Director of development
About The Policing Project
The Policing Project at NYU School of Law partners with communities, police departments, and government officials to promote public safety through democratic accountability. We work to ensure that policing is equitable, transparent, and aligned with community values. Our projects span cutting-edge research, legislative advocacy, frontline police-community engagement, and tech accountability.
Position Overview
We are seeking a dynamic, highly organized, and exceptionally strategic professional to fill the role of Development Director. Sitting at the intersection of fundraising, financial operations, and executive leadership, the Development Director will drive the growth of our funding base and ensure rigorous financial stewardship of all gifts and grants.
This role is responsible for growing our donor pipeline across both major gifts and institutional channels, translating complex legal and policy work into high-stakes proposals, and managing end-to-end grant lifecycles. Working in close coordination with our financial analyst and the NYU Development team, the Director will act as a critical force multiplier for our Faculty Director (FD) and Executive Director (ED), ensuring they are seamlessly prepared for donor engagements while independently driving our fundraising pipeline, donor CRM operations, and Advisory Board relations. This role will oversee grant tracking, budget reconciliations, and personnel allocations from pitch to closeout.
If you are a masterful oral and written communicator who can translate complex criminal justice policy into compelling funding pitches, love building operational systems, and excel at managing high-level relationships, this role is for you.
Key Responsibilities
1. Donor Relations & Pipeline Management (Moves Management)
Institutional & High-Impact Funding: Build, expand and manage grant and gift opportunities with major institutional foundations, family offices, and donor-advised funds to sustain and scale programs. Grants and gifts are expected to range from high five figures to seven figures.
Major Gifts Portfolio: Manage and cultivate relationships with high-net-worth individual donors, guiding them through a thoughtful "moves management" process (identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship).
Grassroot Donor Growth: Design and execute strategies to build, convert, and sustain a growing grassroots donor base, leveraging digital campaigns, annual giving appeals, and community-driven engagement.
Prospecting & Pitching: Proactively research, identify, and prospect new individual donors and philanthropic foundations. Draft customized, compelling outreach strategies to expand our funding network, including with family offices and donor advised funds.
Case for Support: Synthesize the Policing Project’s complex legal, policy, and community initiatives into compelling and digestible written donor appeals that align with funder priorities.
2. Grant & Gift Financial Operations and Lifecycle Management
Lifecyle Grant Tracking: Partner directly with the organization’s financial analyst and the NYU Development team to track all grants and gifts through their full lifecycle: from initial pitch and award notification to spend-down execution and narrative/financial closeout.
Budgeting & Reconciliation Support: Provide critical support for project-level fundraising budgets, monitor expenditure pacing against grant terms, and assist in routine financial reconciliations of restricted and unrestricted gifts.
Personnel Allocations & Project Tracking: Support executive leadership and finance in modeling personnel allocation across grant funds, ensuring staff time and effort are accurately budgeted, tracked and charged against relevant funding sources.
Funder & University Compliance: Coordinate narrative and financial progress reports for foundation and institutional funders, ensuring total compliance with grant agreements and university reporting protocols.
3. Executive Briefing & Strategic Writing
Leadership Preparation: Draft comprehensive research briefs, funder background memos, and talking points to prepare the FD and ED for donor meetings and site visits.
Executive Correspondence: Draft high-touch, personalized correspondence and stewardship updates on behalf of leadership.
Proposal Development: Write and edit grant proposals, concept notes, letters of inquiry (LOIs), and annual impact reports for foundations, corporate partners and major donors.
4. CRM & Development Operations
CRM Ownership: Serve as the administrator of our donor database/CRM (Monday.com). Maintain impeccable records of moves management, giving histories, wealth screenings, and deadline calendars.
Financial & Development Dashboards: Build operation tracking systems and reporting dashboards to monitor key development metrics, pipeline health, projected revenue, and grant reporting deadlines.
5. Advisory Board Relations & Events
Board Engagement: Serve as the primary liaison to our Advisory Board, maintaining communication channels, preparing materials, and driving board participation in fundraising efforts.
Event Management: Lead the strategy and execution of the annual Advisory Board meeting, along with donor salons, virtual webinars, and private cultivation events.
Qualifications & Core Competencies
Experience: 5–7+ years of experience in non-profit development, with a track record in mid-sized or growing advocacy, criminal justice, legal, or civil rights organizations.
Exceptional Writing Ability: Experience adopting the voices of organizational leaders. You should have a proven track record of writing clean, persuasive, and sophisticated pitches that make complex topics accessible and inspiring for diverse funder audiences.
Multi-Channel Fundraising Expertise: Demonstrated experience building institutional (5- to 7-figure grants/gifts), major gift pipelines and grassroots or annual giving programs.
CRM Mastery: Hands-on experience managing a non-profit donor database/CRM (Monday) with a commitment to data integrity and workflow design.
Strategic Relationship Management: Experience with major gift fundraising, foundation processes, and managing high-profile volunteer boards or committees.
Executive-Level Partnership: Experience preparing executives and senior leaders for major donors and institutional funder engagements. High emotional intelligence, professional maturity and absolute discretion with sensitive organizational data.
Mission Alignment: A deep commitment to the mission of the Policing Project’s core mission of public safety reform, equitable policing and democratic accountability.
Additional Preferred Qualifications
Excel & Analytical Skills: Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel (e.g. pivot tables, complex formulas, financial tracking, budget reconciliation models, and personnel effort allocation spreadsheets).
Financial & Grants Aptitude: Strong familiarity with grant administration processes, fund accounting concepts, project budget development, and tracking spend-downs across multi-year institutional awards.
University/Institutional Collaboration: Comfort navigating institutional workflows, preferably alongside central university development, sponsored research, or finance teams.
Application Instructions
To apply, please email a cover letter, resume, and a writing sample of no more than 5 pages as one PDF to applications@policingproject.org. Please indicate “Development Director” in the subject line. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled, and you will be contacted if you are selected for an interview.
Salary is commensurate with experience. In compliance with NYC’s Pay Transparency Law, the salary is in the range of $110,000—140,000. Compensation also includes excellent benefits, including medical, dental, and vision. After one year, employees are eligible for tuition remission at certain NYU schools and matching retirement contributions. Further information regarding benefits can be found here.
NYU is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to a policy of equal treatment and opportunity in every aspect of its recruitment and hiring process without regard to age, alienage, caregiver status, childbirth, citizenship status, color, creed, disability, domestic violence victim status, ethnicity, familial status, gender and/or gender identity or expression, marital status, military status, national origin, parental status, partnership status, predisposing genetic characteristics, pregnancy, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, unemployment status, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis. Women, racial and ethnic minorities, persons of minority sexual orientation or gender identity, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply for vacant positions at all levels.