Associate Director for Corporate and Foundation Relations

UW Medicine Advancement has an excellent opportunity for an Associate Director for Corporate and Foundation Relations to join their team.

POSITION PURPOSE

At UW Medicine, we work to improve health for all people through excellence in clinical, research, and education and training programs. As the only comprehensive clinical, research and learning health system in the five-state WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) region, UW Medicine provides the most up-to-date care for each individual patient, leads one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive medical research programs, and provides innovative learning programs for students, trainees, and practitioners in the health professions.

The passionate, 86-person team at UW Medicine Advancement works collaboratively to connect donors with meaningful opportunities to enhance patient care, expand educational opportunities and advance research at UW Medicine. This inspiring, challenging and rewarding work provides team members an opportunity to grow their careers, while making a difference in people’s lives, in our community and around the world. In the 2024 fiscal year, UW Medicine Advancement raised nearly $305 million in gifts and private grants (48 percent of the University of Washington’s total) from 14,300 donors to support the mission of UW Medicine. You can find out more about UW Medicine Advancement’s priorities and office culture on our career website: https://give.uwmedicine.org/careers/

The Associate Director for Corporate and Foundation Relations (Associate Director) works with UW Medicine Advancement’s Corporate and Foundation Relations Team, Advancement leadership and staff, and academic leaders and volunteers, to increase private grants from organizations (foundations, corporations, associations and other types of organizations). This role has a primary focus in the discovery of new prospective organizational funders who have priorities that align with work going on at UW Medicine, but have not yet been deeply involved with UW Medicine.

The Associate Director will secure and steward gifts and grants from private organizations for clinical, translational, and basic research, as well as the educational priorities of the UW School of Medicine and the clinical priorities of the UW Medicine health system. The Associate Director manages a portfolio of primarily major gift and grant level prospects with the capacity of making gifts or grants of $25,000 and greater. At times, the Associate Director may also manage a portfolio of individual gift prospects and lead in the cultivation and stewardship of individual donors.

The Associate Director serves as a strategist and resource for corporate and foundation fundraising contributing to process management and improvement across all facets of the Corporate and Foundation Relations team’s work supporting UW Medicine faculty and administrators, including prospect research, managing and sharing request for proposals, and providing support for customized stewardship as needed. Given the exceptional faculty and staff at UW Medicine, this is an incredible opportunity to create meaningful partnerships and support with local, regional, national, and international organizations.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Direct Fundraising Responsibilities—85%

The Associate Director is responsible for securing, sustaining, and enhancing strategic partnerships and philanthropic relationships with organizational partners and individual donors, including, but not limited to:

• Serve as a qualification officer, assessing organizational giving prospects’ capacity to make major funding awards and their alignment with determining philanthropic goals and capacity in alignment with UW Medicine . Identify strategic opportunities and establishing priorities with faculty partners.
• As needed, travel to organization offices to represent UW Medicine for the purpose of cultivating new prospects, presenting proposals, and stewarding existing relationships. Assisting with the planning of travel for Advancement and academic leaders as well as faculty members by helping to secure appointments and overseeing the preparation of briefing materials.
• Build relationships with corporate and foundation leaders capable of providing long-term support for UW Medicine. This includes hosting meetings and site visits with business leaders and faculty.
• Develop, review, and refine proposals and other materials, including letters of inquiry, reports, and briefings, to enhance private gift/grant support for UW Medicine’s priority initiatives.
• Provide innovative stewardship and engagement opportunities for corporate and foundation partners and ensure that all gift and grant guidelines and compliance requirements are met.
• Support the development of competitive program and project ideas, particularly ‘big ideas’ that cross multiple departments and campaign priority areas.
• Manage a portfolio of major gift/grant prospects — emphasizing corporate and foundations prospects with capacity of $25,000 and greater — with special effort on corporate partners and foundation proposals of $100,000 or more.
• Maintain a “Top 25” pool of prospective major gift donors who will be solicited in the next 12-18 months.
• As needed, coordinate fundraising activities with UW Medicine and other unit colleagues and with central UW colleagues in Gift Planning, Corporate and Foundation Relations, Principal Gifts, Regional Gifts, etc.
• Record and track all activity using the University’s prospect-management and tracking system. Submit written strategy reports on a minimum of 75% of prospects and donors in portfolio and logging substantive contacts with organization representatives and donors.
• Maintain and refine the CFR team’s RFP tracking tools, stewardship processes and look for opportunities to enhance the overall project and data management capacity of the CFR team.

Activities in Support of Direct Fundraising—15%

• Seeking appropriate training and professional development opportunities. As needed, providing training to faculty, staff and volunteers in Corporate and Foundation Relations, ensuring that fundraising activity is compliant with University policies.
• Preparing an annual work plan and progress reports as requested. Participating in evaluating progress toward goals by completing an annual performance self-assessment.
• Assuming management of special projects as assigned by the Director for Corporate and Foundation Relations. Participating in team meetings and coordinating with fundraisers across UW Medicine and the University.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor’s degree and five or more years of progressively responsible experience in institutional advancement, preferably with experience in corporate and foundation relations, higher education, or health care.

An equivalent combination of education and/or experience may substitute for stated requirements.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

• Aligns with UW Medicine's Executive Order 31 Nondiscrimination and Affirmative Action by valuing diversity and inclusion. Is committed to building and sustaining a community in which all employees achieve the knowledge, skills and attitudes that value and embrace inclusiveness, equity and awareness to unleash creativity and innovation.
• UW Medicine employees are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner in accordance with UW Medicine Policy on Professional Conduct. An assessment of professionalism is a factor considered in performance reviews, salary adjustments and promotion.
• Preferred candidates will possess demonstrated skill in grant writing; developing plans, proposals and other written materials for advancement programs; implementing progressive strategies to forge strong relationships with corporate and foundation partners (moves management); and experience with organizational prospect research.
• Preferred candidates will possess experience with developing and securing major gifts or grants ($100,000+) and demonstrated experience creating and leading complex, collaborative prospect strategies and relationships.
• Ability to develop fundraising strategies and plans that integrate into the organization’s mission, priorities, and goals both independently and collaboratively within a team.
• Ability to work independently, problem solve, take initiative, set priorities, and handle multiple projects efficiently and effectively, while representing the mission, vision, and values of UW Medicine. Demonstrate creativity, organizational ability, strong attention to detail and ability to make decisions in ambiguous situations.
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain positive relationships; puts the team and organizational goals above individual goals, actively contributes as a member of working teams and manages strong collaborative partnerships with diverse colleagues.
• Demonstrated ability to maintain confidences and protect confidential information; acts in a selfless manner and models ethical values of the UW.
• Proficiency working with relational databases, project management tools and Microsoft Office.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Development experience in a health care, medical research and/or higher education setting is preferred.
• Development experience at an institutional giving organization.