University Overview

The University of Pennsylvania, the largest private employer in Philadelphia, is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation. This historic, Ivy League school consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Penn has 12 highly-regarded schools that provide opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and continuing education, all influenced by Penn’s distinctive interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and learning. As an employer Penn has been ranked nationally on many occasions with the most recent award from Forbes who named Penn one of America’s Best Large Employers in 2023.

Penn offers a unique working environment within the city of Philadelphia. The University is situated on a beautiful urban campus, with easy access to a range of educational, cultural, and recreational activities. With its historical significance and landmarks, lively cultural offerings, and wide variety of atmospheres, Philadelphia is the perfect place to call home for work and play.

The University offers a competitive benefits package that includes excellent healthcare and tuition benefits for employees and their families, generous retirement benefits, a wide variety of professional development opportunities, supportive work and family benefits, a wealth of health and wellness programs and resources, and much more.

Posted Job Title

Vice Dean for Development and Alumni Relations, Nursing

Job Profile Title

Job Description Summary

Penn Nursing is currently ranked as the top school of nursing in the world and consistently leads the field in its innovative approaches to nursing science, education, practice and policy-making. Its cutting edge research continues to drive meaningful change in health care and health science and its undergraduate and graduate programs are consistently amongst the top-rated programs in nursing education. It also has a strong footprint in translating its research into practice and policy at the local, national and global level.

Reporting jointly to the Dean of Penn Nursing and the Associate Vice President for University Development, Penn Nursing’s Vice Dean for Development and Alumni Relations is responsible for the overall conceptualization, planning and execution of a coordinated program of private source fundraising and alumni relations for the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Nursing. As the lead fundraiser for the program, the Vice Dean is also responsible for growing and maintaining a robust overall pool and individual pipeline of prospects, donors and volunteer leaders on the school’s behalf.

The School’s Executive Director of Marketing and Communications has a dotted reporting line to the Vice Dean. This reporting line represents the deep overlap and collaboration between the two departments in ensuring strong and aligned development and alumni relations-related messaging is delivered to external audiences in keeping with the School’s overarching priorities. This dotted line also represents the DAR team’s service-level need for writing support as well as its responsibility for ensuring that major communications vehicles like the school’s semi-annual magazine and the school’s social media channels are supportive of key development and alumni relations strategies.

The Vice Dean serves as an integral member of the Dean's senior leadership team and plays a key leadership role at the School. They will work closely with the Dean, faculty, the Board of Advisors, other advisory boards, volunteer groups, alumni and students, promoting their active involvement in the fundraising and alumni relations process, and orchestrating the use of their time and talent to advance Penn Nursing’s quest for gift and grant support, as well as further alumni engagement and public awareness.

As part of the University of Pennsylvania’s hybrid centralized/decentralized DAR structure, the Vice Dean also serves as a valued member of Central DAR’s University Development Program and will be included in leadership planning within the program. Within this structure, the Vice Dean has responsibility for cultivating and sustaining deeply collaborative relationships with Central DAR programs and colleagues in order to fully activate the additional capacity of the University’s centralized functions.

Duties also include supervision, mentoring and professional development of a staff of six FTEs who lead the alumni relations, donor relations, major gift fundraising, and stewardship initiatives for the School.

Both Penn Nursing and Penn Development and Alumni Relations are committed to cultivating a workplace that values equity, diversity, inclusion, and collaboration. We seek talented individuals who will help lead our efforts to create a more inclusive workplace in a community with a substantive institutional commitment to equity and justice. Diversity is prized at Penn as a central component of our mission and helps create an educational and working environment that best supports the University’s commitment to excellence in teaching, research, and scholarship.

