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Associate Director, Foundation and Corporate Relations
The primary purpose of the Associate Director of Foundation and Corporate Relations is to promote and support the mission of Philanthropy through establishing and maintaining ongoing communication with professionally staffed national, local, and corporate foundations with a mid-level giving capacity, with the end objective of seeking additional grant dollars. The scope of the position includes working with faculty and other campus stakeholders on developing strategies for investigation, approach and solicitation for foundations; conducting research to identify alignment of a foundation’s funding interest to that of MD Anderson’s priorities and funding needs; working closely with faculty members to understand their work; contacting foundation staff to enhance knowledge exchange on both ends; informal reporting/updating foundations with news and project updates; and writing/editing LOIs and introductory documents to foundation staff. The Associate Director will focus on foundations with a grant-making capacity of $100,000+, both those with which MD Anderson has an existing relationship and new foundations from which we have not had prior contact or received funding. The Associate Director will also manage a limited number of corporate giving relationships.
KEY FUNCTIONS
Stakeholder Engagement (50%)
Display the ability to qualify, cultivate and solicit new donors to the institution. Display social awareness, professional etiquette, and the ability to interact and build rapport with donors, faculty and institutional leaders. Engage with varied constituencies with social fluency and garner their trust as to influence donor behavior. Appropriately align donors to giving opportunities and orchestrate and facilitate meaningful engagements.
- Build relationships with faculty to learn more about their funding needs, particularly in the $100-250K giving range in support of the Foundation and Corporate Relations Program in the mid-level grants space. Through phone calls, emails and meetings, engage with researchers and physicians, grant managers of departments, etc., and conduct formal presentations when necessary.
- Build and steward relationships with professionally staffed foundations and corporations with giving capacities of $100K-250K+. This includes contact via email, phone calls and, if needed, face-to-face visits to introduce and talk about MD Anderson, its research, our faculty and areas of need that would align with a funder’s field of interest. Informal updates/reporting to foundations and corporations that have supported our faculty would also be part of this function.
- Manage portfolio of assigned prospects and leads, including investigation/qualification of new leads, tracking of annual RFAs, deadlines and funders’ fields of interest.
Collaboration and Teaming (20%)
Actively partner with donors, peers, faculty, and divisional leadership on donor strategy development, donor strategy execution and other projects. Gift officer will develop networks, engage in cross-functional activities to deliver on stakeholder engagement. Gift Officer will be able to work co-operatively with all stakeholders, contribute to the success of collaborative work teams and support completion of initiative or project to achieve stated goals.
- Work with the Director (and Associate Vice President, as appropriate) of Foundation and Corporate Relations to create investigation, approach and solicitation strategies for assigned targeted funders. These may be leads arising from your own research, research conducted in Philanthropy, suggestions/referrals by faculty, and/or Requests for Applications (RFAs) posted by foundations and corporations.
- Network with relevant stakeholders at MD Anderson to identify best possible candidates for open RFAs and keep faculty informed of upcoming opportunities (Office of Sponsored Programs, Office of Translational Research, Junior and Mid-Career Faculty groups, Research Town Hall, Faculty Communications-Look Ahead, department chairs and program managers, etc.).
Consultation with Critical Evaluation (20%)
Provide guidance to internal and external stakeholders utilizing subject matter expertise. Use critical evaluation skills to interpret information and make business decisions and recommendations to internal and external stakeholders.
- Take initiative to collaborate with faculty in the preparation of materials in response to RFAs to ensure that we are presenting the best possible projects to funders, with an end goal of increasing the number of quality submissions and a corresponding increase in grant funding.
Perception and Attentiveness (10%)
Accurately assess interests of prospective donors; organize and present information in thoughtful and engaging ways, constantly shift between multiple activities and sources of information, maintain situational awareness, institutional awareness and adeptly navigate cross functional prospect teams in support of donor engagement, solicitation and stewardship plans.
- Partner with the Donor Relations team to ensure that your assigned foundations receive appropriate and timely progress reports for any grants that are processed as gifts.
- Work with Philanthropy Administrator to maintain up-to-date records on all assigned foundations and leads under investigation within CMS (Salesforce).
- Gather, manage and continually update relevant information about assigned funders and institutional programs and services whose funding needs fall under your purview.
EDUCATION
Required: Bachelor's degree.
Preferred: Master’s degree in English, Journalism, Communications, Technical Writing, Public Health, Health Care, Biology or closely related field.
EXPERIENCE
Required: Five years of experience in private fund development, direct fundraising, English, Communications, and technical writing.
Preferred: Three or more years of direct foundation and corporate relations fundraising experience, with demonstrated proficiency in securing six figure grants and working with faculty, leadership team members, and fellow philanthropy professionals to execute fundraising strategy. Experience gained at MD Anderson or a comparable medical/health care institution, familiarity with medical terminology and ease of interacting with faculty members. Must have excellent and proven communication skills, including written and verbal.
It is the policy of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to provide equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by institutional policy or by federal, state or local laws unless such distinction is required by law. http://www.mdanderson.org/about-us/legal-and-policy/legal-statements/eeo-affirmative-action.html
