Development Director

About CFG

Centre for Future Generations (CFG) is an independent think-and-do tank with a mission to help policymakers anticipate and govern rapid technological change. We want a world where powerful technologies help tackle the challenges of our time while protecting human life, autonomy, rights, and freedoms.

That work is funded by philanthropy, and keeping that funding healthy and independent is a discipline in its own right. We are looking for a Development Director to lead it.

Since January 2025 we have run our fundraising with the help of an external contractor. It has worked well, and we now want to bring the function inside the organisation and give it a permanent owner.

The role sits within our Comms & PA team, which is a deliberate choice. Positioning CFG with funders draws on the same strategic thinking as our work with policymakers, and we treat funders as decision-makers in their own right, rather than simply as sources of money.

There are two sides to the job. The first is to run and strengthen the fundraising we already do, which rests mainly on multi-year grants from foundations. The second is to develop new sources of income alongside it, so that our independence rests on a broad base rather than a handful of relationships.

In this role, you will:

• Own the development strategy. Set fundraising priorities, manage the discretionary budget for contractors and specialist support, and report progress to the Chief Communications Officer.
• Run the existing pipeline. Move funder relationships through to multi-year commitments, working towards a target of at least €3 million a year in general operating support (to begin with).
• Build new revenue streams. Scope, test, and develop channels that run alongside the foundation pipeline: a major donor programme, individual giving and charity-recommendation platforms, events revenue, a membership model, and positioning the Policy Incubator to funders who behave like core funders. You will lead a diversification scoping exercise in the first half of 2027 with the Chief Communications Officer.
• Support programmes to fundraise. Carry the operational load so programme teams do not have to, while recognising that programme directors and experts are often best placed to make the case. Help each programme shape its own investment cases and prepare its people for funder conversations.
• Cultivate funders directly. Build and hold senior funder relationships, and prepare the executive team, Board members, and programme directors for their own funder engagements.
• Steward funders and systems. Keep reporting, compliance, and grant management running reliably, and make the CRM the single source of truth for funder intelligence across CFG.
• Manage and grow the team. As funding allows, we anticipate that this role will also line-manage the Development Officer (a role you will help us recruit) and direct a bench of contractors.

What you will bring:

• Senior experience in philanthropic fundraising, major donor cultivation, or institutional development.
• A track record of designing and standing up new revenue channels, not only running existing ones.
• A good instinct for how foundations and major donors think, and how to position an organisation as a funding priority.
• The strategic range to set and deliver a multi-year fundraising plan, and the discipline to run it.
• Confident relationship management and principal-level cultivation.
• Clear, concise writing and speaking, and the judgement to brief and prepare senior colleagues well.
• Strength in pitching, proposal development, and reporting, and comfort with CRM systems and fundraising tools.

You will also share our values: intellectual humility, collaboration, and compassion.

We do not expect anyone to arrive ticking every box. If you recognise yourself in most of this and are on the fence, we would rather hear from you than not.

A note on how we are funded. Centre for Future Generations is a nonprofit organisation supported by philanthropic foundations, public institutions, and individual donors. We do not accept funding that could compromise our independence, including primary support from governments, corporations, or political parties. We prefer unrestricted general operating support, and diversifying and strengthening that base is a large part of what this role is for.

The essentials. This is a full-time, permanent role. We are flexible on location: Brussels is our home and works well, but we are also open to candidates based near the philanthropies we work with most, such as London, Geneva, or Berlin. Wherever you are based, expect regular travel to Brussels. You will report to the Chief Communications Officer. Salary is in the range €90,000–€110,000 gross, depending on experience, and will be benchmarked to your location.

How to apply. Upload your CV and answer three short questions via https://stichtingicfg.bamboohr.com/careers/66

SELECTION PROCEDURE

No traditional cover letter required, rather we'd like responses to these targeted questions:

1. Tell us about a new revenue channel you've built more or less from scratch. What worked, what didn't, and what would you do differently?
2. Describe a funder relationship you cultivated through to a multi-year commitment. What was your role in getting it there?
3. Tell us about a funder or prospect you decided not to pursue, or chose to step back from, and why. How do you decide where a pipeline's time and attention should go?

The answers to the above should be brief and cover no more than two A4 pages in total. We are looking to understand how you think and work; we are not expecting a full fledged case studies.

Deadline: Sunday 7 September 2026 at 17h CET.

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