About City of Hope
City of Hope, an innovative biomedical research, treatment and educational institution with over 6,000 employees, is dedicated to the prevention and cure of cancer and other life-threatening diseases and guided by a compassionate, patient-centered philosophy.
Founded in 1913 and headquartered in Duarte, California, City of Hope is a remarkable non-profit institution, where compassion and advanced care go hand-in-hand with excellence in clinical and scientific research. City of Hope is a National Cancer Institute designated Comprehensive Cancer Center and a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of the nation's leading cancer centers that develops and institutes standards of care for cancer treatment.
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City of Hope's Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
City of Hope's diversity, equity and inclusion strategy aims to formulate a policy and systems-focused approach that addresses social determinants of health and responds to implicit bias and structural racism. Since its inception more than a century ago, City of Hope has been dedicated to providing equitable treatment to all the people we serve. This focus on inclusion is the cornerstone of our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) strategy and reflects our commitment to those founding principles. Our mission, "to infuse DEI into the DNA at City of Hope," will serve as our north star and help ensure the tenets of diversity, equity and inclusion are an integral part of our day-to-day engagement with each other, our patients, their families and caregivers, and our broader community.
Office of Philanthropy Vision Statement
Philanthropy is at the heart of City of Hope's mission in turning "hope into reality." We offer an extraordinary donor and volunteer experience, one that invites, delights, and deepens relationships over time. City of Hope Philanthropy is one of a handful of premiere, exceptionally-regarded, and top-producing programs in the country.
Recruiting and developing exceptionally talented team members are hallmarks of the Office of Philanthropy. We demonstrate our commitment to our people through continuous learning and development opportunities and aim to foster an environment where each individual can thrive, personally and professionally. We increase the effectiveness of our team through transparency and accountability, building trust within teams; celebrating diversity and inclusion; enhancing team communications and removing roadblocks to maximize activation.
Position Summary
About the Position
The Vice President for Donor Experience and Philanthropy Communications (VP) reports directly to the Chief Philanthropy Officer and manages three core functions: Donor Experience, Philanthropy Marketing and Communications, and Transformational Philanthropy and Campaign Communications. Approximately 12 staff report into this function, including three associate vice president roles. The continued growth of this team is anticipated as a core element of our strategic growth plan. The VP will be responsible for developing a comprehensive donor experience platform, using consumer-branding-marketing and journey mapping strategies, and coordinating these strategies within an integrated philanthropy communications platform. A key partner to this role is City of Hope's MarComm team.
Among the most important responsibilities of the VP-PCDE will be to work closely with the CPO, the Campaign Architect, and the CPO's senior leadership team in the planning and execution of a comprehensive multi-billion-dollar campaign. The position serves as a member of the Senior Steering Leadership Team (SSLT).
We are seeking a strategic, insightful and innovative marketing and communications leader who combines an expertise in institutional marketing and communications with a specialized expertise in enhancing the donor/customer experience, mapping donor/customer journeys, and creating profiles/personas for the purposes of highly tailored communications and engagement strategies. Ideally, the candidate also would bring to the role a sophisticated, experience-based understanding of philanthropy, including comprehensive campaigns, annual giving, stewardship and recognition, major giving, and principal and transformative giving. While a candidate's understanding of philanthropy is important, we are especially interested in those candidates with expertise in consumer-focused, exemplary service business models to help us cultivate generous, engaged lifelong supporters.
The Vice President will lead OOP's transition to strategic, behavior-based donor relations and donor engagement with the goal of maximizing fundraising success and donor loyalty. To support this goal, the Vice President will deploy best practices taken from a multi-industry consumer/value-based approach (ex: marketing, public relations, hospitality, retail customer service, member services, philanthropy, etc.) to develop and roll out a consumer/philanthropy-based donor persona strategy that takes into account donor loyalty, interests, cumulative giving, philosophy of giving and other behaviors.
The Vice President will use these donor personas to help guide donor outreach and experience planning and will oversee the development and implementation of an innovative, strategic, efficient, effective and engaging donor experience/outreach program that tracks and measures the impact of City of Hope's outreach efforts. The Vice President will also ensure the effective use of donor personas to shape and inform the overall OOP communications strategy.
The VP also will oversee, in close partnership with the Campaign Architect, a growing team specializing in proposal writing, campaign communications, case development, digital communications, stewardship and impact reports, and donor acknowledgements. Through a cohesive array of compelling communications, this team will have responsibility for showcasing City of Hope's differentiating strengths, articulating enterprise priorities, communicating about campaign pillars, demonstrating the importance and impact of giving, recognizing and celebrating the generosity of donors, cultivating and stewarding supporters, and helping persuade prospective donors to make significant investments in City of Hope's healing mission.