Job Description

Specific Responsibilities:

Lead a coordinated and comprehensive program of alumni engagement and private source funding including:

• Setting fiscal year fundraising goals and leading solicitation activity to achieve commitments in the range of $6M to $9M on average with year-over-year growth as a target;
• developing and executing multi-year strategic plans involving alumni relations, development and communications-related initiatives;
• managing staff and budgets;
• maintaining and analyzing data in support of strategic planning;
• developing effective cases for support for school priorities;
• building meaningful volunteer and alumni engagement opportunities;
• overseeing a broad-based annual giving program pointed at both alumni and non-alumni friends of the school;
• organizing events and visibility opportunities in support of strategic initiatives;
• planning and executing campaigns as needed.

Cultivate, solicit and steward the School's top prospects and manage a pipeline of these top prospects. Engage the Dean, faculty, staff, board and volunteers in executing the required cultivation, solicitation and stewardship activities to advance the School’s quest for gift and grant support as well as media and public awareness.

Expand and strengthen the school’s fundraising pool and pipeline of potential new donors through sophisticated methods of entrepreneurial prospecting including data analysis, internal prospect research, collaboration with the Central DAR frontline, sourcing leads through board members and other volunteers, etc. Organize practical strategies to secure funding from such sources.

With the Dean and in collaboration with both Central DAR and the Office of the University Secretary, establish a plan to manage, engage and expand the School’s Board of Advisors, its premier volunteer organization. Responsibility for managing and staffing the Chair of the Board and key Board leaders in a timely and efficient manner.

Supervise and mentor the Development and Alumni Relations staff (6 FTEs) to sustain the successful achievement of departmental and individual goals, foster a strong team culture and further professionally develop individual staff members by:

• Communicating financial and key performance indicators and results to direct reports
• Establishing priorities and goals for each direct reporting staff member and coordinate additional staff level goal setting with the Executive Director for Development.
• Managing staffing needs and identifying areas for organizational development updates or changes
• Guiding the talent identification and professional development needs, processes and outcomes within the department in line with the University’s diversity and inclusion priorities
• Setting clear performance expectations and holding staff accountable for outcomes through frequent feedback and coaching
• Ensuring open communication among staff, engaging in team building efforts and holding regular and inclusive staff meetings
• Inspiring, motivating, managing and coaching staff to achieve optimum results

Serve as a member of the Dean’s senior administrative leadership team and participate in key School-wide initiatives where Development and Alumni Relations is a meaningful partner. Collaborate with other senior Nursing leaders on schoolwide priorities.

Collaborate with colleagues and partners throughout the University’s Central Development and Alumni Relations department as well as other schools and centers across Penn to communicate school priorities, collaborate around key strategies and solicitations, provide data, coordinate external activities and otherwise maximize the University’s DAR capacity in support of the school’s development and alumni relations efforts.

**Please provide a resume and cover letter in order to be considered for this role. Please upload all documents in the “Resume/CV” section of the application prior to submitting.**

Qualifications:

Penn Nursing and Penn DAR actively seek and welcome people of color, women, the LGBTQIA+ community, persons with disabilities, and people at intersections of these identities, to apply.

• BA/BS degree required. Master’s degree preferred.

• A minimum of ten years of successful fund-raising experience including a proven record of success in securing six and seven figure gifts with increasingly more responsible fund-raising duties, preferably at a major research university comparable to Penn.

• Familiarity and appreciation of the role and mission of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and its relationship to the University as well as understanding the importance of nursing’s role and impact in health and health care; capacity to articulate that role/impact and interact comfortably with those individuals and constituency groups crucial to the advancement of Penn Nursing.

• Demonstrated track record in the identification, cultivation and stewardship of leadership and major gifts ($100,000+ with a focus on growth strategies leading to principal gifts-level contributions).

• Strong management and program administration skills and the ability to establish objectives, set performance standards, and organize and motivate staff, faculty and volunteers to achieve fund-raising goals.

• Demonstrated experience in establishing effective relationships with volunteers.

• Strong written and oral communication skills.

• Adaptability, flexibility and diplomacy.

