Executive Director of Foundation Relations

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF FOUNDATION RELATIONS

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Aspen Leadership Group is proud to partner with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the search for an Executive Director of Foundation Relations.

The Executive Director of Foundation Relations will lead and manage a centralized operation responsible for proactively seeking new funding opportunities and building partnerships with foundations and funding arms of philanthropic donors resulting in grants to support a wide range of Institute-wide, initiative, school, department, and program needs in research and education. Currently annual receipts to MIT from foundations track close to $200M (of which the Foundation Relations team is involved with approximately $60M-$80M), with opportunities for expansion. The Executive Director of Foundation Relations will manage a staff of ten to twenty, including frontline professionals and administrative and support staff members. The successful candidate will demonstrate superior communication, organizational, interpersonal, and strategic skills and work regularly with senior leadership, administrators, and members of the faculty to obtain foundation funding for MIT priorities and objectives. The Executive Director of Foundation Relations must provide strong leadership based upon significant experience in this area; understand the role of foundation relationships and funding within a leading research university; understand science and technology sufficiently to be able to relate effectively with both faculty and funders; and bring energy, vision, and diplomacy to this position. The Executive Director of Foundation Relations should be able to work easily in a wide variety of settings with the ability to motivate the frontline staff to act as a team with an entrepreneurial bent as well as the ability to work internally and externally to negotiate and close agreements.

The Executive Director will track and inform leadership of new trends in the foundation sector that may affect success in this realm and will establish close cooperative working relationships with other offices within Resource Development and across the Institute in order to assure the best results for MIT. The Executive Director of Foundation Relations will establish appropriate annual goals for foundation giving and team results, track activity and success against those goals, and manage and motivate staff to assure that MIT realizes significant funding from foundations and other funding arms of philanthropic donors/organizations.

MIT publicly launched the most ambitious comprehensive fundraising initiative in its history in 2016. With a goal of $5 billion, MIT's Campaign for a Better World invites alumni, friends, and organizations to join MIT in addressing some of the planet's greatest challenges. Success will be determined by how well the Institute identifies and engages new and existing donor communities, builds sophisticated tools for evaluating data about its constituents, and manages the flow of information to leadership and volunteers. The opening of the position of Executive Director of Foundation Relations comes at an opportune moment to ensure that support from and through foundations is garnered for MIT to maximize its philanthropic support within the campaign and beyond.

MIT is a world-class educational institution. A mission to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century, teaching and research—with relevance to the practical world as a guiding principle—continues to be its primary purpose. MIT is independent, coeducational, and privately endowed. Its five schools encompass numerous academic departments, divisions, and degree-granting programs, as well as interdisciplinary centers, laboratories, and programs whose work cuts across traditional departmental boundaries.

MIT is committed to generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges. MIT is dedicated to providing its students with an education that combines rigorous academic study and the excitement of discovery with the support and intellectual stimulation of a diverse campus community. The Institute seeks to develop in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.

A bachelor's degree is required for this position as is eight years of direct experience in foundation relations and gift solicitation for a college, university or large non-profit organization. An advanced degree is desirable. All applications must be accompanied by a cover letter and résumé.