The Vice President will work closely with the Campaign Architect to ensure alignment on all aspects of campaign communications and experience planning, partnering on the engagement and oversight of external agencies and outside consultants in support of the campaign communications, branding, and event strategies, the development and dissemination of campaign messaging and publications, the development of a campaign microsite, gift announcements, and key donor experience elements including the campaign launch and signature campaign events.
The successful candidate will bring to the process a strong personal ability to influence and implement plans in a dynamic and collaborative environment that involves multiple departments, stakeholders and cross-functional teams. The Vice President will be a natural relationship builder with the gravitas, skill and confidence to network and negotiate effectively at senior levels within and outside the Office of Philanthropy. The successful candidate will also have working knowledge of the integral relationship between enterprise strategic vision, the philanthropic growth plan, campaign design and strategy, constituent engagement, communications, donor experience, fundraising and philanthropy operations.
Key Responsibilities include:
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- Essential Functions:
- Vision and Strategic Direction of a Comprehensive Donor Experience Program and Donor Persona Program
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- Leverage industry knowledge and influencing skills to oversee the design and implementation of a comprehensive and sophisticated donor experience program, including inspirational and loyalty-based communications strategies, reporting, recognition and events.
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- Supervise the Associate Vice President, Donor Experience (AVP-DE), who is charged with the operational execution of the Donor Experience program.
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- In collaboration with the AVP-DE, oversee the design and execution of strategies essential for:
- fostering donor loyalty and connection,
- cultivating and retaining top prospects,
- demonstrating the importance and impact of giving to enterprise priorities,
- building an "experience culture," and
- helping shift City of Hope's philanthropic culture to one focused on giving to enterprise priorities.
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- In doing so, the Vice President and AVP-DE will play a critical role in helping City of Hope:
- expand the prospect pipeline and build a stronger base of donors at all levels,
- strengthen donor relationships,
- strengthen donor interest and satisfaction,
- strengthen donor retention with increased giving by retained donors,
- secure significant gifts at all levels, and
- increase philanthropic revenue.
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- Donor Persona Program - Vision and Leadership
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- The VP-PCDE will oversee the development and rollout of a donor personas framework that will help the OOP engage supporters more effectively, with more sophisticated segmentation strategies and more targeted engagement.
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- In conjunction with a consulting partner (if needed), define and deliver a set of donor personas that represents the City of Hope donor pool.
- Determine the values, behaviors, characteristics and indicators that should go into a donor persona definition.
- Define a set of donor personas that represent the values, behaviors, motivators, interests, preferences and characteristics of different segments of our donor pool.
- Identify the specific criteria for assigning donor personas to the individuals in our donor database.
- Provide direction and criteria for the ongoing evaluation and assignment of primary and secondary personas as well as a process/plan for evaluating and adjusting persona assignments as needed over time.
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- Provide actionable, strategic guidance on the use of donor personas.
- Provide a comprehensive set of strategic recommendations for how the personas - and the values, motivators, interests, behaviors, needs and preferences that underlie them - might inform our engagement and communications strategies, helping us create a lifelong pathway for engagement and giving for donors at all levels.
- Provide guidance for how to capture, track and measure the impact of using donor personas to support fundraising, reshape the donor experience and refine communications.
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- Donor Experience and Recognition
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- Oversee the design and execution of a comprehensive donor recognition strategy, innovating the recognition model to inspire giving to critical Enterprise priorities and deepen engagement and investment across all levels of giving.
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- Ensure that donor experiences are tied to the campaign framework and help bring enterprise strategic priorities to life.
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- Identify areas within the OOP and throughout the greater City of Hope enterprise where enhanced donor experiences are to be deepened and/or developed.
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- Develop and implement best practices for the execution of stewardship actions by donor engagement staff. Establish policies, systems and procedures for tracking workflow and interactions within CRM in a timely manner.
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- Oversee the design and execution of donor experience and constituent engagement strategies.
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- Oversee the team charged with the design and implementation of signature and campaign events.
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- Oversee staff running the Enterprise Leadership Deployment program, and as needed, advise the team on navigating opportunities and challenges.
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- Consult with volunteers and implement other unique donor surveying approaches to proactively collect, monitor and manage the stewardship needs of donors and develop tracking methods for reporting overall stewardship productivity.
