WHAT DOES A MAJOR GIFTS OFFICER DO?
Reviewed by Lam Nguyen under Editorial Standards
Published: Mar 03, 2026. The Major Gifts Officer prepares and submits compelling, data-driven grant proposals and reports while managing an active portfolio of funders and prospects. This role involves researching funding opportunities, coordinating closely with Finance, Development, and Program teams, and ensuring accurate tracking and compliance with all reporting requirements. The officer also supports strategic organizational initiatives and partners with senior philanthropy leadership to strengthen funding outcomes and long-term revenue sustainability.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Major Gifts Officer
1. Major Gifts Officer Responsibilities
- Strategic Planning: Create and implement strategies for identifying prospects, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding major gift potential.
- Donor Portfolio Management: Manage a portfolio of donors, emphasizing 5-figure or greater donors to raise non-event revenue.
- Prospect Research: Work with the Individual Giving team to research donors, manage portfolios, and contribute to prospect review sessions.
- Donor Cultivation: Cultivate and engage new donors to grow the major donor portfolio.
- Donor Engagement: Maximize direct donor interaction and maintain a customized donor engagement schedule.
- Event Coordination: Facilitate the Events and Individual Giving teams with the planning of cultivation and stewardship events.
- Gift Administration: Work with the Senior Manager of Development Operations to ensure accurate tracking of gifts, proper gift acknowledgment, record-keeping, and reporting.
- Team Collaboration: Collaborate with multiple teams to meet and exceed annual fundraising goals.
- Proposal Development: Develop customized support documents, proposals, acknowledgments, and solicitation materials.
- Revenue Tracking: Oversee major donor and campaign revenue and expense tracking.
- Event Representation: Attend evening events as an ambassador for the organization.
2. Major Gifts Officer Accountabilities
- Major Gift Cultivation: Identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward individual major gift prospects to engage philanthropically in an assigned geographic territory.
- Portfolio Development: Develop and maintain a portfolio of major gift prospects to personally cultivate, solicit, and steward.
- Database Documentation: Document all activities and interactions in the alumni/donor database.
- Campus Collaboration: Develop and maintain close collaborative partnerships with campus and unit colleagues.
- Program Knowledge: Maintain strong baseline knowledge of campus, college, and unit programs and fundraising priorities, and devise and execute sound prospect strategies.
- Prospect Referral: Refer other prospects to college or department advancement colleagues on a case-by-case basis when warranted by synergistic relationships and focused interests.
- Regional Event Support: Identify, support, and participate in special regional events and programs.
- Leadership Preparation: Prepare university leadership, faculty, and volunteers to participate in the cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of major gifts.
3. Major Gifts Officer Additional Details
- Portfolio Management: Manage a portfolio of individual prospects and donors using moves management strategies and evidence-based philanthropic best practices.
- Prospect Identification: Identify new prospects through research and data mining.
- Major Gift Fundraising: Contact, cultivate, solicit, and steward major gift prospects to meet specific revenue and activity goals.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Work with key stakeholders to cultivate prospects and build solicitation and cultivation strategies.
- Fundraising Planning: Establish specific individual fundraising plans, including developing and executing a full range of donor cultivation activities.
- Donor Communication: Respond to current and prospective donor inquiries.
- Relationship Stewardship: Maintain relationships with existing donors through regular contact to sustain ongoing engagement.
- Written Communication: Write correspondence, reports, and proposals.
- Database Management: Enter data into the donor database and ensure accurate electronic and hard-copy files of major gift donors and prospects.
- Event Participation: Participate in donor recognition events.
- Strategy Meetings: Participate in monthly moves management strategy meetings.
4. Major Gifts Officer Roles and Details
- Leadership Collaboration: Collaborate with the Vice President of Development and the Senior Director of Development.
- Fundraising Strategy: Establish long-term fundraising plans, set objectives, and track progress toward achieving goals.
- Cultivation Strategy: Develop and execute a comprehensive cultivation and solicitation strategy.
- Major Gift Solicitation: Directly solicit major and planned gifts from high-net-worth individuals and foundation staff through in-person or virtual solicitation meetings.
