Director, Institutional Giving

Director, Institutional Giving

American Forests is a national non‑profit organization committed to creating healthy and resilient forests from cities to large forest landscapes, delivering essential benefits for climate, people, water, and wildlife.

Base pay range

$90,000.00/yr – $/yr

Our Mission in Action

Trees play a vital role in solving some of the most pressing issues facing our communities, our society, and our world today. For 150 years, American Forests has stood boldly at the forefront of the conservation movement, working collaboratively and innovatively to ensure that all people have access to the benefits of trees. As we look ahead to the next 150 years, continued collective action will be essential to securing a healthy, climate‑resilient future for all.

To support this work, we are looking for a Director, Institutional Giving to join our Philanthropy team.

As part of the team, you will maximize American Forests’ institutional giving relationships to ensure their success and longevity by developing and executing strategies to grow this important revenue stream while ensuring that funding aligns with the overall mission and supports strategic program initiatives. Major responsibilities include:

• Secure major and principal gift commitments, primarily for American Forests’ Urban Forestry and Tree Equity programs, from private grant‑making foundations per the following metric expectations.
• Manage and grow a portfolio of 60 to 85 donors and donor prospects with the capacity to make philanthropic gifts of $50,000 to $1M+.
• Conduct donor visits regularly and often with a goal of 45‑60+ meaningful visits per year, including qualifying at least 24 prospects a year through discovery outreach and cultivation.
• Solicit at least 1 gift commitment proposal of $1M+, 3 gift commitment proposals of $500,000+, and 25 solicitations of $50,000+ each year.
• Visit with institutional prospects to establish contacts, gather information, qualify prospects, present ideas, develop networks, promote understanding of American Forests’ initiatives, request invitations for proposals, and conduct stewardship. Strategically partner with American Forests’ Leadership, volunteers, and staff on such visits and prepare with pre‑meeting planning and post‑meeting debriefing and follow up.
• Develop, write and carry out prospect engagement strategies by identifying, qualifying, and cultivating prospects; determining amount and timing of requests; write and oversee the creation of proposals; solicit prospects via proposals and in face‑to‑face meetings; provide verbal and written communication necessary to secure gifts, and deliver appropriate stewardship and report on gifts made to the organization.
• Execute thorough, creative, impactful, and ambitious funding proposals through purposeful meetings, volunteer leads, presentations, grant letters, and applications, as determined by the funder.

• Oversee, direct, manage, and execute American Forests’ institutional giving program, working closely with Program and Finance teams and tools like Click Up to develop, improve, and streamline the templates, systems, and processes of complex grant applications to diverse funders and management of internal review/approval process.
• Determine an effective sequence of work, including planning and monitoring activity timelines for each donor or prospect including proposal due dates, reporting dates, cultivation, and stewardship activities, and managing simultaneous proposals and strategies while meeting required deadlines.
• Identify new prospective institutional funders through research and peer‑to‑peer networks, serving as the strategic lead to align American Forests’ organizational priorities with the defined priorities and interests of institutional partners.
• Coordinate with Programs, Finance, Marketing & Communications, and Philanthropy colleagues to develop proposal budgets, deliver engagement opportunities, and monitor deliverables for grant contracts.
• Track all institutional prospects and submitted proposals in fundraising database; produce regular reports on…