Major Gifts Officer / Principal Gifts Officer
Sample Resume & ATS Keywords
Major Gifts Officer is a genuinely distinct specialist tier within fundraising, not a re-skin of general fundraising roles — the entire remit is personally cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding five-, six-, and seven-figure individual gifts through moves-management methodology. US evidence is concrete: PayScale/Daybook report a $105k median salary (range $78,750-$130,000), and at least one major resume-keyword service maintains a dedicated Major Gifts Officer skills page — direct proof this title is treated as its own resume category. In the UK the equivalent title is Major Donor Manager or Philanthropy Manager, so matching the regional term matters as much as the underlying keywords.
All sample resume content on this page is original and illustrative — fictional candidates, realistic numbers. Use it as a pattern, not a template to copy verbatim.
Sample Major Gifts Officer / Principal Gifts Officer resume summary
What a parseable, keyword-complete professional summary looks like for this role:
Major Gifts Officer with 9 years personally managing a portfolio of high-net-worth donors for university and healthcare-sector nonprofits. Manages a 120-prospect portfolio using moves-management methodology in Raiser's Edge NXT, has closed gifts up to $2.5M, and builds planned-giving pipelines alongside major-gift solicitation.
Sample achievement bullets that pass ATS screening
Each bullet follows the pattern recruiters and parsers reward: exact keywords, a specific action, and a quantified outcome.
- Managed a personal portfolio of 120 major-gift prospects, closing $4.2M in new and renewed gifts in FY25 against a $3.5M personal target (120% of goal).
- Closed the organisation's largest individual gift in its history at $2.5M through an 18-month moves-management cultivation cycle.
- Built a planned-giving pipeline of $6.8M in documented bequest intentions over 3 years, working alongside major-gift solicitation as a dual-track strategy.
- Moved 34 prospects through the full moves-management cycle (identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, stewardship) in a single fiscal year.
- Maintained a 91% donor-retention rate among portfolio donors giving $10,000+, against a sector benchmark closer to 75-80%.
- Used wealth-screening data (DonorSearch) to qualify 60 new prospects annually, converting 22% into active cultivation within 12 months.
- Partnered with 3 board members on joint donor visits, closing 8 gifts totaling $1.1M through board-assisted solicitation.
- Trained 2 junior gift officers on moves-management methodology and portfolio segmentation, both promoted internally within 18 months.
ATS keyword bank for Major Gifts Officer / Principal Gifts Officer resumes
From our 2026 research into recruiter sourcing behavior for this role. Recruiter and ATS searches match exact strings — carry the terms your real experience supports, in the wording the posting uses.
| Keyword group | Terms recruiters search |
|---|---|
| Titles & variants | Major Gifts Officer · Principal Gifts Officer · Major Donor Manager (UK) · Philanthropy Manager (UK) · Senior Philanthropy Manager |
| Credentials/certifications | Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) · CIoF Diploma in Fundraising · planned giving certification |
| Systems & software | Raiser's Edge NXT · Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud · WealthEngine/DonorSearch (wealth screening) · iWave prospect research |
| Domain vocabulary | moves management · planned giving · donor cultivation · solicitation strategy · portfolio management · stewardship planning |
| Quantified outcomes | portfolio size managed · gifts closed at five/six/seven-figure levels · retention and upgrade rates · close rate |
Major Gifts Officer / Principal Gifts Officer resume formatting: do this, not that
Do
- Use the exact regional title — Major Gifts Officer/Principal Gifts Officer (US) or Major Donor Manager/Philanthropy Manager (UK) — matched to the posting.
- Name moves-management methodology explicitly as a process you run, not just a term you know.
- Quantify portfolio size, largest gift closed, and total gifts closed at five/six/seven-figure levels — these are the headline screening metrics.
- Include wealth-screening and prospect-research tools by name (DonorSearch, WealthEngine, iWave) since postings frequently list them as required or preferred.
- Mention planned/legacy giving if it's part of your remit — it's increasingly bundled with major-gifts postings and adds keyword coverage.
Don't
- Don't understate gift size or portfolio scale — this role is evaluated almost entirely on transaction-level results, so vague language undersells you badly.
- Don't use generic fundraising language ('built donor relationships') without naming the moves-management stage or process involved.
- Don't omit retention rate; it's one of the clearest indicators of major-gift stewardship quality and a common screening criterion.
- Don't leave out board or senior-leadership collaboration if you have it — joint solicitation experience is a specific, searched-for skill at this level.
- Don't apply with only the US title if you're also targeting UK roles — 'Major Gifts Officer' won't reliably match a search for 'Philanthropy Manager.'
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