Director of Development - Grateful Patient Fundraising

Back Director of Development - Grateful Patient Fundraising University of Florida Health Gainesville, FL Apply Now Download Prospectus About the University of Florida & UF Health The University of Florida is Florida’s flagship land-grant university, with a statewide service mission reaching every county in the state. As one of the nation’s leading public research universities, UF combines education, discovery, innovation, and public service at extraordinary scale. UF Health is the University’s academic health center, bringing together the clinical enterprise with UF’s health colleges, research programs, institutes, and centers. Within this environment, UF College of Medicine faculty are advancing biomedical research, complex clinical care, technology, and education while serving patients throughout Florida and beyond. The breadth of UF creates unique opportunities for philanthropy. A single donor relationship can connect patient gratitude with scientific discovery, faculty innovation, education, clinical care, and broader community impact. Fundraising within UF Health takes place across a complex academic medical center. The hospital enterprise, UF College of Medicine, academic departments, institutes and centers, faculty practices, regional entities, and central University functions are closely connected, while authority, resources, relationships, and expertise are distributed throughout the institution. Successful development professionals learn where those relationships sit, earn trust within the clinical environment, and bring together the right faculty members, fundraisers, specialists, and institutional resources around each donor opportunity. UF Advancement provides centralized expertise, including campaign leadership, principal gifts, gift planning, corporate and foundation relations, prospect research, data, talent management, and other advancement services. Its collaborative shared-credit structure enables fundraisers to engage specialists and colleagues across the University without sacrificing recognition for the outcome. UF Health Advancement builds meaningful partnerships that bridge generosity with the people, programs, and priorities of UF Health. Through collaboration, strategic philanthropy, and trusted relationships, we advance exceptional patient care, accelerate discovery, and educate tomorrow’s health care leaders. We base our work on core values: We partner with leadership, our faculty, physicians, alumni, donors and other medical staff to identify and match support for shared visions. We uphold ethical guidelines for our professional work by providing all constituents with the best service in our capacity and genuinely caring for the donors and their interests. We aim at surpassing industry performance and set a standard of excellence in academic medicine fundraising by reviewing and implementing new strategies and tools for advancing our results within our culture of philanthropy at the University of Florida. A culture of philanthropy: UF Health Advancement is the largest unit-based advancement team at UF. A record-breaking $143 million raised in FY26 for the UF College of Medicine — the highest among all UF colleges. Over $1B in total commitments secured during the Go Greater capital campaign from 2014-2022. 4,000-plus endowed funds sustaining initiatives that enhance training, research and patient outcomes across UF Health. UF Advancement: The Gold Standard Culture UF Advancement is committed to its Gold Standard Culture. Its vision is to be ranked among the best, as measured by Voluntary Support of Education. Its mission is to be a catalyst in securing and managing private support for University priorities. The ability to embrace and live the Gold Standard is essential to success in this position. Grateful Patient Fundraising at UF Health Grateful patient philanthropy is an important and growing component of fundraising for the UF College of Medicine and UF Health. Many of the institution’s strongest potential philanthropic relationships begin with patients and families whose experiences with physicians, care teams, research programs, or medical innovation create a desire to give back or advance the work that affected their lives. UF has made significant investments in the data and operational infrastructure supporting this work. The number of prospective patient relationships identified through its grateful patient program has grown substantially, from approximately 1,700 before the system was rebuilt to more than 20,000 during its first three years. Recurring prospect reports expanded considerably, providing development officers with multiple prospect streams and stronger information for qualification and prioritization. Approximately $6 million in giving has been attributed to referred prospects, demonstrating the philanthropic potential of a coordinated referral and engagement model. The opportunity now is not simply to generate more names. Success depends on judgment, prioritization, physician partnership, ethical engagement, and consistent major gift execution. Development portfolios are intentionally limited to approximately 80 relationships across qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. Officers are expected to actively move relationships rather than simply accumulate prospects. Position Summary UF Health seeks a Director of Development to identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward major gift prospects for UF Health, with a primary emphasis on grateful patient fundraising and gifts of $100,000+. Reporting to the Senior Director of Development, the Director will coordinate strategic research, data collection, and planning to identify and advance new major gift prospects in support of the UF College of Medicine and UF Health. The Director will work closely with physicians, researchers, medical staff, administrators, volunteers, faculty, and other clinical partners to identify grateful patient