Leading an 80+ person R&D organization on the GiveSmart platform
Senior Director of R&D for the fundraising SaaS suite: an 80+ person organization supporting over $1.5 billion in annual donation and payment activity.
Business context
GiveSmart (Community Brands, now Momentive Software) runs fundraising and giving technology for nonprofits and schools. The R&D organization spans product engineering, QA, architecture, and management across a multi-product SaaS suite.
The problem
The documented remit was modernization and unification of acquired fundraising products, including shared identity and data foundations.
Constraints
A multi-product fundraising and payments suite, an 80+ person R&D organization, and PCI-aware engineering and availability expectations.
Arthur’s role
Senior Director, Research & Development, May 2023 - January 2025: engineering leadership, architecture governance, portfolio planning, and GiveSmart Identity and Data Core initiatives.
Diagnosis & decision
Illustrative leadership reasoning: shared identity and data deserve explicit attention in acquired-product integration.
Architecture & operating approach
The résumé documents modernization across GiveSmart DonorCRM, Fundraise, Events, Donor Portal, Identity, and Data Core, with shared integration and data-layer initiatives.
Outcome
Documented scope: led an 80+ person organization, approximately 60 engineers plus management, architecture, and QA. The software supported more than $1.5 billion annually in donation and payment activity. The source records leadership of unification initiatives; no independent customer-impact measure or completion date is asserted.
Executive lesson
Leadership lesson: treat shared identity and data as explicit integration workstreams, and validate sequencing with the operating business.
Choose a useful next step
Explore the work, try a practical tool, or discuss a challenge with Arthur.
Try the free readiness review · Start a conversation