Director of Leadership Giving

Director of Leadership Giving

Asphalt Green

About Asphalt Green

Asphalt Green is an iconic 50-year-old not-for-profit New York City institution that provides the transformative gifts of sports, fitness, and play to individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities.

Asphalt Green creates pathways to access and to opportunity and cultivates collegiate scholar-athletes, Olympians and nationally and internationally-competitive athletes. It is home to some of New York City's most elite sports programs, in addition to recreational sports, summer camp, and fitness programs. Asphalt Green has taught 100,000 New Yorkers to swim, has provided $40 million in free swim lessons, and provides more than $1.2 million in scholarships annually to youth in its sports and camps and to senior adults in its fitness programs and centers.

Asphalt Green provides $10 million annually in free and subsidized programs. Every day, Asphalt Green serves tens of thousands of New Yorkers at its flagship campuses and at 90 satellite locations. The organization provides youth with free swim lessons and recess-based physical fitness programming in NYC public schools. It runs no-fee community sports leagues across the five boroughs led by top coaches, and has active program partnerships with New York City Public Schools, the New York City Parks Department, the New York City Department for the Aging, and numerous nonprofit agencies.

In 2023 Asphalt Green launched a new strategic plan to expand its impact in service to NYC, and it recently received one of the largest programmatic grants in its history to launch Wave Makers, an innovative partnership between the Gray Foundation, New York City Council Members Julie Menin and Shekar Krishnan, and Asphalt Green's Safe Swim NYC initiative. The Wave Makers pilot program provides free, comprehensive swimming lessons for thousands of second graders across New York City, regardless of their socio-economic background, and it serves as a model to demonstrate the most effective, efficient, outcome-driven pathways to large-scale free swim instruction for children in New York City and in other municipalities.

About the Opportunity

Asphalt Green is in search of an exceptional major gifts fundraiser to join the organization's development program. Reporting to the Chief Development Officer, the Director of Leadership Giving will serve as an ambassador for the Asphalt Green organization, deepening engagement and driving broader awareness, and will secure strategic major gifts from individuals and families in support of Asphalt Green's mission and work. This position is based on Asphalt Green's Upper East Side campus.

The selected candidate will have substantial prior experience in successfully identifying, cultivating, soliciting and stewarding six-figure commitments and above in support of capital, programs, and operating, and has been instrumentally involved in one or more capital campaigns.

This individual will be a key member of the team responsible for growing Asphalt Green's philanthropic donors and revenue significantly over the next several years. A key initiative will be diversifying the organization's funder base.

The selected candidate will have proven success within a high-performing development operation, including achievement of ambitious annual fundraising and activity goals. The incumbent will have experience in moves management and successful major gift prospect qualification, engagement, donor cultivation, solicitation experience and stewardship strategies, and working with colleagues, program leaders, Board members and other volunteer partners to support the efforts of a comprehensive development program.

Key Responsibilities

• As a primary responsibility, the Director of Leadership Giving will build and manage a portfolio of prospective individual donors who are currently giving at modest levels but have the capacity to make philanthropic commitments of $100,000-$500,000+. Primary prospects will include Asphalt Green members and parents of young athletes enrolled in Asphalt Green sports and aquatics programs.
• Will work with the Chief Development Officer and fellow fundraising and principal gifts colleagues to build a strong donor pipeline for Asphalt Green.
• Maintains deep philanthropic relationships with a portfolio of high-net-worth individual and institutional prospects, and will independently identify, qualify, cultivate and solicit donors, and close and steward gifts.
• Conducts research on potential prospects and reviews lists of constituents, and develops individual strategies to engage, cultivate and solicit donor prospects for new gifts.
• Prepares letters of inquiry to prospective funders, and design and execute fundraising proposals around key programs, in close collaboration with organizational peers.
• Researches and writes briefings to prepare for effective meetings with donors and • Manages follow-up correspondence and objectives resulting from donor
• Develops strong and collaborative working relationships with members of the organization to best understand Asphalt Green's mission and programs, and effectively articulate this information to donors and the public.
• Documents all development activity related to donor identification, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship using the Salesforce/CRM system.
• Reports regular progress against goals, including key donor engagement, solicitation and closed gifts metrics, and moves management progress.
• Suggests potential prospects for the Board and volunteer committees.