Chief Advancement Officer

Chief Advancement Officer - San Francisco, CA

Full-Time, Exempt, Hybrid

2 minimum days/week in the office, with offsite meetings the rest of the week

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” - Nelson Mandela

We believe that even the biggest problems can be broken down into small, achievable steps. Poverty and access to justice are part of the same problem. And we’re solving this problem together. At Open Door Legal (ODL), we’re pioneering the country’s first system of universal access to civil legal representation to dramatically reduce poverty and prove that the law really can belong to all of us.

We’ve grown 150x in 10 years, and in the next 2 years, we hope to finish scaling across San Francisco. To achieve this goal, we’ve created an award-winning and best-in-class legal aid organization full of passionate, motivated, gritty, thoughtful, and team-oriented people. We believe that injustice is the heart of poverty, and we're looking for someone to join us in ensuring justice for all.

Delivering on the promise of making San Francisco the first city in the US with universal access to legal services requires matching our fast-paced growth with equally paced revenue. The Chief Advancement Officer (CAO) will develop and drive fundraising and marketing strategy to build up, maintain, and grow our sustainable private and public revenue. Our revenue has doubled year-over-year since 2024, and you would be joining and leading the high-performing team that got us here.

The CAO will play a critical role in cultivating a culture of fundraising across the organization, both among staff and the Board of Directors, meaningfully engaging staff and Board members in fundraising activity and dialogue, including offering coaching and guidance to increase individuals’ confidence and impact in fundraising conversations with prospects and donors. San Francisco City/County has been Open Door Legal’s biggest champion, and the CAO will continue to engage heavily in public affairs and advocate for further partnership.

The CAO is also responsible for overseeing our annual gala and all donor-facing events as part of our prospecting and retention strategy.

A successful candidate must be almost single-mindedly focused on enthusiastically getting Open Door Legal’s mission before as many eyes as possible and able to manage multiple complex grants and funding processes autonomously while leading through influence and inclusivity.

Note:

This role will require occasional work on nights and weekends. Success in this role requires grit, dynamism, teamwork, care, and passion (our five values as an organization). You will report directly to our Executive Director.

• Portfolio management
  • Effectively manage and coach relationship managers to grow their portfolios over time and maintain exceptional donor retention.
  • Personally manage a major gifts portfolio.
• Development operations
  • Ensure qualification, prospect research, portfolio assignment, thank you, and financial reconciliation processes happen on a timely basis and with minimal error.
  • Create and maintain standardized documentation for development operations.
• Board activation
  • Liaison with the board’s development committee, up-skilling them as strategic partners in developing our fundraising strategy and activating the board.
• Prospecting
  • Energetically source new private funders, including individuals, foundations, corporations, and religious institutions, through an intentional prospecting strategy.
• Grant management
  • Ensure all grants are sourced and applied for. Develop a unique voice and positioning for ODL to be competitive in grant applications and amongst peer organizations.
• Gala & donor events
  • Oversee the production of our gala and donor-facing events as part of the overall prospecting and retention strategy.
• Marketing & communications
  • Manage communication efforts, including content production, our website, and social channels.
  • Iterate marketing efforts that drive visitors towards conversion.
• Media relations
  • Manage press engagement and public relations efforts that build public awareness of our work and of access to justice issues.
• Public affairs
  • Help…