Assistant Vice President for Advancement Services

Assistant Vice President for Advancement Services

The Development and Alumni Relations organization at Johns Hopkins University has a development team of approximately 550 individuals and an overall budget of $70 million. The division enjoys tremendous support from the academic leadership of Johns Hopkins University and Medicine. More than 190 front-line fundraisers help to generate an average of $800 million in total commitments annually, with the last three fiscal years averaging over one billion dollars per fiscal year.

The division has embraced a set of core operating values that have helped the organization and the behavior of the entire team. These values are:

• A deep commitment to collaboration and working across boundaries.
• A focus on people through the professional development and growth of the staff.
• A driving awareness of the responsibility to build internal and external relationships for the University.
• A fundamental commitment to integrity.
• An embrace of creativity and innovation.
• A trust in and respect for colleagues and the spirit of transparency.

Assistant Vice President, Advancement

The Assistant Vice President (AVP) will bring their senior advancement services and operations experience to an executive leadership position within the Development and Alumni Relations (DAR) organization, providing central services to all 550+ staff. The AVP is responsible for developing and implementing a long-term vision and strategy for technology, data governance, data utilization, and pipeline development for the Johns Hopkins development and alumni relations organization. The Assistant Vice President provides strategic leadership and direct management of teams that analyze, develop, and deliver the data and technology required to fuel a successful advancement operation. Teams include Data Administration, Customer Success & IT Services, Relationship Management & Prospect Analytics, and Development Research.

The AVP will lead through intentional, strategic partnerships with other members of DAR leadership, and with teams and programs across the University and Medicine. This role manages a team of senior leaders, setting directives for overall priorities and overseeing response and prevention to data security concerns. They will oversee critical projects impacting all of DAR and Johns Hopkins University. The AVP will function as the senior-most leader on all DAR initiatives related to data, infrastructure, technologies, and reporting, often acting as a direct liaison to JHU stakeholders in risk management, data governance, and account management.

Duties and Responsibilities

OSA Leadership and Management

• Manage staff located across the organization with the use of clearly defined and measurable goals and metrics to assess individual and team performance; such systems should inspire all staff and engender a commitment to reaching all professional goals.
• Establish annual goals, plans, and operations. Measure progress toward goals and make decisions related to organizational strategic planning and vision.
• Work closely with DAR leadership to help facilitate organizational goals, increase organizational capacity, shorten time to decisions, and strengthen the organization's overall performance.
• Conduct process mapping across DAR to better align technology, decision-making, and workflows.

Foster a positive working environment

• Lead and inspire the team by fostering a culture where effective teamwork, collaboration, innovation, excellence, and inclusion are recognized and rewarded; lead by example regarding professionalism, creativity, entrepreneurship, appropriate risk-taking, and cross-organizational cooperation.
• Cultivate a culture that embraces DAR and JHU values and engages and grows staff throughout their tenure at Hopkins.

DAR Leadership and Management

• Provide strategic leadership to DAR as a member of the DAR Executive Team.
• Collaborate with the staff throughout the entire organization as a leader, advocate, mentor, catalyst, and expert.
• Work closely with DAR leadership to help facilitate organizational goals, increase organizational capacity, shorten time to decisions, and strengthen the organization's overall performance.

Data Governance, CRM Management, and Technology Services

• Develop a collaborative environment in which data and technology decisions are business-driven and informed by the business needs of stakeholders and staff across the organization. Steward strategies related to technological change management and user adoption.
• Own the enterprise data governance strategy for DAR, including definitions, documentation standards, naming conventions, and access controls.
• Oversee CRM architecture design, configuration, and optimization to support frontline fundraising and alumni engagement workflows. Ensure system scalability to support campaigns, annual giving growth, and alumni and stakeholder engagement initiatives. Manage relationships with CRM vendors and external consultants.
• Ensure accuracy, integrity, and security of donor and alumni data. Oversee cybersecurity protocols and data privacy compliance (GDPR, state regulations).
• Establish and enforce data governance policies. Ensure robust and up-to-date security strategies at all times.
• Manage data entry standards and system enhancements. Develop and monitor data integrity KPIs (duplicate rates, missing data trends, coding accuracy). Lead data audits and remediation initiatives.
• Support and champion the adoption of innovative technologies and best practices to meet or exceed stakeholder expectations and ensure support for annual and campaign fundraising success.
• Lead system upgrade projects, data migrations, and technology transitions. Implement automation where appropriate to increase scalability.
• Oversee a DAR-wide stakeholder/user group to ensure data and technology decisions are informed by opportunities identified by business units across the organization.
• Lead training, change management, and user adoption for all enterprise data and technology systems for DAR.

Fundraising Performance, Donor and Prospect Pipeline, and Strategy

• Foster a culture of data-informed decision-making across frontline fundraising and engagement teams.
• Ensure scalability of prospect management and research infrastructure to support campaign growth and emerging fundraising priorities.
• Develop an integrated strategy across the Advancement Services teams to maximize DAR's ability to meet and exceed fundraising goals.
• Oversee prospect risk review processes, flagging concerns or considerations for DAR and JHU leadership as appropriate.
• Partner with DAR leadership to set annual fundraising and engagement goals informed by pipeline analytics and capacity modeling.

Data, Reporting, and Business Intelligence

• Develop a Business Intelligence & Analytics (BIA) program that translates business objectives into analytics reporting, enabling data-driven decision-making and optimizing fundraising results.

• Develop a robust reporting model, including dashboards, for real-time decision making for DAR overall, divisional, and university senior leadership, and periodic/annual reporting as required.

• Present and produce accurate gift data to the Senior leadership and the Board of Trustees.

• Steward JHU's leadership in emerging technologies and trends as it relates to data management, analytics, and AI integrations.

Gift Processing, Administration, and Compliance

• Manage the central gift administration team, ensuring compliance with internal and external policies and federal and state laws. Oversee gift receipting function in alignment with IRS standards as well as US and international legal requirements. Ensure institutional 1099 reporting is compliant and accurate.
• Provides accurate gift reporting for external organizations like CASE and other membership organizations.
• Manage key stakeholders and partners. Internal stakeholders include, but are not limited to, the Controller's office, the Office of Budget and Finance, the Office of Internal Audits, and IT Security.
• Manage audit support and reconciliation with finance teams across Johns Hopkins University.
• Lead enterprise-wide discussions on gift counting standards, revenue forecasting, and performance measurement.

Other Duties as Assigned

• Take on permanent and temporary leadership of teams and initiatives within DAR, leveraging change management tools and succession planning to lead shifting programs towards success.
• Serve as the executive sponsor of special projects or emerging priorities as identified by DAR leadership.

Minimum Qualifications

• A Bachelor's Degree required, advanced degree preferred.
• Extensive experience overseeing substantial budgets and operations.
• Significant record of senior-level management/leadership within a complex organization.
• Ten years' experience working in Advancement Services; 15+ years of progressively responsible advancement services experience in a complex higher education and/or academic medicine environment preferred.
• Proven collaboration and partnership skills to accomplish shared goals involving colleagues and other senior leaders.
• Demonstrated success at directing/managing multiple complex projects concurrently and within stipulated budgets and timelines.

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated knowledge of the field of development and alumni relations, including currents trends in fundraising.
• Ability to conceptualize and implement a development services infrastructure for a complex fundraising environment, including the ability to envision and articulate future direction.
• Supervisory and management