- Relationship Management: Manage relationships, including regular meetings, with a portfolio of major individual and foundation donors and prospects to update them on work and engage them with the community.
- Proposal Development: Work with the development team’s senior writer to craft proposals for foundations and individuals.
- CRM Management: Track portfolio activity, communication, and progress in Salesforce.
- Cross-Team Collaboration: Collaborate with the Events, Communications, and Marketing teams.
- Event Representation: Represent the Roundtable at conferences and events.
5. Major Gifts Officer Responsibilities and Key Tasks
- Portfolio Management: Manage and cultivate an active portfolio of prospective and existing donors.
- Foundation Relations: Cultivate and steward strategic relationships with foundations.
- Stewardship Strategy: Execute individual stewardship strategies to engage, cultivate, solicit, upgrade, acknowledge, and retain major donors.
- Donor Research: Utilize donor research tools effectively and support research for new donor prospects.
- Donor Reengagement: Re-engage and renew lapsed donors.
- Database Management: Maintain accurate and thorough moves-management records in the database.
- Reporting: Provide regular updates and reports.
- Executive Collaboration: Work collaboratively with the Parents Defending Education executive team and American Philanthropic to achieve clearly articulated goals, both individually and as a team.
6. Major Gifts Officer Roles and Responsibilities
- Major Gift Strategy: Develop programs and strategies to identify, cultivate, solicit, and steward donors and prospects, with an emphasis on gifts of $50,000 and higher.
- Portfolio Management: Manage a portfolio by establishing long-term partnerships and strengthening existing relationships that will result in funding for the immediate and long-term goals of the Foundation.
- Planned Giving Integration: Manage and expand the current giving strategy by including planned gifts in conversations with donors.
- Cultivation Strategy: Recommend and implement cultivation and solicitation strategies for individual prospects, working with the Foundation team and volunteers.
- Prospect Engagement: Meet regularly with prospects and volunteers, including some evening and weekend work.
- Donor Documentation: Consistently document and carefully coordinate donor engagement activities and movement in the donor continuum.
- Stewardship Planning: Develop and maintain a personal stewardship strategy for individual donors.
- Corporate Fundraising: Cultivate and present proposals to corporate and foundation prospects.
- Prospect Research: Research and provide information on prospects to qualify interest and give potential.
- Strategic Facilitation: Work strategically to facilitate relationships between leadership, campaign prospects, and volunteers.
- Initiative Management: Manage and support specific Foundation-based initiatives and provide regular updates.
7. Major Gifts Officer Duties
- Portfolio Management: Responsible for successfully managing a portfolio of 150 individuals, corporations, and foundation donors and prospects.
- Major Gift Fundraising: Secure major gifts of $10,000 or more.
- Prospect Development: Cultivate new prospects through the creation of effective donor management strategies.
- Donor Lifecycle Management: Effectively move a portfolio of prospects through the complete giving cycle of validation, engagement, cultivation, solicitation, gift negotiation, and stewardship.
- CRM Utilization: Utilize a CRM system to track and cultivate donors and prospects.
- Donor Stewardship: Manage ongoing relationships and stewardship of major donors, including the proper execution of pledge programs and reporting and tracking progress toward the donor’s intent.
- Cross-Functional Integration: Integrate with physicians and researchers at BNI to understand critical funding needs and translate those needs into compelling narratives that attract appropriate funding.
- Grant Writing: Lead the creation of proposals and grants for prospect meetings and solicitations.
- Time Management: Prioritize tasks, handle multiple assignments, and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment while maintaining strict attention to detail.
8. Major Gifts Officer Details
- Major Gift Cultivation: Identify, cultivate, solicit, and steward a major gift prospect pool of current and new donors from throughout the United States for major gifts.
- Portfolio Management: Build and manage a portfolio of 100–150 prospects with the capacity to make major gifts.
- Solicitation Strategy: Plan and execute solicitation strategies leading to major gifts.
- Donor Engagement: Contact donors to pursue these strategies and build enduring relationships, completing 125–150 virtual and in-person visits per year.
