Assistant Director of Stewardship

About the role

The Office of Institutional Advancement is seeking an experienced Assistant Director of Stewardship to design and deliver timely, accurate, and meaningful donor communications. The Assistant Director is responsible for building and strengthening stewardship processes, and will serve as a key partner to gift officers, advancement services, academic departments, and the Office of Financial Aid; in service of enhancing the TC donor experience. Reporting to the Director of Donor Relations and Special Projects, the Assistant Director of Stewardship advances philanthropic engagement for Teachers College, Columbia University (TC) by ensuring donors are consistently and effectively informed of the use and impact of the initiatives they have supported. This role provides essential stewardship infrastructure to support donor trust, satisfaction, and long-term engagement.

Responsibilities

• Manages the narrative reporting of all endowed and expendable funds for donor stewardship under the standards set by the Director of Donor Relations and Special Projects.
• Partners with faculty and academic departments to gather impact content and ensure reporting deadlines are met.
• Collaborates with the Office of Financial Aid to ensure funds are awarded annually per the donors’ documented intentions and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
• Coordinates the collection of student biographies, thank-you letters, photo submissions, and profile details from scholarship recipients for reporting, annual fund materials, and other stewardship communications.
• Manages and refines the gift acknowledgement process, including workflow, messaging standards, and quality control.
• Drafts high-level executive correspondence on behalf of the College President, Vice President of Institutional Advancement, and senior leadership as assigned.
• Partners closely with the frontline fundraising team to organize meetings between scholarship recipients and donors, and develops a briefing process to prepare students for these meetings.
• Collaboratively supports donor events by identifying, conducting outreach to, and coaching student speakers and participants.
• Provides on-site event setup and execution support, serving as a representative for Institutional Advancement and TC.
• Manages donor relations data, including accurate record-keeping, tracking, and donor data integrity in Raiser’s Edge NXT.
• Executes ad-hoc special projects and duties as assigned by the Director.

Requirements

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Minimum 3 years of experience in stewardship, donor relations, development, marketing communications, or related fields.

Preferred qualifications:

• Prior experience in a higher education or complex non-profit institutional advancement