Director, Gift Planning & Advisor Relations in Detroit, Michigan at Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan

Director, Gift Planning & Professional Advisor Relations, Donor Services

This position leads the strategic growth of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan’s planned giving program, serving as the Foundation’s primary resource on bequests, charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder and lead trusts, retirement asset gifts, and other legacy giving strategies. This position also serves as the primary, but not the only, liaison between the Foundation and the professional advisor community — including attorneys, financial planners, accountants, and wealth managers — helping them understand and use the Foundation’s charitable giving tools to serve them and their clients. In addition, this position provides personalized service and stewardship to donors referred by advisors, helping ensure a seamless and rewarding philanthropic experience.

About the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan (CFSEM):
The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan was established in 1984 to ensure residents in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe, Washtenaw, Livingston and St. Clair counties can thrive. As a permanent community endowment built by gifts from thousands of individuals and organizations, the Community Foundation supports a variety of activities benefiting economic opportunity, health equity, youth and education, arts and culture, and the environment and public spaces. Since its inception, the Community Foundation has grown to be among the top 35 community foundations in the country and has distributed more than $1.4 billion through roughly 91,000 grants to nonprofit organizations. The Community Foundation’s mission is to make southeast Michigan a desirable place to live, work and play for all residents, today and tomorrow. For more information, please visit www.cfsem.org.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the development and strategic growth of the Foundation’s planned giving program, serving as an expert on bequests, charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder and lead trusts, retirement asset gifts, and other legacy giving vehicles.
• Expand relationships with a network of professional advisors, providing real-life examples of the charitable giving impact that they and their clients can make through the Foundation.
• Lead the engagement of the Community Foundation’s Legal Financial Network meetings.
• Develop and deliver presentations, workshops, and continuing education sessions for advisors on planned and legacy giving strategies.
• Serve as a trusted resource for advisors and donors seeking guidance on complex charitable giving and estate planning strategies.
• Coordinate a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP) study group in conjunction with the Planned Giving Roundtable of Southeast Michigan.

• Develop marketing and communications materials that raise the visibility of the Foundation’s planned giving program among donors and professional advisors.
• Document and maintain accurate records of new and existing planned gift relationships, prospects, and professional advisors within the Foundation’s CRM.
• Develop tracking mechanisms and metrics — such as advisor engagement, new legacy commitments, and planned gift activity — to demonstrate annual outcomes.

• Provide personalized service to donors referred by advisors, connecting them with other staff as appropriate, to ensure a seamless and rewarding philanthropic experience.

• Exercise sound judgment in managing existing relationships to meet the objectives of the donor, uphold donor intent, and support the mission and operations of the Community Foundation.

• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of federal and state tax and regulatory developments affecting charitable and planned giving, and participate in the life of the Community Foundation by attending appropriate events and programs, maintaining membership in key organizations such as local estate planning councils, and expanding the public’s awareness of the Community Foundation.
• Perform other duties as assigned, including participation in other activities as assigned by the vice president of Donor Services.

Qualifications:

• A commitment to providing quality service and stewardship to all constituents, and the ability to develop positive working relationships with staff, trustees, donors, contractors, and community stakeholders.

• Minimum of seven to 10 years of experience in gift planning, estate planning, or financial services with nonprofit organizations, including direct experience soliciting and stewarding planned gifts.

• Strong technical knowledge of planned and deferred giving vehicles — including bequests, charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder and lead trusts, and retirement asset gifts — and broader philanthropic planning strategies.
• Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP), Certified Financial Planner (CFP), or similar professional credential in gift or estate planning is a plus.

• Comfortable navigating complex financial, legal, and tax concepts related to estate and charitable gift planning.
• Strong technical proficiency and digital literacy required. Overall comfort with an ever-evolving technology landscape is a must. Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite is a plus, as well as project management systems.

• Experience in utilizing a CRM database for documenting, reporting and managing tasks is required.
• Experience with Salesforce is a plus.
• Strategic and creative thinking.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong people skills, with the ability to collaborate and work as part of a team.
• Outstanding organizational skills, attention to detail, and the ability to manage multiple deadlines and priorities. The ideal candidate is adaptable to changing priorities and able to drive progress despite ambiguity. Comfortable managing a diverse portfolio of projects with competing deadlines.
• Passion, strong work ethic, self-motivated drive, and love of connecting resources to needs and opportunities.
• Desire to build a rapport with co-workers and a commitment to building deep knowledge of the Community Foundation, its constituents, lines of business, and stakeholders.
• A commitment to the Community Foundation’s mission and values and a desire to be an integral part of the organization to ensure our permanence in the region we serve.
• The ability to work a flexible schedule with some nights and weekend travel is required. An emphasis of the role is to have a mix of in-office and in-person work around the region.

Core & Leadership Competencies

• Customer Focus: Prioritizes understanding and addressing the needs and expectations of our community and stakeholders. Demonstrates active listening, empathy, and responsiveness, with a consistent commitment to delivering exceptional service.
• Plans and Aligns: Invests time in planning, discovery, and reflection. Engages in active mindfulness to identify and adjust mental shortcuts and assumptions. Seeks out diverse perspectives and experiences to test thinking, proactively anticipates reactions and multiple outcomes, and plans for potential issues and industry trends.
• Collaborative: Works effectively with others — within the team and cross-functionally — to achieve individual, departmental, and organizational goals. Values diverse input, shared accountability, and partnership as essential to producing strong outcomes.
• Decision Making & Problem Solving: Simplifies complex challenges using critical thinking and sound judgment. Gathers and evaluates relevant information, incorporates multiple perspectives, identifies root causes, and determines practical, effective solutions. Applies an audience-centric approach by considering the needs of stakeholders when making decisions and implementing solutions.

Leadership Competencies:   

• Interpersonal Savvy: Relates well to all kinds of people up, down, across, inside and outside the organization; builds appropriate rapport with peers and leaders; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably.     
• Leadership Professionalism: Exercises good judgment of what should be said to whom, where, and how. Maintains confidentiality. Stamps out rumor mills. Contributes to constructive solutions. Encourages peers and staff to deal with challenges and opportunities head-on. Models the behavior we expect. Expresses views in the right rooms with the right people; avoids undermining decisions of others with words, actions, or body language.
• Managerial Courage: Provides current, direct, complete and actionable feedback to others. Adroitly diagnoses people, process, practice and policy issues, and exercises good judgement in owning and addressing each in the right place and time.
• Building Effective Teams: Blends people into teams where needed, irrespective of reporting lines; creates strong morale and spirit within and across teams; shares wins and successes; creates a feeling of belonging; presses in to understand the 'why' of decisions, then helps craft and own go-forward plans.

Benefits & Salary:

The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan offers a robust total compensation package. The targeted salary for those entering this role is $80,000-$120,000. In addition to a competitive base salary, benefits include but aren’t limited to 20 days of vacation accrued monthly, 5 personal days, 11 holidays, 9 sick days accrued monthly, paid parental leave, and employer paid short-/long-term disability.

The Community Foundation also offers a pension retirement program after 1 year of service, which contributes 10% of salary.

Application Instructions:

This position is being recruited on an expedited timeline. Internal applicants will be reviewed before external applicants and the deadline for all applicants is Friday, Sept. 11. Applications received before that deadline will take priority in our review process.

To apply, visit www.cfsem.org/careers and look for "Current Opportunities." Please submit your application, including your cover letter through the online portal.

To provide equal employment opportunities to all individuals, employment decisions will be based on merit, qualifications and abilities without regard to race, religion, creed, color, national origin, age, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, height, weight, political or union affiliation, disability or any factor prohibited by law.