The Senior Director of Development, Cohort Lead is a seasoned fundraising professional responsible for leading, coaching, and managing a cohort of frontline fundraisers who support multiple LSU academic units. Reporting to the Assistant Vice President of Development, this individual serves as both a high-performing major gift officer and a unit lead for an assigned college, while also providing strategic leadership and coaching to major gift fundraisers, mid-level fundraisers as well as fundraisers who also serve as unit leads within their cohort.

The Senior Director provides leadership for their cohort, supporting fundraising strategies and goal attainment, ensuring best practices, and fostering strong communication and collaboration between fundraisers, unit leadership, and the LSU Foundation. This role requires a demonstrated record of fundraising success, exceptional management capabilities, and the ability to cultivate strong partnerships across complex organizations.

Position Responsibilities:

Cohort Leadership & Management

• Lead, manage, and mentor a cohort of frontline fundraisers, ensuring alignment with LSU Foundation goals and fundraising best practices.
• Provide ongoing coaching, performance feedback, and professional development plans for cohort members.
• Partner with the AVP of Development to establish annual goals and support the performance evaluation process for all fundraisers within the cohort.
• Foster a collaborative, high-performing team culture rooted in accountability, shared goals, and continuous improvement.
• Serve as a champion of Foundation culture, reinforcing shared values, expectations, and best practices across the cohort and within assigned units.

Strategic Fundraising & Unit Partnership

• Serve as a strategic fundraising partner in collaboration with the AVP to assigned unit deans, guiding fundraising priorities and advising on philanthropic opportunities.
• Collaborate with the AVP, unit leads, faculty, and Foundation leadership to develop and execute fundraising strategies that advance unit-specific goals.
• Collaborate with the AVP of Development in the creation of fundraising plans for each unit supported by the cohort, ensuring plans are ambitious, data-driven, and measurable.
• Provide strategic support, coaching, and troubleshooting for fundraisers navigating complex donor interactions or unit-level challenges.

Portfolio Management

• Maintain an active major gift portfolio, securing philanthropic commitments at the leadership and major gift levels.
• Identify, cultivate, solicit, and steward donors capable of making significant philanthropic investments.
• Model best practices in donor strategy, documentation, and relationship management for the cohort.

Collaboration & Communication

• Facilitate strong communication between the LSU Foundation, cohort fundraisers, and academic units, ensuring clarity, alignment, and responsiveness.
• Support the AVP in providing timely, consistent updates to Foundation leadership regarding cohort progress, emerging challenges, and opportunities.
• Collaborate with development services colleagues on cohort administration.
• Delegate and plan administrative tasks for optimal efficiency.
• Represent the LSU Foundation professionally with donors, faculty, and external partners, strengthening trust and institutional reputation.

Requirements

Qualifications Required:

• Experience in major gift fundraising demonstrating a proven track record of securing major gifts and meeting fundraising goals.
• Strong management and team leadership experience, preferably within a development or nonprofit environment.
• Proven ability to build effective partnerships with deans, academic leadership, and cross-functional teams.
• Exceptional communication, interpersonal, and relationship-building skills.
• Strong strategic planning, problem-solving, and organizational abilities.
• Bachelor's degree required.

Qualifications Preferred:

• Master's Degree
• CFRE or other professional fundraising certification is a plus.

Competencies:

• Critical Thinking: Practices objective rather than subjective modes of reasoning and action. Maintains perspective when assessing qualitative and quantitative information. Appropriately challenges and questions common beliefs.
• Relationship Building: Develops, maintains, and strengthens relationships with others outside of the organization.
• Attention to Detail/Accuracy: Focuses on paying attention to all details and aspects of a job or process to avoid substandard outputs.
• Collaboration: Works collegially with others, cooperating in both interpersonal and team relationships; fosters enthusiasm and maintains mutual trust, candor, and respect.
• Adaptability: Responds to changing circumstances by being innovative and altering behavior to better fit different situations; successfully works with new colleagues; willing to be flexible; remains calm in stressful situations.
• Effective Communication: Shares and receives information using clear oral, written, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Emotional Intelligence: Identifies and manages the emotions of self and the emotions of others.
• Professionalism: Thinks carefully about the likely effects on others of one's words, actions, appearance, and mode of behavior.
• Tenacity: Achieves a desired outcome in the face of setbacks, obstacles, or challenging circumstances.
• Timely Decision Making/Judgment: Demonstrates the ability to make judicious and effective decisions.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

This position has supervisory responsibilities.

Work Environment Requirements

• This position is primarily performed in a professional office environment.
• The role routinely uses standard office equipment, including computers, telephones, printers, and related technology.
• The position may involve travel, meetings, or attendance at events, as applicable to the role.
• Work hours are generally standard business hours, with evening or weekend work as needed.
• Travel is required to effectively manage and cultivate a geographically diverse portfolio of donors and prospects, including regular in-state and out-of-state travel and multi-day trips.

Physical Demands

While performing the essential functions of this job, the employee may be required to:

• Sit for extended periods of time
• Stand or walk occasionally
• Use hands and fingers to operate a computer keyboard, mouse, and other office equipment
• Communicate clearly in person, by phone, and electronically
• Lift or move materials weighing up to 20 pounds occasionally (if applicable)

The physical demands and work environment characteristics described here are representative of those required to perform the essential functions of the job.