Director, Development Operations

Director, Development Operations

Development

THE ORGANIZATION

The San Francisco Symphony is widely considered to be among the most artistically adventurous and innovative arts institutions in the U.S. Under the artistic direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Orchestra is a leading presence among the American orchestras at home and around the world, celebrated for its artistic excellence, creative performance concepts, active touring, award-winning recording, and standard-setting education programs. Esa-Pekka joined the San Francisco Symphony in 2020 along with a group of eight Collaborative Partners from a variety of cultural realms who collectively form a new artistic leadership model.

The San Francisco Symphony presents more than 220 concerts and presentations annually for an audience of nearly 450,000 in its home of Davies Symphony Hall and through its active national and international touring. A Cornerstone of the organization’s mission, the San Francisco Symphony’s education programs are the most extensive offered by any American orchestra today, providing free comprehensive music education to every first- through fifth-grade student in the San Francisco public schools, and serving more than 75,000 children, students, educators, and families annually.

The SFS has won such recording awards as France’s Grand Prix du Disque and Britain’s Gramophone Award, as well as 15 Grammy Awards.

In 2004, the SFS launched the multimedia Keeping Score on PBS-TV and the web. In 2014, the SFS inaugurated SoundBox, a new experimental performance venue and music series located backstage at Davies Symphony Hall. SFS radio broadcasts, the first in the nation to feature symphonic music when they began in 1926, today carry the Orchestra’s concerts across the country. In 2021, SFS+, a digital streaming platform, was launched to subscribers all over the world.

JOB SUMMARY

The Director, Development Operations (DDO), leads a team of 3, and is a senior position on the San Francisco Symphony’s Development Team. The position reports directly to the Chief Philanthropy Officer (CPO).

In partnership with the CPO, the DDO is responsible for ensuring the Development Department follows best practices and oversees these function areas with regard to revenue and expense forecasting, gift acceptance and processing, database integrity, database practices, advanced data and donor analytics, gift agreements, and gift receipting. This Director will oversee the budgeting and expense processing for the entire Development Team. Additionally, the Director will be a key strategist and thought partner around financial management within the Development department.

The ideal candidate is highly organized, deeply collaborative, is able to balance numerous competing priorities, and is detail-oriented. They must be strategic, optimistic, team-oriented, and must possess a can-do attitude and have excellent attention to detail. In addition, they need to provide the highest level of customer service to both internal and external constituents.

Essential Job Functions:

• Is a lead strategic thought partner for the CPO, the CEO, Board leadership, and Development Team Leadership for team financial management, both expense and revenue budgets and projections. Serves as primary liaison with the Finance, Accounting, and IT teams.
• Oversees and supports the Development Team ongoing operations, processes and other administrative needs supported by the Development Operations and Services Team.
• Ensures all gifts are processed, counted, and acknowledged and follow industry best practices. Supervise the Development Team‘s gift processing, preparation and sending of pledge reminders, and donor receipting functions. 
• Provides oversight with the Development and Finance teams on questions from donors concerning pledge reminders, pledge statements and how donor gifts are applied and processed.
• Oversees all reporting and report needs, as well as data requests, for CEO, CPO, and Development Team in support of the San Francisco Symphony’s achievement of philanthropic strategic imperatives and philanthropic fiscal success and ensure timely delivery.
• In coordination with the San Francisco Symphony’s Tessitura oversight team, oversees data input and record cleanliness for Tessitura for the Development team, including identifying ways improve data hygiene.
• Leads a collaborative data analysis and mining effort that leads to new and increased giving efforts for all fundraising efforts.
• Drives training for Development-related database, software, and technology across the Development Team. Serves as the Development team representative that oversees the implementation of new processes implemented by other parts of the San Francisco Symphony administrative team that impact Development.
• Special projects oversight as assigned.
• Supervises and lead a team of Development professionals and provide mentorship, training, and guide professional development.

Other duties:

• Supports concerts and events as needed.
• Performs additional duties as required by the San Francisco Symphony.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Seven to ten years of management experience in development operations and services, preferably in the cultural sector/performing arts, or equivalent experience.
• Experience managing data and operations professionals is required.
• Possess a passion and appreciation for music.
• Excellent communication skills, written and verbal. Good strategic/critical thinker; ability to organize and prioritize work.
• Strong organizational skills and demonstrated capacity to develop and implement practical strategies, plans, and solutions to identified issues and problems.
• A track record of being able to think conceptually and be able to master complex subject matter quickly. 
• Deeply collaborative and can partner well with people both in and outside of the organization.
• Professional demeanor, detail-oriented.
• Expert-level knowledge of and experience with Tessitura or other fundraising database platform (i.e. Raisers Edge, Millennium) preferred; Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint required.
• Strong accounting and budgetary management experience; experience with financial management and budgetary software (ex. Adaptive).
• Creativity, flexibility, and a sense of humor.
• Ability to work some evenings and weekends throughout concert season.