Director, Alumni Engagement and Donor Relations, A&S

• Lead a Strategic Vision: Develop and lead unit implementation of a best-in-class strategic plan for alumni engagement, donor stewardship and fund compliance using innovative initiatives.
• Champion Significant Connections: Create dynamic opportunities for alumni and donors to engage through diverse platforms, while cultivating a culture of lifelong connection, philanthropy, and engagement.
• Strengthen Partnerships: Partner with internal stakeholders-including the dean's office and advisory board, academic leaders, central donor relations, the CU Boulder Alumni Association and campus entities-and external constituents such as board members, alumni, volunteers, donors, and corporate partners. These collaborations will develop professional opportunities, important partnerships, and a strong network that benefits current and future alumni.
• Meaningfully Steward Donors: In conjunction with unit partners, develop individualized stewardship plans for major and principal gifts. Create unique strategies that deepen a donor's relationship with CU Boulder and create substantial, lasting connections.

• Lead and manage implementation of strategy to engage, cultivate and involve constituents in ways that support the school's vision and strategic direction. Set and measure goals, including CASE metrics around alumni engagement in collaboration with the Arts and Sciences Advancement team.
• Ensure advancement events consistently represent the school's standards of excellence, while serving as impactful platforms for alumni and constituent engagement. Create strategy for 5-10 high-impact annual events for donor stewardship and alumni engagement.
• Collaborate with the Arts and Sciences Communications team to create and deliver initiatives support alumni and donor engagement goals, including storytelling, alumni profiles, podcasts, video series, newsletters, the annual alumni magazine, and event promotions to inspire pride and enhance alumni visibility.
• Propose, collaborate, and pilot new projects as needed with feedback loops from alumni to refine engagement efforts, ensuring the program remains responsive to alumni needs and interests.
• Collaborate with Donor Relations to brainstorm, organize, and pilot new donor relations projects that support donor stewardship and engagement.
• Lead the unit to identify, promote, and support opportunities to celebrate and recognize alumni and volunteers. Examples may include alumni awards and alumni publications.
• Supervise strategy development, process and measurement of fund usage and compliance on 1,800+ funds across three central college units including the College of Arts & Sciences, Graduate School, and University Libraries.
• Serve as the lead liaison to the College of Arts & Sciences Dean's Advisory Board (DAB). Manage and organize annual meetings, including board books, meeting agenda and programs.

• Complete all aspects of managing and leading a team of individuals responsible for donor stewardship, fund compliance, alumni engagement, events, board engagement.
• Provide coaching and mentorship, especially to new team members.
• Carry out administrative personnel actions (performance management, hiring, training, onboarding, offboarding, etc.)
• Set the overall direction for the team engagement activities annually. Define metrics, set goals and develop processes for metrics reporting. Keys to success include leading the team to develop priorities and schedules prior to the beginning of each fiscal year, and clarifying roles, responsibilities and expectations.
• Cultivate an environment that encourages creativity and innovation and empowers the team to experiment with new engagement strategies without fear of failure.
• Be responsible for the team's budget and ensure alignment with strategic priorities, optimizing resources to improve impact.

• Attend and be an influential member of the campus community of alumni and donor relations directors across campus to share information, discuss standard processes and identify potential partnerships and joint initiatives.
• Work with CU system, CU Foundation and CU Boulder Advancement staff to assist with the effective identification, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship of donors.
• Meet annual engagement metrics.
• Ensure unit execution of campus donor relations strategic framework, stewardship matrices and standard processes.

• This position will occasionally require you to work evenings/weekends.
• This position can work a hybrid schedule with some days on campus and some days remote.
• This position may require local, regional, and out-of-state travel to engage with university constituents.

• Education: Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience: 4+ years of professional, job related experience including 1+ years of team lead or supervision experience.
• Experience developing, planning and rolling out strategy.
• Program and event management experience.

• Ability to strategize plans for employee retention and satisfaction.
• Proficiency in situational leadership to discover what motivates individual team members to achieve goals.
• Strong interpersonal skills, to establish relationships, including the ability to coordinate and manage volunteers.
• Knowledge of fundraising, donor relations, and alumni engagement standard methodologies.
• Expert communication skills including the ability to participate in public events and represent Advancement and the university in a professional manner.
• Analytical skills to evaluate information, data, and situations to solve problems.
• A high degree of tact, discretion, and collaboration to work with a diverse range of constituents including employees, students, volunteers, alumni, donors, and campus colleagues.
• Keen organizational skills to manage multiple projects/tasks simultaneously; ability to work independently and on a team and adapt to changing priorities.
• Solid knowledge of current issues facing public universities and interests of assigned school, students, faculty, and alumni.
• Ability to champion the shared values of the Office of Advancement.

• Experience in constituent relations/relationship management.
• Experience in a higher education environment.
• Growth mindset, resilience and perseverance. An appetite for collaboration and fun.
• Software Used: Microsoft Office products, database management and data manipulation, Salesforce, Zoom, Teams, Academic Impressions, Trello, LinkedIn, Marketing Cloud, Marketplace, Google docs/sheets, Cvent.

• A current resume.
• A cover letter that specifically tells us how your background and experience align with the requirements, qualifications, and responsibilities of the position.

University of Colorado Boulder