Development Director

About Quivira

Quivira Coalition is a Santa Fe-based nonprofit that builds resilience on working lands. We foster ecological, economic, and social health through education, innovation, and collaboration. We aim to shift current agricultural and land stewardship practices in ways that produce good food, support meaningful livelihoods in rural places, sustain biodiversity, and remedy the impacts of climate change. We conduct this work through agricultural apprenticeships, land and water restoration, and rancher- and farmer-led knowledge exchange. Knowing that it is critical to the success of our work, Quivira is committed to racial equity and inclusion, and we aspire to build and support a diverse staff, team, and community, including groups that are traditionally underrepresented within conservation and agriculture.

About our hiring process

Our hiring team consists of our executive director, our grants manager, and several other team members who will review applications and participate in interviews for this position. We work as a team, so we hire as a team. Many other folks on staff help with our hiring process, including our communications team who helps us get the word out, and the operations team who helps design and hold our teams accountable to a consistent, transparent, and equitable process.

Who we’re looking for

The development director is a passionate development and fundraising professional versed in conservation and regenerative agriculture, as well as nonprofit communications and data management. The development director enjoys working for and with a remote staff to articulate the value of Quivira’s work in ways that support the organization’s financial wellbeing. The ideal candidate is a strategic thinker, capable of planning and carrying out multiple simultaneous fundraising campaigns; a talented communicator who can synthesize multifaceted and nuanced information into compelling requests for support; and a people-person who builds and stewards crucial donor relationships in meaningful and reciprocal ways.  

The development director should be detail oriented, able to perform under multiple competing deadlines, fluent in CRM management, as well as willing to record and consult on the details that contribute to excellent donor stewardship. They should also be comfortable routinely making four- to six-figure donation requests. Finally, this person deeply understands that as climate change collides with our industrial agriculture and land management systems, solutions are found with the people who are developing practical, innovative, and equitable solutions — for communities, for land and water, for the lives and livelihoods of producers, and for the planet — and sees it as their mission to empower this work.

Quivira’s annual budget is $3.5M dollars. Approximately 60% of our funding is from private donors and family foundations, and 40% comes from government grant funding. A third to half of our funding is committed for 2-4 years. The development director is not solely responsible for fundraising the amount, but is responsible for helping to develop strategies for raising these funds, as well as supporting all team members to contribute to making the organization whole and healthy financially. 

This position will be an exempt, full time position. The development director may be based out of Quivira’s Santa Fe office or remotely, but priority will be given to candidates who live in the geography where we work. The position will require travel time of up to 10 percent per year. This position will also supervise our grants manager, as well as several other teammates from other programs who offer part-time grant writing support.

About the work

Quivira takes a shared approach to communications, fundraising, and program development, has a commitment to financial transparency, and endeavors to communicate in ways that invite diverse perspectives to participate in conversation and problem solving. More specifically, this means everyone on staff participates in fundraising activities, and this position will play a role in helping to guide them, and in many cases, will implement them. 

Fundraising

• Develop, implement, and evaluate fundraising mission, plans, and objectives in alignment with programs, communications, and operations staff
• Co-develop organizational budget and build fundraising plans to deliver needed revenue
• Maintain compliance with external regulations and internal policies as they apply to fundraising activities
• Oversee daily fundraising activities
• Supervise and evaluate fundraising staff according to organizational policies and procedures
• Report regularly to the executive director on progress, evaluation, and program staffing
• Oversee membership program including member benefits, upkeep of Quivira’s donation and membership pages and payment portals
• Build, manage, and use Quivira’s CRM software (HubSpot) for fundraising and communications purposes
• Solicitation of individual and major gifts
• Develop and maintain foundation, corporate, government, and individual funder relationships
• Grant writing and management, including personally overseeing the development of applications and reports for between 40 and 60 foundations with the grants team
• Secure, manage, and deliver benefits for a $150,000 sponsorship program in support of the annual REGENERATE Conference, as well as smaller campaigns for other programmatic workshops and educational materials
• Design and conduct three annual fundraising campaigns — planned giving, summer membership drive, and year-end 
• Supervise grants manager and a part-time grant writing staff member, as well as potentially other staff or contractors as development needs at Quivira grow

Management

• Coordinate team and contractors to achieve strategic fundraising goals
• Make sure the team has the direction, support, and information needed to execute fundraising tasks
• Oversee program evaluation and evolution based on feedback from the team, funders, and external partners
• Develop aligned work plans for the team in partnership with your staff and the executive director
• Contribute to policy updates and implementation to support diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout Quivira’s internal and external working relationships
• Participate in leadership team activities, including policy and procedure development and evaluation

Qualifications/experience:

We recognize and value the many ways to learn, grow, and succeed professionally, and acknowledge that individuals acquire skills, knowledge, and perspectives through diverse educational, professional, personal, and volunteer experiences. We take all relevant experiences into account when reviewing applications and ask that you share with us the unique strengths and experiences that you will bring to Quivira and to your work.

