Hiring Organization Information
Position Information
Jefferson County is a vibrant and creative rural community at a crossroads. The historic fabric of our culture has been woven by local tribes, farmers, artists, loggers, mill workers, environmentalists, and ship builders. Our future is increasingly influenced by a growing number of generous retirees and tech workers serving remote employers on the one hand, and rising housing costs, increasing income inequality, and a lack of childcare for our working families on the other hand. If we are to effectively build a thriving future for an increasingly diverse population of residents, it is imperative to engage and educate the 32,000 people who live here and inspire them to action. This is the mission of Jefferson Community Foundation: to connect diverse people, ideas, and resources to build a future of opportunity for all in our county.
What We Do at JCF
At JCF, our goal is to build the capacity of community members to engage and participate in solutions to the challenges they care most about. Every day, the JCF team is actively building relationships to grow an informed, effective network of givers making a real and measurable impact on local social issues such as more affordable homes, childcare centers, opportunities for youth, and support for working families.
Through our ongoing partnerships and deep community engagement, we’ve developed a comprehensive understanding of our local nonprofit landscape. This includes existing service gaps and emerging initiatives driving change. JCF facilitates knowledge-sharing among nonprofits to enhance collective impact, while also providing donors with insights to guide their charitable decisions for maximum effectiveness. Our role is to connect, inform, and amplify the vital work being done throughout our community.
JCF is the only organization in Jefferson County that works on an integrated systems level, bringing together seemingly disparate neighborhoods across a range of issues to build the future of Jefferson County.
Our motto at Jefferson Community Foundation is GIVE, BUILD, SOLVE.
GIVE: We help people better understand the landscape of challenges and opportunities we face as a community, so they can better target their gifts of time, talent, and funds.
BUILD: We are long-term partners to local nonprofits, helping them develop the resources and relationships they need to grow stronger and more collaborative.
SOLVE: We weave people together to make real change on big regional issues like housing and childcare.
We are not a traditional community foundation. We are setting a new standard for how community foundations take action and collaborate with the communities they serve.
For more information about Jefferson Community Foundation, visit our website.
Our Plans for Growth
JCF is proud of the significant success we have had in engaging local donors, raising awareness of community needs, and igniting positive change in Jefferson County. We know our model works! But if JCF is to scale to address our community’s increasingly complex and interconnected challenges in ways that are truly systems-changing, we must expand our team’s size and capacity. We need to inspire, engage, and support a growing number of donors and fundholders into more engagement and giving so we can have an even greater impact.
Our organization is currently led by an experienced CEO and a staff of five (including an unfilled part-time development manager role) and is supported by eight board members. The foundation’s annual operating budget (not including more than $1 million in annual grantmaking) has doubled since 2020 and sits at just over $600,000 for this fiscal year. To increase the number of donors we can cultivate and the services we can provide to them, we need to significantly grow our operating budget and augment our staff. Based on community feedback, rising interest and inquiries, and the foundation’s increasing visibility, we know this growth is feasible. To address community needs and realize the foundation’s ambitions, JCF has developed an intentional plan to build on our momentum and grow aggressively in the coming years.
With greater trust and more resources, JCF will have the opportunity to welcome and support more people in our changemaking network and achieve more with the assets they bring. We will weave a network of action that results in new childcare slots, new workforce development opportunities for young people, and new units of affordable housing. We will have the capacity to grow new services like impact investing and programs such as a healthy democracy network. JCF’s ideas for new approaches and potential for impact are only limited by the small size of our team.
Commitment to Equity
Jefferson Community Foundation celebrates, supports, and thrives on diversity; bringing our diverse community together is foundational to the work we do. We strive to be an inclusive workplace and to intentionally build a more diverse staff to better reflect our community.
JCF stands with Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ communities. We know that deep racial inequities exist in every area that we fund. We are committed to our own learning and to supporting community partners that work tirelessly to dismantle systemic racism. JCF is an affirmative action employer.
Working in Jefferson County and at JCF
Located 2 hours from the Seattle metro area, Jefferson County (pop. 33,000+) is located on Washington’s beautiful Olympic Peninsula and consists of rural areas and many towns, the largest of which is Port Townsend. At just over 10,000 people, Port Townsend is an economically and politically diverse city known for its artistic soul, world-class culinary venues, Victorian architecture, and maritime legacy. The area is steeped in fascinating history, including its Native American roots and its two National Historic Landmark Districts. From its beaches to the Olympic National Park, the county is also known for its natural beauty and opportunities for outdoor adventure.
