EXPECTATION FOR ALL EMPLOYEES:
Support the mission, vision, and values of United Way of Delaware (UWDE) and Delaware Helpline, Incorporated (DE211). As required, participate in various after hours, weekend activities and meetings that benefit UWDE, DE211 and the community. Due to the leadership role UWDE and DE211 are called upon to play in the community, it is the expectation that all staff will be fully engaged in community meetings, events, and activities.
POSITION SUMMARY:
The Associate Vice President, Strategy & Philanthropy is a key executive leader responsible for driving the overall revenue strategy, fundraising execution, and financial sustainability of UWDE and DE211. This includes oversight of both campaign (individual, workplace, and corporate giving) and non-campaign (grants, sponsorships, and institutional funding) revenue streams.
This role sets the strategic vision for philanthropy, leads cross-functional collaboration to align marketing, community impact, and operations to fundraising goals, and ensures accountability for results across the organization. The VP will lead and manage a high-performing fundraising team, ensuring successful staff recruitment, development, performance management, and execution of strategic fundraising deliverables.
As a member of the Executive Team, this leader plays a critical role in shaping UWDE’s short- and long-term strategic priorities, cultivating high-value partnerships, and representing the organization with funders, donors, and stakeholders across sectors.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
Strategic Philanthropy Leadership
- Lead the vision, planning, and execution of all philanthropic revenue streams to meet or exceed annual organizational goals.
- Drive integration between fundraising, marketing, and community impact to ensure consistent messaging, strong engagement pipelines, and strategic alignment to the strategic plan.
- Develop and implement a multi-year revenue growth strategy, diversifying revenue sources and increasing long-term sustainability.
- Set and track annual fundraising KPIs; regularly report progress to the CEO and Board of Directors.
Fundraising and Revenue Oversight
- Lead both campaign and non-campaign fundraising, including workplace campaigns, corporate partnerships, grants, donor acquisition, and individual giving strategies.
- Oversee the grant lifecycle, from research and proposal development to submission, stewardship, compliance, and impact reporting.
- Cultivate, steward, and grow a portfolio of major donors, foundations, and institutional funders.
- Ensure a compelling, data-informed storytelling strategy to inspire funders and demonstrate organizational impact.
Team Management and Accountability
- Recruit, develop, and manage a high-performing philanthropy team aligned to UWDE’s values and performance culture.
- Set clear goals, expectations, and deliverables for all philanthropy staff; conduct performance evaluations and ensure ongoing professional development.
- Foster a team culture of innovation, excellence, collaboration, and accountability.
- Provide executive oversight of staff engagement strategies, volunteer pipelines, donor stewardship activities, and special events.
Cross-Organizational Collaboration
- Collaborate across departments (Marketing, Community Impact, Engagement, etc.) to build a shared revenue mindset and ensure alignment on messaging, outcomes, and strategy.
- Partner with the CEO and COO on strategic initiatives and operational planning to support financial sustainability and organizational growth.
- Serve as a thought partner and visible leader internally and externally, representing UWDE at conferences, panels, funder meetings, and public events.
Data, Analytics, and Impact
- Lead revenue performance tracking, reporting, and continuous improvement processes.
- Analyze philanthropic market trends and donor behaviors to inform strategy and drive innovation.
- Use data and impact metrics to refine fundraising efforts and strengthen funder confidence.
QUALIFICATIONS
Education Bachelor’s degree required; master’s degree in nonprofit management, business, public administration, or a related field strongly preferred.
Experience
- Minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in fundraising, philanthropy, or nonprofit revenue strategy, with at least 3–5 years in a senior leadership or executive role.
- Proven track record of managing large-scale fundraising campaigns and securing major institutional grants.
- Experience leading, coaching, and developing high-performing teams.
- Strong experience in grant writing, reporting, and compliance for federal, state, and foundation funding.
CORE COMPETENCIES
- Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving – Is able to address and coordinate complex issues to achieve desired results. This includes the ability to gather, interpret and use relevant data to drive strategy development, make decisions and drive for results.
- Planning and Implementation – Is a leader and takes initiative in planning and developing initiatives within impact areas to achieve results that drive collective community outcomes.
- Results-Driven – Our staff is dedicated to shared and measurable goals for the common good, creating, resourcing, scaling, and leveraging strategies and innovations for broad investment and impact.
- Relationship Building – Develops and maintains strategic relationships that generate the resources necessary to support UWDE’s mission.
- Entrepreneurial and Innovative – Creatively seeks new opportunities to generate revenue and other resources that add greater value to the organization and the community.
- Community Collaborator – Engages diverse stakeholders to assess community accurately and effectively needs with credibility, authenticity and humility strategically guides UWDE and DE211 to contribute to the community’s priorities: Is an effective and passionate communicator, articulating the UWDE and DE211 message in a way that inspires others to act in service to the organization and the community needs.
- Embracing and Managing Change – Champions and facilitate change to ensure long-term community sustainability. He/she adapts successfully to changing needs while maintaining positive relationships with all constituents, internal and external.
PHYSICAL/ENVIRONMENTAL
- Statewide travel (use of personal vehicle, valid driver’s license, and proof of insurance) is required.
- Occasional travel out-of-state and overnight travel may be necessary.
- Environmental conditions include the ability to work virtually, indoors, and outdoors year-round.
- Ability to stand, walk, bend, reach and sit for extended (eight hours or more) periods of time.
- Ability to lift minimally 25lb objects and move from one place to another.
UNITED WAY OF DELAWARE CORE VALUES STATEMENT
As a member of the UWDE team, we expect that you and every employee will live up to our Core Values and that you will model these behaviors inside and outside UWDE.
“WOW” Customers
There are thousands of nonprofits organizations, so we must innovate and find ways to stand out. We believe that our people define us and that our expert, caring colleagues enabled by new ideas and insights can be our differentiator.
This mission is an inclusive one – no matter where you sit in the organization, you interact with and support customers. Let’s work together to make sure those we do business with have the best possible experience.
Grow and Learn
We’ll work together to better understand what our customers want and need – continuously evaluating everything from our strategies to our processes – and make UWDE more appealing and relevant to our donors, partners and stakeholders. To achieve this is an ever-changing environment, we need colleagues who are continuous learners and are change resilient.
Collectively Drive Change
Change is inevitable and constant. Our ability to deliver meaningful results is critical as we move forward in our journey. Together, we can work smarter, leveraging the insights provided by data to learn more about our customers and community to empower our colleagues to make better, faster decisions.
This mindset will help us to work differently and approach our work in a more agile fashion – aiming to deliver value more quickly versus traditional efforts to be tactical and task oriented.
Mission-Driven
Diversity, inclusion and belonging will always be a priority knowing that our difference makes us that much stronger. We want this to be a place where you feel proud and happy, and know your ideas are welcomed and valued. Together, we’ll learn and embrace new skill sets and perspectives to help take us forward.
In working together and in support of one another, we will work to create an environment where we’re attracting and retaining the very best talent to drive employee engagement, customer commitment and financial success.
Relationship-Oriented
At the heart of our work lies the community. Our genuine and authentic colleagues leverage their passion and skills set to create lifelong relationships to drive social change. This means we have to operate with a shared vision internally (no silos and division) and create and influence a shared community vision.
Job Type: Full-time
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Employee assistance program
- Flexible schedule
- Flexible spending account
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Parental leave
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
