Major Gifts Engagement Manager

About this role

Greater Good Charities is a 501(c)(3) global nonprofit organization that works to help people, pets, and the planet by mobilizing in response to need and amplifying the good. To date, we have provided over $1B in aid, expertise, and funding in 121 countries in support of this mission.
Position Overview:
Greater Good Charities seeks a strategic Major Gifts Engagement Manager to create targeted, sophisticated, and compelling major donor communications for our highest value supporters, and to conduct prospect research for major funding opportunities (major gifts and grants).
This role will own communication to our non-portfolio major donor cohort, and develop strategies to engage and retain them, with the ultimate goal of qualifying and moving these donors into managed pipelines. This role will also support Major Gifts Officers in creating content. Copywriting is a large part of this position.
The Major Gifts Engagement Manager serves our non-portfolio high value donors by communicating with them in the channels they actually use: a dedicated major donor newsletter, segmented email, and targeted print and digital materials customized to their preferences. The role bridge’s GGC’s mid-level and major donor programs, and the manager will own the moves management plan to carry donors from mid-level through to one-on-one cultivation by a Major Gifts Officer.
This role exists at the intersection of compelling storytelling and strategic intelligence — producing the high-quality, relationship-centered communications that major donor fundraising demands, while equipping gift officers with the prospect research and donor insights they need to cultivate transformational gifts.
This is not a portfolio role. The Major Donor Engagement Manager does not carry assigned donors or conduct solicitation visits. This person designs and runs the system that moves donors upward and equips the Major Gifts team with qualified prospects rather than competing with it. The position will carry a revenue goal and help the Advancement team meet its annual $5M goal.
The right candidate is a strong writer and has a fundraiser's instinct for pipeline: someone who can tell a program story well, read the CRM data to find out whether it landed, and recognize the donor whose behavior says they are ready for a conversation.
Key Responsibilities:
Major Donor Content

Own the major donor newsletter end to end — editorial calendar, sourcing, writing, production, review cycle, and distribution.

Work directly with the Growth team and program staff across causes to source stories, outcomes, and data that meet a major donor's standard of evidence.

Maintain a consistent editorial voice that is succinct, plainspoken, and gap-focused, in line with GGC brand guidelines.

Help curate a reusable content library of impact stories, figures, and imagery for use across major donor channels.

Creating fundraising assets such as one-pagers, PowerPoint presentations, and other materials as required.

Segmented Campaigns & Appeals

Plan and execute segmented email campaigns to defined slices of the non-portfolio major donor lists — by program affinity, giving level, recency, tenure, etc.

Write and produce cohort-specific appeals, including year-end, mid-year, emergency response, and program-restricted campaigns.

Design and run renewal, upgrade, and lapsed-donor sequences, with upgrade strategy explicitly tied to the moves management framework.

Partner with the marketing team to ensure these donors receive suppression, sequencing, and creative treatment appropriate to their level.

Report on cohort performance regularly and own stewardship for non-portfolio donors.

Moves Management & Pipeline Development

Own GGC's moves management strategy to bridge mid-level donors to portfolio donors managed by Major Gifts Officers — the defined sequence of communications and touches that advances a donor from one giving level to the next.

Work with the Advancement team to document the qualification framework: which engagement, giving, and capacity signals indicate readiness for one-on-one cultivation, and what threshold triggers a hand-off.

Maintain the moves management architecture in HubSpot — stages, properties, tasks, and reporting — so pipeline movement is visible rather than anecdotal.

When donors are qualified, provide reporting to Major Gifts Officers, including engagement history, program affinity, and recommended approach.

Track and report pipeline health — hand-off volume, acceptance rate, conversion to assigned portfolios, and time from mid-level entry to qualification.

Prospect Research & Grants Support

Conduct prospect research for major gifts within the GGC CRM based on intent signals and enrichment data from Wealth Engine and Dataro, and within Foundation Center for grants

Support grant writing as needed

Minimum Education/Experience:

Bachelor’s degree in English, communications, journalism, nonprofit management, or a related field; equivalent experience considered.

Minimum of 3–5 years of experience in nonprofit advancement, development communications, or a related role, with a demonstrated portfolio of major donor writing — proposals, impact reports, donor correspondence, or similar materials.

Exceptional writing ability, with a distinctive capacity for translating complex program information and data into emotionally resonant, donor-centered narratives; ability to adapt tone and style to reflect the voice of senior leadership and the organization.

Experience in prospect research, including familiarity with wealth screening tools (WealthEngine, Dataro, iWave, or similar), philanthropic databases, and public records research.

Experience contributing to grant proposals and reports preferred; familiarity with foundation research tools (e.g., Foundation Directory Online, Candid, Instrumentl) a plus.

Strong research and analytical skills; ability to synthesize data from multiple sources into clear, actionable profiles and…