The Jefferson Community Foundation offices are located in Port Townsend. The staff and board of directors are a high-performing and close-knit team deeply invested in the local community. The Development Director should expect to spend weekdays in the office or out in the community meeting with people. Since continual engagement with the local community and time in the office will be crucial, the Development Director will ideally be based in Jefferson County but may live in adjacent communities and commute to the Port Townsend office.
JCF has a friendly and professional work culture, where people collaborate in an enjoyable, supportive, and candid environment. We are a values-based organization and each of us aspires to reflect our shared organizational values by being kind, generous, collaborative, trustworthy, and creative, and actively encouraging diversity. Work-life balance is a priority, and employees are expected and encouraged to work only the time they are paid for. The team is led by a well-regarded dynamic CEO who is herself a resident of the county and an enthusiastic fundraiser.
The Opportunity: Our First Development Director
Hiring JCF’s first Development Director is a key pillar in our larger vision for growth: our goal is to increase the foundation’s operating funds so that we can welcome and support more people into our changemaking network and significantly scale our impact to address pressing gaps in our community. This position offers an exciting opportunity for an experienced professional to be the architect and leader of resource development efforts in an innovative community foundation. You will work with an energetic, dedicated, and close-knit team of staff, volunteers, and board members who are harnessing the collective power of our community.
Essential Duties
The Development Director will drive and elevate JCF's resource development strategies by improving the systems that are the backbone of our development efforts, and by forging relationships to grow engagement with our donor base. They will work closely with the CEO to continue to evolve JCF into a development-centered organization with a strong culture of philanthropy. Specifically, the Development Director will spend their time on these key responsibilities:
- Strategy and Leadership: Lead fundraising strategy and implementation to increase operating funds to more than $1 million annually
- Team Collaboration: Engage the CEO, staff, board, and resource development committee in key fundraising efforts, especially in cultivating and soliciting individual donors
- Annual Fund: Develop and sustain a robust annual fund, including honing our major gifts strategies
- Communications: Optimize and streamline development messaging, reporting, and forecasting
- Pipeline Development: Build and strengthen an individual giving prospect pipeline with wealth screening data and strategic fundraising roadmap
- External Relations: Build relationships with local, regional, and national foundations
- Manage Development Team: Hire, supervise, and collaborate with a Development Manager to build a thriving development team
- Internal Systems: Oversee the development of internal systems to support fundraising and relationship management efforts, including installment of a new fundraising database for JCF operations
- Performance Tracking: Provide clear performance goals, reporting, and forecasting to the JCF leadership team and board
The Ideal Candidate
The successful candidate will be excited and motivated by the opportunity to work with a deeply committed donor community to lead growth efforts that build upon our significant fundraising success. They will be passionate about the organization’s work to foster and sustain a community network of changemakers who believe in a future of opportunity for all in Jefferson County. They will be both a strategic, big-picture thinker and a detailed implementer, capable of creating and executing a comprehensive development plan and high-performing fundraising strategies. They will bring exceptional interpersonal and relationship-building skills to quickly build trust and rapport with donors, partners, and community leaders.
As a critical member of a small and collaborative staff team, our Development Director will need versatility and enthusiasm for employing a wide range of skills so they can transition seamlessly between diverse roles: both people-focused and data-focused, both "behind the scenes" and out in front in the community.
Beyond this essential experience, we seek candidates who possess many of the following skills and characteristics, and who are able to identify where they will need to learn and grow. Our Development Director will:
- Bring solid hands-on fundraising experience, with a proven track record of relationship management and successfully soliciting individual gifts.
- Have experience with developing major gifts, grants, and planned giving programs, with the aptitude to bring strategy and structure to these efforts.
- Demonstrate the ability to craft and communicate an inspiring case for support to individual donors and grant funders.
- Show experience or aptitude for building and leading a development team to effectively support fundraising goals and priorities.
- Possess solid analytical skills to oversee an effective donor database and to leverage donor data for strategy development and monitoring progress toward goals.
- Bring familiarity with - or strong aptitude to learn about - the community foundation model and investment strategies, as well as the unique challenges and opportunities of raising funds to drive larger systemic social change.
- Demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion through continuous learning, modeling inclusive behaviors, and proactively engaging in fruitful conversations with colleagues and community members.
We believe our Development Director will be successful on our team if they are a strong communicator with a learning disposition, and if they can find the balance between formal and casual contexts, independent and collaborative work, and methodical and flexible approaches to strategy.
Lived experience in Jefferson County is a plus but not a requirement; candidates new to the community should expect to prioritize listening deeply and learning about our community in their first year.