Director Development Operations

Title: Director, Development Operations

Exemption Status: Exempt

Department: Development Operations

Reports to: AVP, Campaign and Governance 

Year-Round, Full-time 

Supervises: Eight direct reports: Operations Assistant (3); Operations Associate, Member and Donor Services; Senior Operations Assistant (2); Development Operations Senior Coordinator; Development Operations Database Coordinator

Year-Round Full-time employees of the Chicago Botanic Garden are eligible for the following Benefits:

•  2026 A Guide to Your Benefits JP.pdf 

Compensation Philosophy:

At the Chicago Botanic Garden, our compensation philosophy is rooted in our core values: Growth, Understanding, Resilience, and Trust through Transparency. We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels respected, valued, and appreciated.

Our objective is to create compensation and growth opportunities for our employees that are highly competitive, internally equitable and transparent. The foundation of our efforts is a straightforward approach that can be easily communicated by managers with defined pay ranges for all positions. When posting job openings, we share the minimum salary up to the budgeted amount.

The starting salary for new staff members is determined by considering the salary range assigned to the position and by reviewing the candidate’s qualifications for the job as compared with job responsibilities. Prior work experience should be considered in determining the salary offer, provided that it is relevant to the job. Additional factors such as secondary language proficiency or advanced degrees that enhance performance may also be considered. A candidate’s salary may exceed the minimum amount based on factors such as experience, additional skills (e.g., secondary language proficiency), or pertinent degrees that enhance the individual’s contribution to the role but are not required. Opportunities for increased compensation are provided through referral bonuses, shift differentials, Thank You Pay, promotions, and periodic pay increases based on the Garden's overall performance and financial budgets.

Our total compensation and benefits package is people centric. We prioritize employee wellness across three pillars: physical, mental, and financial. Our goal is to offer innovative total rewards that support continuous professional growth, personal development, and provide the flexibility needed to balance personal and professional commitments.

Position Overview:

The Chicago Botanic Garden is seeking a service-oriented, solutions-driven, and curious leader to supervise a high-performing operations team and to lead strategic technical projects and initiatives within the Development division. The person in this role will supervise all operational support of fundraising efforts at the Chicago Botanic Garden, including Membership, Annual Fund, Major Gifts, Endowment, and fundraising campaigns. They will be responsible for the ongoing administration and maintenance of the system of record for donor data—currently Raiser’s Edge donor database—and implementation of best practices to ensure that technical infrastructure and processes supporting member and donor services are aligned with business priorities.

The person in this role will also serve as a technical innovation leader, guiding strategic partnerships and collaboration with other program and business areas. They will help drive forward technical advances, modernize operations, grow the technical capacity of the Development division, and level up data-driven decision-making to help fundraising teams meet ambitious goals and to deliver against the Garden’s strategic priorities and imperatives. 

Responsibilities

In this role, you will be responsible for the following:  

Operational Management and Database Administration

• Demonstrate leadership in accordance with the Garden’s mission and vision. 
• Cultivate collaborative and solutions-driven team culture and practices within operations, data, and reporting areas that build trusting partnerships across technical and business functions.
• Manage the Development Operations team including strategic planning and deployment of financial and staffing resources, both paid and volunteer; establish and measure annual plans, goals, and performance metrics; ensure clarity, privacy, integration, and timeliness of data and sensitive information; improve efficiency of reporting and performance metrics; ensure effectiveness of technology supporting the operations. 
• Supervise management of Donor and Membership Operations functions including gift processing, membership processing, acknowledgements, resolution of Member and Donor customer-service issues, and other operational support of membership program and donor cultivation and stewardship.
• Partner with Finance to resolve gift entry issues, deliver timely closing of the month and year, and support the annual financial audit.
• Liaise with IT department, other managers, and key stakeholders to establish data governance and hygiene for RE database usage and data, and supervise database management efforts to ensure current, consistent, and accurate data. 
• Manage credit card merchant processors and PCI compliance requirements. 
• Provide project management support for the annual revenue and expense budgeting process for the Development division and supervise or implement reporting solutions to help teams monitor revenue and expenses on a monthly and quarterly basis.
• Coordinate with IT department for needed support, and to ensure proper maintenance, software updates, and backups are occurring. 

