Director of Donor Stewardship

Renown Health•Reno, NV

About The Position

The Director of Donor Stewardship serves as the strategic lead for donor stewardship and annual giving across Renown Health Foundation. Reporting to the Chief Philanthropy Officer, the Director develops a coordinated, donor-centered program that acquires, retains, renews, and upgrades donors through direct mail, digital and online fundraising, storytelling, impact reporting, and meaningful stewardship. The Director translates Renown’s mission, community impact, academic medicine priorities, and campaign vision into clear reasons to give and builds an integrated donor journey from first gift to sustained philanthropic partnership. The Director is the Foundation’s primary liaison to Renown Marketing and Communications and works directly with the Director of Communications to align brand, content, channels, media opportunities, and production while maintaining a distinct philanthropic voice. The position advances the Foundation’s 18-month Rebuild, Rebrand and Reason plan by strengthening annual giving infrastructure, positioning philanthropy as part of Renown’s ethos, and using data-informed engagement to grow participation, retention, and philanthropic revenue. This director-level role provides enterprise-wide strategy and leadership for donor stewardship, annual giving, and philanthropic storytelling. The Director establishes the vision, priorities, audience strategies, calendars, standards, workflows, budgets, and performance measures guiding direct mail, digital fundraising, online giving, donor communications, recognition, and impact reporting. The role leads through influence across the Foundation and Renown Health and coordinates with fundraising officers, Operations, Marketing and Communications, clinicians, service line leaders, executives, board members, donors, patients, families, vendors, and external partners. The Director is accountable for a disciplined, multi-channel program that balances donor experience, revenue growth, and long-term pipeline development. The position requires high standards of judgment, accuracy, confidentiality, and follow-through. Stewardship and storytelling must honor donor intent, patient privacy, informed consent, and data security and comply with Renown Health policies, HIPAA, the Donor Bill of Rights, and ethical healthcare philanthropy practices. This position does not provide patient care.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in philanthropy, communications, marketing, public relations, business, healthcare administration, or a related field; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
Seven years of progressively responsible experience in annual giving, donor relations and stewardship, direct response fundraising, digital fundraising, philanthropic communications, or related nonprofit work.
Demonstrated success growing donor acquisition, retention, recurring giving, online revenue, and annual giving performance through integrated direct mail, digital, and storytelling strategies.
Experience leading staff, vendors, budgets, and data-informed improvement.
Ability to read, write, speak, and understand English sufficiently to perform job duties safely and effectively.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite, including Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Teams, and Word, and ability to use a computer for online learning, forms, policies, benefits enrollment, and related job tasks.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree.
Experience in healthcare philanthropy.
Experience leading complex, cross-functional strategies.

Responsibilities

Set enterprise strategy for donor stewardship and annual giving in alignment with Renown’s 10-year strategic plan, Foundation revenue priorities, and the 18-month Rebuild, Rebrand and Reason plan.
Design an integrated donor journey covering acquisition, acknowledgment, recognition, impact reporting, renewal, reactivation, upgrade, and long-term engagement across giving levels.
Build the annual giving plan and calendar for priority funds and service lines, including audiences, offers, goals, budgets, channel strategies, and success measures.
Coordinate direct mail, email, web, social, paid digital, giving days, monthly giving, and online giving as components of a multi-channel annual giving program.
Lead donor acquisition, renewal, reactivation, recurring giving, and upgrade strategies that develop a pipeline from first-time and annual donors to mid-level, major, and legacy giving.
Use donor, patient, and channel data to segment audiences, personalize communications, and test creative, cadence, offers, ask amounts, and giving experiences.
Establish stewardship standards by donor level and gift type, including timely acknowledgments, recognition, impact and fund reporting, and meaningful engagement demonstrating the impact of giving.
Develop annual and mid-level giving funds that respond to donor interests, advance Renown priorities, and create pathways for deeper investment.
Build a consent-based storytelling strategy that elevates patient, family, caregiver, physician, donor, and community voices while protecting privacy, dignity, and clinical boundaries.
Translate priority funding areas—including cancer care, children’s health, academic medicine, mental health, access, maternal and child care, and future system priorities—into donor-centered cases for support.
Serve as the Foundation’s primary liaison to Marketing and Communications and partner with the Director of Communications on editorial planning, brand alignment, content development, media opportunities, digital strategy, and production.
Define and protect a distinct Foundation voice that complements the Renown brand, positions philanthropy as part of Renown’s ethos, and communicates the “Reason” for giving.
Lead the philanthropic strategy for the Foundation website and online giving experience, supporting compelling content, intuitive donor pathways, mobile responsiveness, and strong conversion practices.
Ensure annual giving and stewardship strategies support grateful patient, employee giving, campaign, and legacy giving priorities without duplicating relationship management led by frontline fundraisers.
Create messaging, stories, and tools that equip executives, physicians, boards, campaign volunteers, and ambassadors to communicate Foundation priorities.
Establish dashboards and KPIs for donor acquisition, retention, renewal, reactivation, recurring giving, upgrades, response, conversion, average gift, revenue, cost to raise a dollar, digital performance, and stewardship timeliness.
Use testing, attribution, and return-on-investment analysis to improve audience strategy, creative, channel mix, donor experience, and revenue performance.
Partner with Philanthropy Operations to maintain accurate donor preferences, consent, fund designations, segmentation, communication activity, and outcomes in the donor database.
Lead assigned staff, vendors, and agency partners; establish expectations, service standards, development plans, budgets, and accountability for results.
Perform other duties as assigned.