Development Director

Job Description

Hiring: Development Director

Hours: Full time, 40 hours a week. Flexible schedule.

Salary: Up to $80,000

Location: Based in Tucson, work from home

Apply by: March 9, 2026

Arizona Luminaria seeks a development director to work with our team on fundraising to support our growing nonprofit news organization. The development director will focus on increasing and managing the major donor program and maintaining the donor database, while also participating in fundraising event planning and appeals for investment in local journalism.

You’re a people-person who loves raising money to support community-centered nonprofits. As a self-starter, team player and strong communicator, you’ll help create long-term sustainability for an award-winning nonprofit news organization in Southern Arizona. 

About Arizona Luminaria

Arizona Luminaria is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to local journalism, community-centered reporting and investigations that prioritize underserved and underrepresented communities. At 4 years old, our news organization is ready for this strategic hire to transform our startup fundraising approach to sustainable growth and investment.

Our grassroots approach to journalism listens, learns, adapts and unites. We publish news in Spanish and English free from a paywall that limits who can access vital civic reporting. Come work with a team changing the relationship Arizonans have with local news. Join us as we build a news organization that values truth, accountability, solutions and our neighbors.

Arizona Luminaria is a workplace rooted in equity, inclusion and integrity. We value your voice, career goals and commitment to thriving local journalism from our diverse borderlands communities. We’re seeking people who want to work with us to establish anti-racist, anti-discriminatory workplace cultures and standards.

Arizona Luminaria’s annual budget is more than half a million dollars and major revenue categories include national grants, local foundations, small individual donors through our membership program, major donors, events and sponsorships.

About the role and responsibilities

The primary role is to generate new philanthropic revenue to fund our growing newsroom.

The development director will:

Establish a major gift strategy and quarterly goals in collaboration with the leadership team

Develop fundraising materials to support solicitations and increase understanding of philanthropic gifts

Systematically research, meet and cultivate major donors from a database of more than 500 members; lead relationship management and stewardship; and help execute fundraising events and individual donor solicitation

Collaborate with staff and volunteer board members to engage them in donor solicitations based on donor interests, personal relationships, expertise or other criteria

Network with community organizations / leaders

Manage donor and sponsorship database using Salesforce, create monthly fundraising reports and dashboards, build on and manage donor-facing collateral

Solicit donations and prepare acknowledgement letters and other donor correspondence

Work closely with our principal executive who creates impact reports and does editorial marketing; our operations executive who is focused on grant writing; our fundraising coordinator who is focused on small individual donations and membership campaigns; and our freelance event planner

Preferred skills

5+ years of experience in fundraising, including building and managing donor relationships

Knowledge of Southern Arizona’s journalism ecosystem and philanthropic community

Passion for journalism, philanthropy and civic engagement

Detail oriented, organized and consistent with documentation

Understands the importance and relevance of making cold calls, making donor solicitations and meeting new people

Great collaborator and communicator with staff, donors, board members and members of the greater community as a representative of Arizona Luminaria

Familiarity working with foundations, gifts of complex assets, planned gifts, etc.

Ability to create plans and set goals with team members, and follow through while working independently

Ability to use data to prepare for and maintain donor relationships

Familiar with Salesforce, Google Workspace and Canva

Bilingual English/Spanish

Recognizes our fault lines as humans and how they affect our perspectives and trust
relationships with people from all backgrounds.

Salary and benefits

We’re offering compensation and benefits to build healthy lives, including:

• Salary up to $80,000 depending on experience and Spanish skills

• Flexible work hours

• Paid time off of 40 days a year

• Health care plan

• Work from home in Tucson

• Professional development investment

• Technology and work tools investment

Application process

To make our job application more equitable and accessible, we’re providing a streamlined process. You can expect to hear back from us within a month.

Please use this form to submit your resume and respond to the following prompts:

• Why does local journalism matter to you? What role do you think philanthropy should play in supporting local news?

• Describe a time you directly asked an individual or organization for financial support and they immediately donated.

• Describe a time when you asked a major donor for support and they initially turned you down but eventually came around and made a contribution. 

• Describe your stewardship and organizational process. How do you approach building and maintaining donor relationships over time? Please include an example of how you moved someone to deeper engagement.

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