Executive Director, Development, Academic Medical Centers

About the role

Our team members are the heart of what makes us better. At Hackensack Meridian Health we help our patients live better, healthier lives — and we help one another to succeed. With a culture rooted in connection and collaboration, our employees are team members. Here, competitive benefits are just the beginning. It’s also about how we support one another and how we show up for our community. Together, we keep getting better - advancing our mission to transform healthcare and serve as a leader of positive change.

Responsibilities

• Understands the complex, mission-driven nature of an academic medical center, including the integration of clinical care, research, and medical education and leverages this understanding to articulate compelling, donor-centered philanthropic opportunities.
• Builds and sustains deep relationships with medical center leadership, department chairs, researchers, and clinical faculty to identify transformative funding priorities aligned with institutional research and education missions.
• Designs and executes a comprehensive major and principal gift program targeting prospects capable of six-, seven-, and eight-figure commitments; personally manages a portfolio of top-tier prospects through all phases of the donor cycle.
• Works collaboratively to actively engage physicians and other clinicians in the identification of grateful patients and families.
• Leads and mentors a team of development professionals responsible for raising major- and principal-level gifts and who are dedicated to medical center priorities, establishing clear performance benchmarks, accountability structures, and a culture of excellence in donor engagement.
• Champions endowment fundraising, including named professorships, research endowments, and fellowship funds, educating donors on the long-term legacy value of endowed giving.
• Drives planned and deferred giving conversations within the medical center donor base, partnering with gift planning colleagues to cultivate estate commitments and blended gift strategies.
• Engages, staffs, and grows the volunteer leadership, inspiring trustees to serve as philanthropic ambassadors and to participate actively in peer-to-peer solicitation.
• Collaborates with institutional giving and grants teams to align foundation proposals with medical center research priorities, ensuring a coordinated approach to institutional funders.
• Develops and manages the annual fundraising budget for the medical center portfolio, tracking performance against goals and providing regular reports to senior leadership.
• Creates and implements multi-year fundraising campaigns tied to medical center capital and programmatic priorities, including new clinical facilities and research and educational initiatives.
• Maintains current and compelling case-for-support materials, proposals, and stewardship reports that reflect the medical center's academic distinction and research impact.
• Other duties and/or projects as assigned.
• Adheres to HMH Organizational competencies and standards of behavior.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree required

Minimum of ten (10) years of progressively responsible experience in major gift fundraising, with at least five (5) years in an academic medical center, research university, or comparable complex institution.

Demonstrated record of personally closing gifts of $1 million or more from individuals, families, and institutional sources.

Deep familiarity with the academic medicine environment, including the faculty governance, research enterprise, and clinical program dynamics unique to academic medical center settings.