Required Qualifications

• 3-5 years experience with nonprofit fundraising including grant writing, proposal writing, campaign planning and implementation, and donor cultivation, solicitation, and management
• Comfort with making written and verbal asks for funding in the four- to six- figure range
• Strong professional writing and editing skills, ideally employed in the nonprofit sector
• Strong organizational skills and ability to coordinate a diverse and busy group of stakeholders
• Fluency and comfort with technological tools for fundraising and remote work 
• Fluency and comfort with with data management and HubSpot or other CRM software
• Familiarity with conservation, food systems, regenerative agriculture, natural resource management, and Western land management
• Desire to produce collateral, campaigns, and grant materials with a high degree of collaboration with program, communications, and operations staff
• Ability to see the big picture and take actionable steps toward achieving strategic goals in order to realize a long-term vision

Desired Qualifications

• Experience leading nonprofit organizational development and fundraising for an organization with a budget greater than $2M
• Existing relationships or involvement with regional ranching and land management communities
• Flexible schedule to accommodate weekend, evening, and remote work
• Experience with planned giving, endowment development, and major gift negotiation
• Experience with corporate partnerships and/or development of substantive workplace giving 
• Experience with and familiarity with development of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in a nonprofit context
• Multi-lingual in Spanish or Indigenous Native languages

Terms of Employment

Quivira is committed to fostering, cultivating, and preserving a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our organization. We embrace and encourage applicants of all ethnicities, national origins, socio-economic statuses, ages, gender identities or expressions, sexual orientations, family or marital statuses, physical and mental abilities, political affiliations, religions, or veteran statuses.

• Reports to the executive director
• Full time, salaried, exempt
• Salary range for director-level positions: $60,000 – $75,000 annually, depending on experience, paid bi-weekly. Quivira uses a wage scale to determine pay rates and ranges for all positions within the organization. The wage scale is reevaluated and updated as part of our annual budgeting process in the fourth quarter. 
• This position is primarily remote, with a preference for someone who lives in New Mexico or Colorado. All employees currently work from home with access to a Santa Fe office on an as-needed basis.
• Quivira offers a flexible work schedule, recognizing that employees have lives outside of work
• No relocation compensation
• After two months, benefits include health, dental, vision, simple IRA, paid time off, generous holidays, life insurance, short- and long-term disability insurance, and continuing education benefit.

Application Instructions

Please apply online on our website. Please include a current resume (no more than two pages) with the application. The application will be in place of a cover letter; no cover letter is needed. Please have available the name, phone number, and email of three professional references. References will be checked as a part of the hiring process.

Please send questions to the Operations Director, Carrie Armbrecht (carrie@quiviracoalition.org). 

Hiring Timeline

Deadline for applications is open until filled with preference given to those received by September 6. We will invite applicants to interview soon after their applications are received based on meeting position qualifications. Please do not hesitate to submit your application materials early. Ideal start date is September.

Since its establishment in 1997, Quivira has prided itself on its history of working across differences at the radical center, though we have not always accomplished this and continue to strive for improvement. In the last year, we have become increasingly aware of the work that we must do to ensure that individuals and communities of all backgrounds are truly included and welcomed into our work, and the ongoing legacies of racism. Quivira is taking its steps toward becoming an antiracist organization, and reevaluating what diversity, equity and inclusion means for the organization. This is difficult, often messy, ongoing work, and we are committed to working through the challenges to join the movement for racially just regenerative agriculture. We have made mistakes, committed harm, and are committed to growth. We hope new hires and the perspectives they bring will continue to help us navigate this path. We invite candidates to ask questions about where we are in this journey, and to join us in moving the organization and the regenerative agriculture movement towards becoming more just, equitable, and inclusive.