Western Governors University
Annual Giving Manager
🇺🇸 Salt Lake City, UT
🕑 Full-Time
💰 $73K - $109K
💻 Development & Advancement
🗓️ January 12th, 2026
Edtech.com's Summary
WGU Corporation is hiring an Annual Giving Manager to lead and enhance the university's annual and broad-based giving efforts. The role involves designing multi-channel marketing strategies, increasing donor acquisition and retention, and strengthening the major gift pipeline to boost annual giving revenue effectively.
Highlights
- Build and manage annual giving and broad-based fundraising programs.
- Design integrated multi-channel marketing strategies, including direct mail, digital marketing, websites, and giving forms.
- Use digital marketing tools and data analytics like predictive modeling and social media data mining to improve donor engagement and segmentation.
- Grow the donor base through acquisition, retention, and upgrading donors to higher giving levels.
- Develop programs for mid-level gifts and encourage higher-level donations.
- Create solicitation, engagement, and stewardship programs for faculty, staff, alumni, students, and affinity groups.
- Coordinate with external vendors and collaborate with internal Advancement, marketing, and alumni relations teams to maintain consistent branding and messaging.
- Proficiency required in donor database systems and ability to analyze marketing and revenue performance data.
- Requires a Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience with five years of relevant work in complex organizations.
- Compensation ranges from $73,000 to $109,400 with benefits including bonuses, health coverage, retirement savings, flexible paid time off, and parental leave.
Annual Giving Manager Full Description
If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.
Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.
The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.
At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
Grade: Professional 308Pay Range: $73,000.00 - $109,400.00
Grade: Professional 308Pay Range: $73,000.00 - $109,400.00
Job Description
The Annual Giving Manager will build and manage all aspects of the WGU Advancement's annual and broad-based giving efforts including the implementation of a system of measuring progress and evaluating all aspects of the program. This position is responsible for increasing annual giving revenue, broadening the base of support through donor acquisition, and strengthening the major gift pipeline.
Primary Responsibilities
- Designs and manages an integrated multi-channel marketing strategy of outbound programs (direct mail and digital marketing) and inbound programs (websites, giving forms) that engage donors through one-to-many marketing channels and ultimately moves them into personal relationship-based development efforts.
- Enhances the annual giving department's use of digital marketing (e.g., email, websites, social media) and analytics (e.g., predictive modeling, social media data mining) to improve segmentation and messaging and to create a personal and positive experience for donors.
- Oversees a strategy to grow the number of donors each year by acquiring, retaining and upgrading donors to $1,000 or more. Develops giving level programs and special engagement opportunities that encourage mid-level gifts e.g., $5,000 or more) and moves donors to higher levels of annual giving.
- Develops strong solicitation, engagement, and stewardship programs for key constituencies (e.g. faculty, staff, alumni, students) as well as other affinity groups.
- Coordinates with external vendors that support broad based giving efforts.
- Works with WGU partners to ensure personal and consistent messaging and positive donor experiences.
- Collaborates with Advancement, marketing and alumni relations colleagues to ensure that Advancement's brand and overall marketing and communications strategy is used consistently and effectively.
- Performs other job-related duties as assigned.
This job description includes a general representation of job requirements rather than a comprehensive inventory of all required responsibilities or work activities. The contents of this document or related job requirements may change at any time with or without notice.
Qualifications
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- Comprehensive knowledge of best practices in annual giving and broad-based outreach for educational institutions, national non-profit organizations, political campaigns and outreach, or related sectors
- Comprehensive knowledge of multi-channel marketing including traditional channels (e.g., direct mail) and digital channels (email, websites, social media)
- Broad depth of client services models including marketing operations and project management
- Proficiency in donor database systems
- Excellent communication, project management and organization skills
- Ability to display the successful implementation of marketing strategies that directly impact organizational revenue
- Ability to analyze and interpret data for traditional and digital marketing efforts, including email, landing page performance, website analytics, direct response performance, and overall revenue performance
- Ability to evaluate and assess annual giving performance
Education
- Bachelor's degree in relevant discipline
Experience
- Five (5) years of related work experience in a complex organization collaborating and working with cross-functional teams and stakeholders
Experience in lieu of education
Equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements. Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as 1 year of experience for 1 year of education and is the discretion of the hiring manager.
Preferred Qualifications
- Advanced degree
- Higher education experience
- Fundraising and advanced level writing experience
Position & Application Details
Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.
How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.
Additional Information
Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It's not all-inclusive.
Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.
Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.
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