Manager, Donor Development

Vocare Union; Cambridge; Hybrid; CAD 75,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

Paid vacation

Sick leave

Flex time

Job summary

Hope Story is seeking a fundraising leader to build donor relationships across Canada, lead strategy, and grow recurring giving. You will manage a portfolio, expand the donor base, and guide a team with the Executive Director on major gifts.

The role requires public speaking in church settings, travel across Canada, and a willingness to engage with diverse church networks. Based in southwestern Ontario with weekly Cambridge office presence.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated success asking for and securing charitable gifts from individuals, with specific relationships you started and grew.
• Experience building a donor pipeline from a standing start, as well as managing an established one.
• A confident public communicator, particularly in church and faith-based settings.
• Experience guiding staff or volunteers toward fundraising goals.
• Comfortable using donor data to decide who to contact and why.
• Strong written and verbal communication with reliable follow-through.

Responsibilities

• Grow the donor base by identifying, meeting, and cultivating individuals new to Hope Story.
• Lead the recurr­ing giving program, expanding the monthly giving community.
• Represent Hope Story publicly at churches and events, delivering mission updates and appeals.
• Set fundraising strategy and guide the team, collaborating with events, donor care, and marketing.
• Partner with the Executive Director on major gifts and grow the major gifts portfolio over time.

Skills

Fundraising

Donor management

Public speaking

Staff leadership

Donor data analysis

Communication

Tools

Neon

Salesforce

Bloomerang

Raiser's Edge

Job description

For more than 25 years, Hope Story has helped vulnerable children around the world access health, education, and discipleship. We partner with local, in-country churches around the world including Canada (Thunder Bay), Colombia, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania and Lebanon — empowering them as they respond to Jesus' call to serve the poor in their own communities. Our headquarters is in Cambridge, Ontario, and we are supported by donors across Canada.

The role

Hope Story is looking for a fundraising leader. You will build relationships with donors and churches across Canada, invite them to support this work, and lead the strategy and team that sustains it.

Much of our support today comes from a small number of long-standing relationships. Your central task is to widen that base: meeting people who have not yet heard of us, growing our recurring giving community, and re-engaging supporters who have stepped away.

What you will do

• Grow the donor base. Identify, meet, and cultivate individuals who are new to Hope Story. Build and manage a portfolio of relationships and take responsibility for their development over time.
• Lead our recurring giving program. Champions of Hope is our monthly giving community and our main route to a broad, stable base of support. Growing it is a central priority for this role.
• Represent Hope Story publicly. Speak at churches and ministry events, and partner gatherings, delivering mission presentations, impact updates, and appeals. Build relationships with pastors and ministry leaders across a range of church traditions.
• Set fundraising strategy and guide the team. Plan and manage campaigns. Work alongside colleagues in events, donor care, and marketing and communications on the work that touches fundraising.
• Partner with the Executive Director on major gifts. Bring him into relationships as they mature, and take on more of the major gift portfolio over time.

The first year

Hope Story's annual budget is $2.2 million. Recurring gifts make up $460,000 of that, about 21 percent. We have roughly 800 active donors, 400 of them giving monthly, and a database of about 4,000 supporters built up over 25 years.

Growing the recurring base is your first priority. Over your first 12 months we are working toward:

• 20 percent growth in total annualized recurring giving, approximately $90,000
• Around 75 net new recurring donors
• 25 existing donors upgraded into the $750 to $5,000 annual range
• 25 lapsed donors reactivated

We will be straightforward with you about the team, systems, and budget behind these goals.

Who we are looking for

Required

• Demonstrated success asking for and securing charitable gifts from individuals, with specific relationships you started and grew
• Experience building a donor pipeline from a standing start, as well as managing an established one
• A confident public communicator, particularly in church and faith-based settings
• Experience guiding staff or volunteers toward fundraising goals
• Comfortable using donor data to decide who to contact and why
• Strong written and verbal communication with reliable follow-through

Preferred

• Three to five years in fundraising, development, or a comparable relationship-driven role
• Existing relationships within Canadian church networks
• Experience with a donor CRM such as Neon, Salesforce, Bloomerang, or Raiser's Edge

We welcome candidates with direct fundraising experience, as well as those whose preparation comes through pastoral ministry, sales, or other relationship-driven vocations. If your track record of securing gifts comes from leading a capital campaign, raising missions support, or building major giving in a ministry context, we want to hear from you.

Faith

Hope Story is a Christian ministry, and this role represents it publicly.

We are looking for someone with a personal, active faith who can speak about it with warmth and confidence, whether in front of a congregation or across a table. We affirm the Apostles' Creed. We are not looking for a particular denomination or theological vocabulary.

We are also looking for fluency across a range of church traditions. Our support comes from many kinds of churches, and you should be able to meet a Baptist elder, a Pentecostal pastor, and an Anglican rector in the same week and speak in a way each of them recognises.

Location and travel

This role is based in southwestern Ontario. We expect one day a week in our Cambridge office to work with the team, and roughly two days a week on the road meeting donors and church partners.

Proximity to our donor base matters more to us than time at headquarters. Candidates based in the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo region , or within a reasonable commuting distance of Cambridge, are well positioned for this role.

We will consider an outstanding candidate based elsewhere in Canada, particularly where you bring a strong existing church network. That arrangement would require regular travel to Cambridge and to our existing donor base, and confidence that you can guide a team at a distance. If that describes you, tell us in your application how you would make it work.

Compensation and benefits

• Type: Full-time, permanent, 40 hours per week
• Reports to: Executive Director
• Benefits: Group health benefits including dental, prescription drugs, vision care, and services such as physiotherapy and massage therapy, effective on completion of a three-month probationary period
• Time off: Up to three weeks paid vacation in the calendar year, pro-rated, plus sick leave, an urgent care day, and flex time
• Start date: Fall 2026.
• Closing: Sept 30th, 2026.