- Proposal Development: Prepare proposals, solicitation letters, gift agreements, and other development materials for prospects and donors that articulate clients' needs, values, and goals.
- Planned Giving Communication: Communicate with major prospects and donors about specific ways to give, both current and deferred, to maximize gift and tax benefits.
- Partnership Development: Build a strong network of collegial partnerships with development and departmental representatives in the organization.
- Performance Tracking: Track and assess major gift fundraising metrics.
- Committee Collaboration: Work collaboratively with members of the Major Gifts Committee to develop cultivation and solicitation strategies.
9. Major Gifts Officer Roles
- Grant Writing: Write and submit grant proposals and reports on a timely basis, and maintain an ongoing portfolio of current funders and prospects.
- Cross-Department Collaboration: Work proactively with other Lighthouse departments to gather materials needed for grant applications and reports.
- Proposal Management: Manage proposals, ensuring that all aspects of an application are complete and compelling.
- Record Management: Maintain clear and accurate written and electronic records of grant proposals and reports, including grant activity tracking on shared drives and databases, in collaboration with Development team members.
- Opportunity Assessment: Assess funding opportunities and determine which programs are the best fit to respond to the opportunity.
- Stakeholder Coordination: Collaborate with stakeholders across the organization (Finance, Development, and Program teams) to ensure financial and reporting requirements are met.
- Grant Research: Research grant opportunities to meet current program needs.
- Executive Collaboration: Collaborate effectively with the Senior Director of Philanthropy on grant proposals and projects.
- Editing Support: Edit, proofread, and provide general grant writing support.
- Project Management: Manage special projects in support of organizational objectives.
- Administrative Collaboration: Collaborate with administrative leads across the organization.
10. Major Gifts Officer Responsibilities
- Values Alignment: Demonstrate through behavior the hospital's core values of integrity, care, balance, excellence, stewardship, and teamwork (see the institution's Performance Excellence Program information).
- Philanthropic Representation: Represent the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation in building relationships with individuals that generate significant philanthropic support for strategic initiatives to advance the Hospital's mission.
- Gift Processing: Ensure the prompt acceptance, deposit, acknowledgment, and recognition of gifts.
- Additional Duties: Assume additional responsibilities as assigned by the reporting manager as they arise.
- Database Compliance: Log all relationship information in the Raiser’s Edge database in compliance with the Hospital's HIPAA policies.
- Collaborative Service: Operate collaboratively and openly, with close attention to detail, to provide excellent service to prospects, donors, medical and nursing staff, research faculty, and Foundation and Hospital leadership.
- Faculty Relations: Develop strong working relationships of trust and confidence with clinical and research faculty.
- Strategic Planning: Develop tailored prospect- and donor-specific strategies and tactics to advance philanthropic relationships and giving potential.
Job Role FAQs
What is a job role?
A job role refers to the duties, responsibilities, and expectations associated with a specific position within an organization. It explains what tasks an employee performs, how they contribute to team objectives, and how their work supports the company’s overall goals.
What are the typical responsibilities of a job role?
Typical job role responsibilities include completing daily tasks, collaborating with team members, making decisions, and meeting performance targets. For example, a software developer may write code, fix bugs, review pull requests, and collaborate with product teams.
What is the difference between a job role and a job title?
A job title is the official name of a position, such as Marketing Manager or Software Engineer. A job role describes the actual duties, responsibilities, and expectations associated with that position.
Why are clearly defined job roles important?
Clearly defined job roles help organizations improve productivity, reduce workplace confusion, and ensure accountability. When employees understand their responsibilities and expectations, teams can collaborate more effectively.
How do job roles support career development?
Understanding different job roles helps professionals identify career paths and the skills required for advancement. By learning the expectations of various roles, individuals can build relevant skills and plan long-term career growth.
Editorial Process
Lamwork content is developed through structured review of publicly available job postings and documented hiring trends.
Editorial operations are managed by Thanh Huyen, Managing Editor, with research direction and final oversight by Lam Nguyen, Founder & Editorial Lead. Content is periodically reviewed to reflect observable labor market changes.