Chief Relationship Officer
On-siteDallas, Texas, United States
Job Summary
Lead an organization-wide strategy to grow community giving, expand the donor and prospect pipeline, and deepen fund holder engagement. Build consistent practices for understanding donor goals, family dynamics, and long-term charitable intent, while strengthening relationships with attorneys, financial advisors, and other trusted professionals. Manage high-net-worth cultivation, including prospect identification and tailored engagement plans, alongside ensuring responsive, high-quality service to donors and fund holders. Partner with the Center for Business Impact to cultivate companies and develop corporate philanthropy solutions, leveraging North Texas Giving Day as a relationship-building platform. Strengthen Salesforce use to track pipeline activity and guide leadership decisions, while leading the Relationships department to foster a culture of service, trust, and continuous improvement. Represent CFT credibly with donors, advisors, businesses, and community partners to align external insights with enterprise-wide strategy.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree
- At least ten years of progressively responsible experience in relationship management, donor engagement, business development, fund development, professional services, philanthropy, or a comparable goal-oriented environment
- Demonstrated success building and managing prospect pipelines, cultivating complex relationships, and converting relationships into significant gifts, business opportunities, organizational growth, or community impact
- Strong understanding of charitable giving vehicles, donor-advised funds, planned giving, complex gifts, philanthropic motivations, and the needs of high-net-worth individuals, families, businesses, and professional advisors
- Proven ability to lead high-performing teams, set clear expectations, build accountability, develop talent, and foster cross-functional collaboration
- Executive presence, sound judgment, and exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to represent CFT credibly with varied internal and external audiences
- High degree of integrity, discretion, emotional intelligence, and judgment in handling confidential information, sensitive donor matters, complex relationships, and strategic priorities
- Comfort using data, Salesforce or other relationship management systems, and reporting tools to track pipeline activity, measure progress, guide decisions, and support accountability
- Willingness and ability to travel moderately and attend occasional evening or community events as needed
Desired Qualifications
- graduate degree in business, nonprofit management, philanthropy, public administration, law, finance, or a related field
- Experience with community foundations, public charities, family offices, financial institutions, professional advisory firms, or other mission-driven organizations
- Familiarity with compliance, governance, grantmaking, and operational considerations relevant to community foundations or nonprofit organizations
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