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- Philanthropy Marketing and Communications/Transformative Philanthropy and Campaign Communications Leadership
- Supervise the Associate Vice President, Transformative Philanthropy and Campaign Communications (AVP-TPCC) and the Associate Vice President, Philanthropy and Marketing Communications (AVP-PMC).
- Oversee development of an integrated and comprehensive philanthropy and campaign communications plan that brings all Office of Philanthropy messaging together for stronger integration, strategic delivery and cascading of messaging. The plan should recognize and support the unique qualities of each philanthropy program and audience, while ensuring coordinated messaging across platforms and philanthropy programs/departments. This includes:
- Annual and Leadership Annual Giving
- Planned Giving
- Major, Principal and Transformative Giving
- Foundation Giving
- Corporate Philanthropy / Industry Events
- Donor Relations / Donor Experience
- Announcements
- Strategic Fundraising Initiatives / Comprehensive Campaign
- Digital Communications (websites, microsites, e-blasts, videos, etc.)
- Internal (Philanthropy) Communications
- References to philanthropy in enterprise-wide platforms (City of Hope publications, news, websites, etc.)
- Lead the development of engaging, compelling communications that showcase City of Hope's differentiating qualities, communicate strategic fundraising priorities, demonstrate the importance and impact of giving, inspire deepened investment, recognize donor loyalty, and foster donor connection and interest
- Serve as a key partner to the Campaign Architect on campaign conceptualization and architecture, the development of campaign initiatives or "big ideas," and the campaign messaging, case development, branding and communications strategy.
- Partner with the Campaign Architect, SVP-Individual Giving and AVP-TPCC to ensure the development of compelling communications for major gift, principal gift and transformative gift prospects and donors, including proposals, concept papers, cases for support, gift opportunities, presentation materials, impact reports and other collateral.
- Oversee OOP's digital communications strategy, providing strategic leadership and creative input on the development of videos, a new Office of Philanthropy campaign microsite, e-communications, social media placement and other digital communications.
- Oversee the team's partnership with the enterprise marketing and communications department to ensure optimal synergies, partnerships, adherence and alignment of strategies and tactical execution in coordination with City of Hope branding.
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- Donor Stewardship Reporting and Gift Acknowledgements
- Provide management oversight of the ongoing collaboration and partnership between the Communications and Donor Experience teams to develop and deliver tailored donor engagement communications of all types and formats, for key prospects, donors and volunteers.
- Partner with the AVP-Transformative Philanthropy and Campaign Communications to oversee the development of scheduled stewardship communications and impact reports, including those designed for individual donors as well as donor and prospect cohorts. Ensure that reporting practices are strategic, meaningful and appropriate.
- In partnership with the AVP-DE and AVP-TPCC, drive a highly personalized donor acknowledgement process.
- Must have a Bachelor's degree.
- Must have a minimum of 15 years of experience in one or more of the following fields: Advancement/Philanthropy, Marketing and Communications, Customer Relations, or Public Relations in a complex organization.
- Must have at least 10 years of experience managing customer experience, donor experience, and communications functions with an emphasis on one or more of the following - consumer-driven marketing programs, philanthropy programs, and comprehensive philanthropy campaigns.
Preferred education experience and skills:
- Philanthropy experience desired, along with broad exposure to all elements of a comprehensive philanthropy program - including annual giving, major giving, principal and transformative giving, corporate giving, foundation giving, planned giving, philanthropy and campaign communications, donor relations and event planning.
- Scientific background, healthcare background or experience preferred.
- Experience in a biomedical research, health or medical environment preferred.
- Proven ability to work with institutional leadership, boards of directors, nationally renowned scientists, business and policy leaders.
- Proven ability to work with investigators and physicians, and other healthcare leaders.
- Experience in designing and executing customer relationship/acquisition strategies and programs
- Significant experience with project management.
- Significant experience overseeing and editing the work of other leadership professionals
- Significant experience overseeing the work of writers, graphic designers, videographers and digital communications staff.
- Experience in building communications for healthcare programs (research, clinical or community-based).
- Experience in hiring, training, supervising, evaluation and disciplining staff.
Additional Information:
To protect the health of patients and staff and to comply with new State of California mandates, City of Hope staff are required to show proof of full vaccination by September 30, 2021. Compliance is a condition of employment.
City of Hope is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a protected veteran, or status as a qualified individual with disability.
- Posting Date: Nov 2, 2021
- Job Field: Philanthropy
- Employee Status: Regular
- Shift: Day Job