Advancement Operations is the day-to-day leader of the systems, data, processes, and performance disciplines that enable The Catholic Initiative to raise and steward significant philanthropic support. This role turns fundraising strategy into a reliable operating system, ensuring that donor information is accurate, portfolios are actively managed, gifts are processed and acknowledged well, and leaders have timely data for decision-making.
This is a hands-on director role for a builder who can establish standards, strengthen accountability, and make it easier for gift officers and organizational leaders to do their best work. The Director will partner closely with the Executive Director, gift officers, finance, operations, communications, and project teams.
Reports to: Executive Director. Status: Full-time, exempt. Location: Detroit area, with regular collaboration across a geographically distributed team and periodic travel.
Leadership Mandate
- Build and continuously improve an integrated advancement operating system that supports ambitious fundraising growth.
- Create clarity, consistency, and accountability across donor development, stewardship, gift administration, research, and reporting.
- Translate strategy into practical workflows, standards, dashboards, and decision-ready information.
- Serve as a trusted partner to the team while maintaining the discipline and data integrity required for organizational excellence.
Advancement Strategy, Systems & Process Leadership
- Design, document, implement, and improve the core systems and standard operating procedures supporting the full donor lifecycle, from identification and qualification through cultivation, solicitation, gift administration, stewardship, and renewal.
- Establish clear ownership, handoffs, service standards, and quality controls across advancement functions.
- Lead the annual advancement operations calendar, including planning cycles, reporting deadlines, portfolio reviews, stewardship commitments, and campaign milestones.
- Assess emerging needs, identify process gaps, and recommend technology, staffing, or workflow improvements that increase fundraising effectiveness.
CRM, Data Governance & Information Management
- Serve as organizational owner and lead administrator of Salesforce for advancement, including configuration priorities, user practices, data standards, permissions, integrations, and vendor coordination.
- Establish and enforce data governance standards for constituent records, householding, contact reports, opportunities, proposals, campaigns, gift records, moves, and relationship management.
- Develop routine data-quality audits and remediation practices.
- Train and support users so Salesforce becomes a trusted, consistently used source of truth.
- Maintain appropriate confidentiality, access controls, records retention, and ethical use of donor information.
Moves Management & Portfolio Performance
- Operationalize the moves-management framework, including donor stages, qualification standards, next-step expectations, opportunity tracking, and portfolio composition.
- Facilitate regular portfolio reviews and help gift officers convert donor strategy into specific, dated, measurable actions.
- Monitor portfolio health, substantive meetings, donor touches, qualified prospects, proposals, pipeline movement, and other performance indicators.
- Identify stalled opportunities, missing follow-up, portfolio imbalances, and pipeline risks, and bring them forward with practical recommendations.
- Support onboarding and ongoing coaching so fundraisers consistently apply shared practices.
Gift Administration, Acknowledgment & Compliance
- Oversee accurate, timely processing, recording, receipting, acknowledgment, and documentation of gifts, pledges, grants, matching gifts, stock, planned gifts, and other contributions.
- Partner with finance on reliable reconciliation processes and alignment between advancement and financial records.
- Maintain gift agreements, pledge schedules, donor restrictions, recognition preferences, and stewardship obligations.
- Ensure practices align with applicable laws, accounting requirements, organizational policies, and ethical fundraising standards.
Reporting, Analytics & Operational Support
- Maintain weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual dashboards showing fundraising activity, results, pipeline health, forecasts, and progress toward goals.
- Produce concise, decision-ready reports for the Executive Director, President, Board, and other stakeholders.
- Lead and support operational needs of The Catholic Initiative team.
Prospect Development & Pipeline Support
- Build a disciplined process for prospect identification, research, qualification, assignment, and ongoing pipeline development.
- Coordinate prospect research resources and produce appropriately sourced profiles and briefing materials.
- Support gift officers in identifying new prospects through referrals, networks, project partners, events, wealth screening, and other ethical research methods.
- Maintain visibility into the universe of prospective donors and ensure high-potential prospects move toward qualification and assignment.
Stewardship & Donor Experience Operations
- Maintain systems ensuring donors receive timely, accurate, meaningful acknowledgment, reporting, recognition, and engagement.
- Maintain a calendar and tracking process for stewardship plans, impact reports, endowment reporting, pledge reminders, and other donor deliverables.
- Coordinate with communications, project partners, and fundraisers to gather impact information and deliver a consistent, mission-centered donor experience.
- Identify stewardship gaps and design scalable practices that preserve personal connection as the donor community grows.
Team Leadership & Cross-Functional Partnership
- Lead and develop advancement operations staff, contractors, or shared-service partners as the function grows.
- Create a service-oriented culture combining responsiveness to fundraisers with high standards for accuracy, timeliness, and accountability.
- Manage advancement operations projects with clear scopes, owners, timelines, dependencies, and follow-through.
- Partner with finance, operations, grants, communications, executive support, and project teams to ensure coordinated execution.
- Document institutional knowledge and build durable systems that do not depend on any one person.
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
- At least five years of progressively responsible experience in advancement operations, development services, fundraising systems, nonprofit operations, or a closely related field.
- Demonstrated proficiency with Salesforce or a comparable fundraising CRM, including data standards, reporting, dashboards, and user adoption.
- Strong knowledge of gift processing, donor records, moves management, prospect development, stewardship operations, and fundraising performance measurement.
- Excellent analytical, project-management, written-communication, and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to manage detailed work with precision while maintaining a strategic view of organizational priorities.
- Commitment to the mission and values of The Catholic Initiative.
- Based in the Detroit area, with availability for periodic travel.
Preferred Qualifications
- Leadership experience within advancement operations or a closely related function.
- Experience supervising staff, managing vendors, or leading cross-functional implementation.
How to Apply
Please submit a resume and cover letter to info@catholicinitiative.org. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.