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Chief development officer skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025
5 min read
Below we've compiled a list of the most critical chief development officer skills. We ranked the top skills for chief development officers based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 13.5% of chief development officer resumes contained kids as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a chief development officer needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 chief development officer skills for your resume and career

1. Kids

Here's how chief development officers use kids:
  • Solicited and closed major gifts from adult "Museum Kids" - first time effort at the museum.

2. Oversight

Having oversight of someone means to monitor a process or a situation. If someone has oversight of something, they are responsible for the completion of the project. Oversight is usually given to experts as they monitor their juniors or newbies as they go through a project.

Here's how chief development officers use oversight:
  • Partnered with architects and provided weekly construction oversight.
  • Collaborated with, and provided oversight for, community providers, vendors, and contractors.

3. CDO

A chief diversity officer (CDO) works to optimize culture, alignment of diversity, and constructively respond to global policies inside an organization. Their directive is to aid the betterment of the organization by moving beyond a symbolic front by directly or indirectly influencing the company culture, employees, or clients. They impact the promotion, pay, recruiting, team behavior, senior leadership, and daily personal interactions of the organization.

Here's how chief development officers use cdo:
  • Awarded 50% co-ownership, served as CDO until I surrendered my ownership and resigned.
  • Promoted to CDO role in December, 2004.

4. Strategic Plan

Here's how chief development officers use strategic plan:
  • Led a cross-functional strategic planning and process improvement team in an 800-person maintenance repair and overhaul organization.
  • Supervised preparation of budget estimates, and manpower calculations for implementation of strategic plans.

5. Relationship Building

Relationship building is the act of building a lasting social connection with people whether online or in person. It's a soft skill required for those going into marketing, communication, and every other field that requires dealing with the public to help them connect better with people. It's also great as a personal skill for gaining meaningful relationships that can help one in the future.

Here's how chief development officers use relationship building:
  • Managed a team of 3 Employer Development associates responsible for relationship building and day-to-day operations of the Career Management Center.
  • Changed program focus from transactional to relationship building through adoption of prospect management and tailored communication strategies.

6. Fundraising Strategy

Here's how chief development officers use fundraising strategy:
  • Created and implemented national fundraising strategy to ensure costs of the disaster were covered.
  • Created and launched a fundraising strategy focused on major donor advancement and new prospects.

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7. Fund Development

Here's how chief development officers use fund development:
  • Developed and maintained appropriate systems to fund development including but not limited to volunteer and donor management, research and cultivation.
  • Led staff and volunteers to institutionalize philanthropy and fund development within the organization to achieve sustainable results.

8. Strategic Direction

Here's how chief development officers use strategic direction:
  • Key member of executive team playing major role in P & L management, forecasting, and strategic direction.
  • Provided strategic direction and leadership to ensure successful and efficient execution of the Region Development Plan and the Prepare Florida Campaign.

9. Development Programs

Development programs are steps of activities backed up by a strategic plan of structured programs to yield, positive developmental outcomes. Development programs can be in various forms, and they spread across employee development, child development, and social development.

Here's how chief development officers use development programs:
  • Delivered international executive development programs at our conference/hotel facility.
  • Played key role in driving leadership/professional development by managing first-ever Enlisted Development Program focused on identifying high-potential individuals.

10. Individual Giving

Here's how chief development officers use individual giving:
  • Raised $1.5 million in corporate funds, $757,000 in individual giving, and $176,000 from Foundations.
  • Trained board of directors on best practices for securing individual giving.

11. Capital Campaign

Here's how chief development officers use capital campaign:
  • Mobilized resources for capital campaign, merger opportunity, and strategic initiatives to fund annual giving and benevolent care opportunities.
  • Provided leadership for the university's first ever comprehensive Capital Campaign.

12. Financial Support

Financial support is the financial resource or money provided to an organization to support its operations. Financial support is generally provided by the government, or private institutes such as non-profits, or aid institutes. Financial support usually does not have any interests or benefits to be returned.

Here's how chief development officers use financial support:
  • Cultivated and built corporate/foundation relationships and targeted financial supporters in the private sector.
  • Build donor financial support for 152-bed pediatric specialty hospital.

13. Alumni

Alumni is a term used for graduate students of a school, college, university, or any other educational institution. The term is also used for employees of a company or a previous member of a group or an organization that has been retired. Alumni represent the institutions or organizations that they were previously associated with.

Here's how chief development officers use alumni:
  • Organized and executed eight public relations events for alumni donors.
  • Established the UC Davis Medical Alumni Association Endowed Chair in Bioethics.

14. Fundraising Campaigns

Here's how chief development officers use fundraising campaigns:
  • Develop and manage all fundraising campaigns, individual appeals and grant proposal efforts for school.
  • Created and implemented successful direct mail and telemarketing annual fundraising campaigns.

15. Salesforce

Salesforce is an American cloud-based software company based in San Francisco, California. This company provides customer relationship management services that enable the customers to be closer to the company. It gives the company detailed information about each customer, including marketing, sales, commerce, and services. Salesforce also helps market a product to attract more buyers, and helps win more customers by targeting the right audience.

Here's how chief development officers use salesforce:
  • Measured and tracked goal success using the development system of record, SalesForce.
  • Migrated donor database from MS Access to Salesforce.com/CommonGround to enhance cultivation and stewardship efforts and trained others in database use.
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List of chief development officer skills to add to your resume

Chief development officer skills

The most important skills for a chief development officer resume and required skills for a chief development officer to have include:

  • Kids
  • Oversight
  • CDO
  • Strategic Plan
  • Relationship Building
  • Fundraising Strategy
  • Fund Development
  • Strategic Direction
  • Development Programs
  • Individual Giving
  • Capital Campaign
  • Financial Support
  • Alumni
  • Fundraising Campaigns
  • Salesforce
  • Development Committee
  • Fund Raising
  • Database Management
  • Business Development
  • Strategic Partnerships
  • Donor Relations
  • Direct Reports
  • Donor Database
  • Gift Processing
  • R
  • Executive Management
  • Business Model
  • Foundation Relations
  • Product Development
  • Press Releases
  • Human Resources
  • Development Professionals
  • Foundation Board
  • Board Development
  • Foundation Support
  • Compliance Standards
  • Management System
  • Development Plan
  • Business Plan
  • Corporate Sponsors
  • Public Awareness
  • Facebook
  • Corporate Culture
  • DOD
  • Brand Development
  • Rebranding
  • IP

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

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