Executive Director, Gift Management

Department
 

ARD Advancement Operations

About the Department
 

Alumni Relations and Development (ARD) engages alumni (~220k), current students, parents, and friends of the University through intellectual, professional, and social activities on campus, around the world and online. ARD raises $600 Million annually to support faculty and researchers, practitioners and patients, and students and programs across the University. Our work supports priorities in every division, school, department, and institute.

The Gift Management team advances the University of Chicago’s fundraising efforts through its partnership with colleagues across the University to enhance a donor’s experience throughout the life cycle of their giving. In furtherance of ARD goals and with a focus on operational excellence, the team develops and enforces gift acceptance policy that ensures adherence to gift acceptance principles; accurately documents, processes, and records donor gifts and commitments; monitors and reports on the status of complex giving; supports pledge fulfillment through the development and delivery of pledge reminders; and oversees gift compliance and addresses gift compliance issues.

Job Summary
 

The Executive Director, Gift Management manages multiple related teams of managers and professional staff, including receiving, troubleshooting, processing, and other related records matters. Develops and maintains gift and records processing policies and procedures. Manages and maintains gift and records systems. Develops departmental plans in alignment with the fundraising goals of the University and division. Provides leadership to the gift processing and records staff.

This position manages the professional staff responsible for ARD’s gift management functions, which includes gift administration, gift agreements, gift acceptance policy, gift compliance and pledge reminders, ensuring the collective team works collaboratively with colleagues across ARD to develop and promote sound gift management functions that lead to proper documentation, processing, recording, and stewarding of donor gifts.

Responsibilities

• Leads a team, currently comprised of staff members, including managers and individual contributors.
• Fosters gift management environment that aligns gift management efforts with ARD goals and supports the University’s ambitious fundraising plans.
• Collaborates with ARD senior leadership and various departments across the University, including the Office of Legal Counsel, Financial Services, Budget Office, Provost’s Office and Dean’s offices, representing the gift management team and leveraging relationships to advance the work of the team and ARD.
• Oversees management of gift administration, which is responsible for the recording and receipting of all gifts and pledges to the University, in a timely fashion in accordance with University policy, donor intent, federal and state regulations, and industry best practices, and includes campaign coding in the ARD database of record, during campaign periods.
• Directs the gift agreement process from beginning to end, including the team that serves as the University’s primary resource in the development of gift agreements, which consists of letters of gift, pledges, intention, direction; and amendments. Ensures gift acceptance is compliant with University policy, state and federal laws, and IRS regulations.
• Establishes, leads, and coordinates the University’s gift compliance program. Develops and maintains processes for ensuring gifts are utilized in accordance with donor intent and for how to address gifts that have become impossible, impracticable, or inadvisable to use as originally intended.
• Oversees pledge reminder process, including pledge reminders developed for University trustees, and other gift and pledge reporting for complex giving.
• Produces, review, and approves gift agreements University-wide as necessary, balancing the interests of donors and the University, and memorializes the mutual commitments and obligations of both parties. Consults, negotiates, and collaborates with fundraisers, trustees, and high-level donors and their advisors, to ensure gifts are successful and compliant with internal policies and applicable laws and regulations.
• Serves as subject matter expert on ARD gift management policies, particularly gift acceptance and counting policies, as well as industry counting and documentation standards (CASE). Handles requests for policy exceptions and responds to questions and requests for policy determinations. Develops and amends policies as needed.
• Leads and participates on cross-department committees within ARD and across the University, to address difficult questions, spot issues, benchmark, and develop and promote best practices.
• Oversees gift