Senior Director of Development, ASU Health-Foundations

The ASU Foundation (ASUF) fosters partnerships between ASU and like-minded individuals, corporations and foundations who believe in ASU’s mission and provide resources for ASU to manifest its charter into meaningful impact.   

The Senior Director of Development is a senior fundraising professional focused on securing transformational philanthropic support from institutional and family foundations for ASU Health. Working across the six ASU Health units, this role designs and executes strategies to identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward foundation donors for cross-unit initiatives and high-priority programs. The Senior Director partners with unit-based development leads, deans, faculty, and foundation leadership to build new funder relationships, develop compelling cases for support around shared ASU Health priorities (e.g., women’s health, brain health, food is medicine, healthcare delivery, indigenous health), and position ASU Health in the national philanthropic landscape, with the goal of materially expanding the pipeline of seven- and eight-figure foundation gifts.

What you’ll do: 

• Designs and leads a coordinated cross-unit foundation fundraising program for ASU Health, setting strategy in partnership with the Executive Director of Development for ASU Health and the six unit deans and development leads; identifies cross-cutting funding priorities and opportunities where foundation support can accelerate institutional impact

• Manages a foundation prospect portfolio with a primary focus on securing gifts at or above $500,000, an annual fundraising goal of $3M to $8M, and a pipeline that includes two to three active seven- or eight-figure transformational opportunities per year

• Applies a business-development mindset to identify and cultivate foundation prospects not currently engaged with ASU Health, at the local, national, and global level;

• Convenes faculty, institute/center directors, and unit-based development officers across ASU Health to build joint proposals aligned to foundation RFPs and funder interests; provides connective tissue between units so that faculty expertise in one college can be readily combined with complementary work in others to meet the scale and scope that large foundations expect

• Guides the development of cases for support, concept notes, proposals, budgets, and related materials for foundation prospects, with emphasis on six- and seven-figure and above investments; contributes to and helps shape the content of ASU Health’s portfolio of funding priorities so that fundraisers across the team can activate them efficiently

• High level of collaboration with both internal departments and broader University partners to identify common goals and develop, execute, and advance prospect and donor strategies and increase participation among high profile donors

• Ensures the proper stewardship and recognition of donors in portfolio

• Manages projects with moderate oversight; depending on area(s) of responsibility, may serve as a project manager for some complex, multilayered, university-wide proposals aimed at raising the higher gifts for a university campaign

• Ensures compliance with prospect management guidelines for tracking and maintenance of contact and progress reporting

• Works with supervisor on budget management related to area(s) of assignment, ensuring a maximum return on university investments while controlling expenses

• Within area(s) of responsibility, maintains up to date knowledge on key alumni and high-level donors, and/or oversees continuous research, development and up-to-date knowledge on prospects and works with other areas to coordinate contacts

• Participates as a member of the ASUF development team and serves as a resource to development colleagues

• Sustains and elevates working relationships with deans, chairs, directors, and faculty members within area(s) of responsibility

• Raises the national philanthropic profile of ASU Health and its faculty by identifying conferences, convenings, panels, and other venues where faculty experts can be featured in front of foundation audiences; coordinates with communications and marketing partners to surface thought leadership

• Partners effectively with unit-based development officers to ensure coordinated engagement with deans and faculty, avoiding duplication and creating shared value across individual, corporate, and foundation pipelines

What you'll need:  

• Exceptional interpersonal skills and the ability to interact effectively with academic leadership, faculty, prospects, donors, and/or volunteers in a wide range of roles

• Complex problem-solving skills coupled with the ability to conduct research, gather data, analyze information, and prepare effective, accurate, and timely reports and other documents to support development objectives

• Strong knowledge and understanding of database management

• Ability to inquire about and understand organizational interests and needs, and determine how to persuade or market to that organization with compelling benefits

• Ability to exercise good judgment to demonstrate an understanding of ethics related to development activities, and to use discretion in interactions with donors, prospects, volunteers, and others

• Ability to foster effective working relationships in a matrixed environment, including partnering with multiple deans and development teams simultaneously without a single reporting line to any one unit; brings collaborative instincts and a “shared credit” orientation to joint work with colleagues

• Community relations skills and the ability to communicate and work effectively within a diverse community

• Knowledge of fundraising techniques including proposal development, prospect identification, program planning, fund solicitation, database management, donor tracking, and social networking and marketing tools 

• Highly developed verbal and written communication skills and the ability to present effectively to small and large groups

• Strong discernment and prioritization; able to evaluate a high volume of ideas, prospects, and opportunities and focus attention on the ones most likely to yield transformational gifts

• Builder and entrepreneurial mindset; comfort operating in a startup-like environment where pipeline, systems, and connective tissue are still being designed; able to see and articulate ideas that have not yet been formed into proposals

• Systems and process orientation; able to design workflows for cross-unit engagement with deans, faculty, and foundation officers so that effort is coordinated rather than duplicative

• High comfort with AI tools and a continuous-improvement mindset; willingness to adopt, test, and refine technology and workflows that increase efficiency in a resource-constrained environment

• Ability to juggle high volume and high complexity; manages many concurrent prospects, proposals, and faculty/dean interactions without losing focus on priority transformational opportunities

• Ability to maintain a high degree of confidentiality and responsibility regarding information related to Foundation and University business and confidential prospect information

• Ability to develop knowledge of, respect for, and skills to engage with those of other cultures and backgrounds

• Ability to represent the institution well and possess an advocate’s belief in the vision of ASU as the New American University

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite and comfortable working in donor/prospect computer database systems

Relevant qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s degree

• Seven (7) years of years of successful professional development and/or fundraising experience

• Or any equivalent combination of education and experience from which comparable knowledge, skills and abilities have been achieved

• Documented success in personally implementing sophisticated, multi-year cultivation strategies that use a relationship-building and moves management approach leading to successful gift closure

• Demonstrated ability in securing six- and seven-figure grants from institutional foundations, family foundations, and other private funding sources

Preferred education and experience:

• Advanced degree

• Direct experience working in or adjacent to the health sector (academic medicine, health systems, public health, or health-focused research institutions) and demonstrated knowledge of how national health funders operate

• Experience working in Salesforce and Workday

Preferred qualifications:

• Established relationships with, or demonstrated ability to open doors to, national health-focused foundations (e.g., Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Gates Foundation, Commonwealth Fund, and peer institutional funders)

• Experience cultivating family foundations where the board is the family, in addition to professionalized institutional foundations

• Familiarity with current themes shaping health philanthropy, including healthcare delivery and access, social determinants of health, health equity, telehealth, and the application of technology and AI to health

The ASU Foundation is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Learn More: