Director of Fundraising Events

Job title: Director of Fundraising Events

About the Role The American Cancer Society seeks a fundraising events leader responsible for a $750k+ annual portfolio, including at least one $500k+ event, serving as a pipeline for major donor identification and cultivation. You will oversee all aspects of event fundraising, including relationship management, sponsorship acquisition, volunteer leadership recruitment, pipeline development, donor cultivation, stewardship, and participant engagement. You will partner across the organization to align strategy with goals and drive ambitious financial growth.

What You'll Do

• Build, sustain, and elevate high-impact relationships with key donors, sponsors, volunteers, and community partners to ensure revenue goal achievement and long-term engagement.
• Recruit, engage, and mobilize executives and leadership volunteers to support revenue plans, with a focus on event chairs, ambassadors, and event leadership teams.
• Partner with Corporate & Philanthropy teams to create tailored donor experiences to attract and retain high-value supporters and align event partners with broader cultivation efforts to grow revenue beyond events.
• Ensure a best-in-class event experience through oversight of complex planning, logistics, brand positioning, budgets, and vendor relationships.
• Monitor fundraising progress and expenses against budget and benchmarks, proactively adjusting strategies to exceed aggressive financial goals and optimize ROI.
• Convene and coordinate the different contributors to event success - Corporate, Philanthropy, Marketing, coordinator support, Area Lead, event execution, etc.
• Champion community presence and brand elevation, positioning events as premier experiences that deepen public interest and engagement.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's degree required; 4+ years successful experience in fundraising, corporate engagement, volunteer partnership, and relationship development.
• Experience driving revenue through sales excellence – prospecting, identification, cultivation, solicitation, evaluation, stewardship – with a focus on large, multi-year partnerships.
• Ability to lead high-functioning collaborative event teams, including internal and external stakeholders, to execute event deliverables.
• Demonstrated ability to build relationships, persuade and influence, and recruit/train/ motivate executive, C-suite level & high-influence leadership volunteers.
• Strong customer service orientation with extensive experience addressing and resolving issues.
• Proactive data-driven monitoring and adjustment of activities to meet goals; ability to mitigate risks associated with events.
• Strong market, community, and constituent knowledge & experience; able to build networks and remove barriers to achieve outcomes.
• Travel requirements: Limited travel to meetings, training & events. Expectation of being external in the market an average of 3 days per week. Evening and weekend meetings, events and programs may be required.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary range: $75,000 - $80,000 per year.
• Benefits include generous paid time off, medical, dental, retirement benefits, wellness programs, and professional development opportunities. Further details on benefits available at jobs.cancer.org/benefits.