prospects, understand the context surrounding those relationships, and align philanthropic opportunities with clinical and academic priorities. The portfolio may also include alumni, parents, friends, and faculty in support of broader UF College of Medicine initiatives. This role requires more than effective portfolio management. The Director must become a trusted partner to the physicians and clinical teams whose relationships with patients and families make grateful patient fundraising possible. Clinical faculty carry a fundamental responsibility for patient care, privacy, and well-being. The successful fundraiser must demonstrate that they understand and respect what is being protected before expecting access to those relationships. The Director will learn assigned clinical areas thoroughly, become known and useful to faculty and administrators, bring well-developed recommendations rather than placing the burden of fundraising strategy on clinicians, and exercise sound judgment about when engagement with patients and families is appropriate. The successful candidate will combine major gift discipline with humility, clinical curiosity, emotional intelligence, persistence, and maturity. They will be comfortable adapting to physician schedules and clinical environments and will understand that becoming genuinely embedded in a unit is essential to long-term fundraising success. Essential Job Functions The Director will identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward major gift prospects for the UF College of Medicine and UF Health, maintaining primary emphasis on grateful patient philanthropy and gifts of $100,000 and above. Responsibilities include: Manage a portfolio that may also include alumni, parents, friends, and faculty in coordination with UF College of Medicine departments and units. Grow and refine an existing portfolio of prospects and donors. Strategically advance relationships through the gift cycle and bring gifts to closure through face-to-face visits, proposals, and direct solicitations. Develop and present concept papers and major gift proposals. Ensure gifts are appropriately acknowledged and recognized in ways meaningful to donors and consistent with the mission, vision, and values of UF Advancement. Maintain continuous personal contact with key donors, prospects, volunteers, alumni, and other constituencies both within Florida and outside the state. Maintain contact with alumni and other University constituencies, including members of college and department advisory boards. Conduct significant face-to-face donor engagement and solicitation activity. Prioritize soliciting and closing gifts of $100,000 and above. Properly handle gifts and pledges, including cash, securities, checks, and related documents, and ensure their complete and proper transfer to the UF Advancement. Physician and Clinical Partnership The Director will develop philanthropic support for UF Health and UF College of Medicine priorities by engaging physicians, medical staff, researchers, administrators, volunteers, faculty, and staff. They are expected to: Support physicians, researchers, administrators, and medical staff in identifying and referring prospective donors. Help clinical partners communicate philanthropic needs effectively. Collaborate with physicians and development officers to identify strategies that increase grateful patient and house-staff engagement and solicitation opportunities. Become known and accessible within assigned clinical environments rather than appearing only when a donor opportunity requires attention. Learn the clinical unit’s work well enough to represent its faculty, research, procedures, priorities, and fundable opportunities accurately. Understand the schedules, responsibilities, and working styles of clinical partners and adapt accordingly. Build practical referral relationships with physicians, administrators, clinic managers, and other staff members familiar with patient experience. Bring prepared recommendations and strategies to faculty rather than expecting clinicians to design the fundraising process. Use prospect data to focus activity while obtaining appropriate clinical context before determining whether and when outreach should occur. Respect that physicians will participate in fundraising in different ways. Some will become active partners, others will provide permission and context, and some may remain uncomfortable with fundraising. Protect patient relationships by carefully evaluating timing and circumstances before outreach, particularly following serious illness, death, or family crisis. Maintain patient well-being, privacy, donor intent, and institutional reputation as paramount considerations in fundraising decisions. Recognize that the physician or care team is often central to a patient or family’s experience. The fundraiser’s role is to serve as strategist and facilitator. Strategic Initiatives and Donor Engagement The Director will increase knowledge of and philanthropic support for UF College of Medicine campaign priorities, building support for scholarships, faculty endowments, research, and department-specific initiatives. They will: Prepare research and reports for college staff, volunteers, and other stakeholders in support of targeted relationship-building and partnership initiatives. Initiate, plan, and support activities and events involving volunteers, donors, grateful patients, and prospects on campus and throughout the region. Create donor experiences that connect gratitude with the broader mission of UF Health and the UF College of Medicine. Develop opportunities for donors to engage with research, faculty, laboratories, technology, clinical innovation, and other aspects of UF’s medical mission when appropriate. Coordinate with principal gifts, gift planning, corporate and foundation relations, and other Advancement specialists when those resources can strengthen a donor strategy. Collaborate across departments, institutes, and other units when donor interests