Technical Innovation Leadership

• Collaborate with CDO, AVPs, and program area leaders to cultivate a culture of philanthropy, grow the capacity for data-driven decision-making, and increase the technical literacy of the Development division and other partner teams across the Garden.
• Partner with Garden leaders to deeply understand business needs, clarify priorities, and recommend and implement operational and reporting solutions aligned with best practices for data and systems management, gift administration, and donor relations.
• Partner with Membership, Individual Giving, and E-Commerce teams and functions to support and strengthen the Garden’s member and donor pipeline through reporting solutions, data integrations, and/or implementation of a data warehouse drawing from existing systems of record—Galaxy, Raiser’s Edge, Reporting+, and/or Salesforce—and platforms that may be adopted in the future.
• Independently and/or in collaboration with other teams, supervise the delivery of new operational and reporting solutions to modernize Development operations and meet evolving business needs.
• Contribute meaningfully to technical and cross-functional projects, periodically serving the functions of project manager, business system analyst, and/or subject matter expert to deliver against scope, quality, and schedule standards as defined by Garden leadership.
• Align the Operations team in support of new and evolving organizational strategies and priorities. 
• Supervise the design, implementation, and maintenance of dashboards for gift officers and delivery of statistical, financial, and constituent reports as needed. 
• Assess training needs and approaches for data and technology systems, and partner with fundraising staff to improve and standardize procedures and processes.

Qualifications
 Our ideal candidate will have the following:

• Highly collaborative and solutions-focused approach to partnership with stakeholders across technical, business, and program functional areas. 
• Proficiency in overall nonprofit fundraising and development operations best practices, as well as Raiser’s Edge database or similar CRM usage. 
• More than seven years of progressively responsible experience, including management of multifunctional teams and/or project management of technical and business projects and processes. 
• Experience with financial and constituent relationship-management databases, with a preference for Raiser’s Edge expertise.
• Experience with reporting and visualization tools such as Tableau, Power BI, or dashboards within a platform such as Raiser’s Edge. 
• Expertise in Microsoft Office suite, especially Excel, SharePoint, and Teams.
• Demonstrated ability to effectively organize and coordinate multiple priorities.
• Strong track record of leading projects and initiatives to completion for positive business impact, while navigating through a complex organization. 
• A metrics-driven, curious, and entrepreneurial mindset that informs strategy and work. 
• Excellent interpersonal skills to build strong relationships and adapt to the needs of diverse groups of individuals at all levels of the organization. 
• Commitment to accuracy, confidentiality, and compliance with external regulations and internal guidelines. 
• Ability to provide training, troubleshooting, and technical support to non-technical system users. 

Physical Demands:

Office setting. Frequent sitting, standing, walking, bending, listening, speaking, and keyboarding. Use of office equipment including computers, telephones, copiers, scanners, and fax machines. Some requirements for lifting, pushing, or pulling items less than 30 pounds. 

Why Apply? 
Come work in a setting that is like no other as you support our mission: We cultivate the power of plants to sustain and enrich life. Take the first step toward being one of the employees who make the Garden one of the treasures of the Forest Preserves of Cook County. Apply today. Please note that applicants who do not meet the required qualifications will not be considered.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran, or basis of disability, or any other federal, state, or local protected class.

Disclaimer: The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this classification. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities and qualifications required of personnel so classified.

In accordance with Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, the Chicago Botanic Garden does not discriminate on the basis of sex in its programs or activities, including in employment or admissions. Please call (847) 835-8264 to contact our Title IX Coordinator should you have questions or concerns. Please do not call this number to inquire about job postings or the status of your application, or with solicitations from companies or third-party recruiters.