Major Gifts Officer Resume Example

Managing donors and soliciting major gifts is all about the power of persuasion. As a major gifts officer, your job has quite a bit in common with the art of resume writing; a resume is basically a persuasive piece convincing prospective employers to hire you. It can be hard to translate those skills from donation management to resume writing, but we make it simple with our major gifts officer resume sample. This sample provides you with an excellent example of how to apply your talents to develop a persuasive, highly influential resume, while our resume builder is available to further assist you if you’d like a step-by-step walkthrough.

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Martin Haleman

100 Broadway Lane
New Parkland, CA, 91010
Cell: (555) 987-1234
example-email@example.com

Professional Summary

Aggressive Major Gifts Officer with large-scale networking skills enhanced by the ability to develop an effective initial presentation. Proven history of maintaining successful relationships with large donors, establishing teams that sought out new donors and developing successful donor appreciation events. Dedicated to making donors feel satisfied and proud of their large donations.

Core Qualifications

• Corporate Networking
• Resource Utilization And Allocation
• Events Coordination
• Client Communications Coordination
• Budget Planning
• Long-Term Business Planning

Experience

Major Gifts Officer, August 2008 – May 2015
Wesley University – New Cityland, CA

• Established a dynamic network of alumni that offered considerable donations to the school.
• Worked with school administration to help fund various projects.
• Created an annual donor appreciation event that was extremely successful.

Major Gifts Officer, June 1994 – July 2003
Brampton Cooperative – New Cityland, CA

• Developed a series of rewards for large-scale gifts.
• Established a quarterly newsletter for large donors only.
• Created a quarterly appreciation event that often led to large donor referrals.

Education

1994 Master’s Degree, Business
Near Port University – New Cityland, CA

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Why Is This a Good Major Gifts Officer Resume Sample?

After creating funding applications, proposals, and presentations, writing a resume should be easy. Yet many jobseekers find themselves paralyzed by the idea of contextualizing their experience in a meaningful way and presenting it in a manner that delivers impact. Our major gifts officer resume sample offers insight into how to break down the writing process into components, with each crafted to be strong enough to stand alone. Together, they make a cohesive document that causes your resume to shine among other candidates whose qualifications blend together.

The first thing you need to do this is the kind of snappy opening summary we’ve presented. In only three sentences, this opening summary paints the jobseeker as a go-getter able to take proactive action to build donor relationships, secure large donations, and develop an extensive corporate network. The candidate presents these vital skills in a way that opens a conversation with the reader.

The next section on the major gifts officer resume sample, the core qualifications, gives an at-a-glance look at the critical competencies essential to fulfilling a gifts officer role. These competencies include corporate networking, resource utilization, events coordination, client communications, and business planning. While these are a sample of essential skills, you should review target jobs to extract others and match them to your capabilities.

In the work history section, you’ll find brief but powerful job summaries that describe a combination of job duties and accomplishments. This is an effective way to show the positive impact you’ve had on prior employers, and showcase your ability to apply your knowledge in a real-world context. Although the example in the major gifts officer resume sample only lists three bullets, you can include as many as five or six.

For the education section, the sample closes the resume out with a brief listing of any applicable degrees or certifications. Cut excess information, and include only relevant dates and universities or institutions.

Why You Need a Strong Major Gifts Officer Resume

Corporations and non-profit organizations place a great deal of trust in their major gifts officers. The role requires accountability, integrity, strategic leadership, customer-facing skills, strong networking capabilities, and absolute attention to detail combined with a level of uncompromising ethics that makes screening candidates a highly selective process. You need an impeccable resume to ensure you pass that process and move on to the next stage of interviews.

Conveying all of these skills in a single document can be difficult, but our major gifts officer resume sample provides multiple examples of how to approach integrating these capabilities by showing, rather than telling. Being able to demonstrate your skills in action by showing how you applied them throughout your history can make the difference in whether or not you make the candidate shortlist.

Costly Major Gifts Officer Resume Mistakes to Avoid

For major gifts officer resumes, one of the most important factors to consider is discretion. Donor names and amounts can be a sensitive subject, and unless you’re given explicit permission by the organization, it may be a good idea to avoid listing specific amounts assigned to donor names. This information may often be confidential or at the very least privileged; a hiring company wants to know you’ll protect their donors’ privacy as well as you protected donors at prior organizations. You can substitute amounts by saying “7-figure” or “8-figure,” as it allows you to include some kind of eye-catching metric even if it’s not a precise amount.

Avoid overly cluttered formats, as well. The format in our major gifts officer resume sample will give you a good example of how to structure a neat resume that makes effective use of the space. Make sure you showcase the skills employers want to see: events coordination, communication, budget planning, and successful networking.

Conclusion

Ready to build your own resume? Have another look at the major gifts officer resume sample for inspiration, and then give it a go. These best practices and your expert knowledge are the ideal tools to prepare you for crafting a highly effective resume that draws attention and wins the interest of readers.