• High motivation and a capacity for hard work within the context of a goal-driven environment.

• A demonstrated ability to analyze funding sources and relate their potential to the School's long range goals; more particularly, to organize practical strategies to bring closure to gift and grant opportunities is required.

• Ability to function well independently, yet relate comfortably to a centralized framework for fund raising, participating in and contributing to a total team effort.

• Travel and evening work required.

Job Location - City, State

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Department / School

Development and Alumni Relations

Pay Range

$177,778.00 - $225,000.00 Annual RateSalary offers are made based on the candidate’s qualifications, experience, skills, and education as they directly relate to the requirements of the position, as well as internal and market factors and grade profile.

Affirmative Action Statement
Penn adheres to a policy that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected class.

Special Requirements
Background check required after a conditional job offer is made. Consideration of the background check will be tailored to the requirements of the job.

University Benefits

• Health, Life, and Flexible Spending Accounts: Penn offers comprehensive medical, prescription, behavioral health, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits to protect you and your family’s health and welfare. You can also use flexible spending accounts to pay for eligible health care and dependent care expenses with pre-tax dollars.

• Tuition: Take advantage of Penn's exceptional tuition benefits. You, your spouse, and your dependent children can get tuition assistance here at Penn. Your dependent children are also eligible for tuition assistance at other institutions.

• Retirement: Penn offers generous retirement plans to help you save for your future. Penn’s Basic, Matching, and Supplemental retirement plans allow you to save for retirement on a pre-tax or Roth basis. Choose from a wide variety of investment options through TIAA and Vanguard.

• Time Away from Work: Penn provides you with a substantial amount of time away from work during the course of the year. This allows you to relax, take vacations, attend to personal affairs, recover from illness or injury, spend time with family—whatever your personal needs may be.

• Long-Term Care Insurance: In partnership with Genworth Financial, Penn offers faculty and staff (and your eligible family members) long-term care insurance to help you cover some of the costs of long-term care services received at home, in the community or in a nursing facility. If you apply when you’re newly hired, you won’t have to provide proof of good health or be subject to underwriting requirements. Eligible family members must always provide proof of good health and are subject to underwriting.

• Wellness and Work-life Resources: Penn is committed to supporting our faculty and staff as they balance the competing demands of work and personal life. That’s why we offer a wide variety of programs and resources to help you care for your health, your family, and your work-life balance.

• Professional and Personal Development: Penn provides an array of resources to help you advance yourself personally and professionally.

• University Resources: As a member of the Penn community, you have access to a wide range of University resources as well as cultural and recreational activities. Take advantage of the University’s libraries and athletic facilities, or visit our arboretum and art galleries. There’s always something going on at Penn, whether it’s a new exhibit at the Penn Museum, the latest music or theater presentation at the Annenberg Center, or the Penn Relays at Franklin Field to name just a few examples. As a member of the Penn community, you’re right in the middle of the excitement—and you and your family can enjoy many of these activities for free.

• Discounts and Special Services: From arts and entertainment to transportation and mortgages, you'll find great deals for University faculty and staff. Not only do Penn arts and cultural centers and museums offer free and discounted admission and memberships to faculty and staff. You can also enjoy substantial savings on other goods and services such as new cars from Ford and General Motors, cellular phone service plans, movie tickets, and admission to theme parks.

• Flexible Work Hours: Flexible work options offer creative approaches for completing work while promoting balance between work and personal commitments. These approaches involve use of non-traditional work hours, locations, and/or job structures.

• Penn Home Ownership Services: Penn offers a forgivable loan for eligible employees interested in buying a home or currently residing in West Philadelphia, which can be used for closing costs or home improvements.

• Adoption Assistance: Penn will reimburse eligible employees on qualified expenses in connection with the legal adoption of an eligible child, such as travel or court fees, for up to two adoptions in your household.

To learn more, please visit: https://www.hr.upenn.edu/PennHR/benefits-pay