Competition Number:
Position Title: Executive Director, Alumni Engagement & Annual Giving
Position Number (Final): 00509220
Vacancy Type: New Position
Employee Group: Managerial & Professional
Job Category: Advancement/Fundraising
Department or Area: Alumni Engagement
Location: Kingston, Ontario, Canada (On-site)
Salary: $126,000.00 - $173,000.00/Year
Grade: 12 Review Salary Information Here
Hours per Week: 35
Job Type: Permanent (Continuing)
Shift: 7 Monday - Friday
Number Of Positions: 1
Date Posted: November 6, 2026
Closing Date: January 3, 2027
Additional Information:
This position offers a remote work arrangement for candidates located within approximately three hours of Kingston, Ontario. The successful candidate should be available to travel to campus as needed to support meetings & team collaboration.
COVID 19 On-Campus Requirements
Prior to May 1, 2022, the University required all students, faculty, staff, and visitors (including contractors) to declare their COVID-19 vaccination status and provide proof that they were fully vaccinated or had an approved accommodation to engage in in-person University activities. These requirements were suspended effective May 1, 2022, but the University may reinstate them at any point.
Job Summary
Reporting to the Associate Vice-Principal (Strategic Engagement), the Executive Director, Alumni Engagement & Annual Giving provides strategic and operational leadership for Queen's alumni engagement portfolio, including Alumni Engagement, Volunteer Programs, and Annual Giving. The Executive Director is a senior strategist responsible for developing and delivering an integrated approach to lifelong alumni engagement that strengthens alumni connection to Queen's University while overseeing annual giving strategies that engage alumni and other supporters of the university, in philanthropy.
The Executive Director is accountable for advancing the alumni journey, beginning with the student experience and continuing throughout alumni life, and is accountable for how different forms of alumni participation-including experiential engagement, volunteer involvement, and philanthropy and giving-work together to strengthen lifelong relationships with Queen's. With Queen's alumni living and working around the world, the incumbent ensures that programs, volunteer opportunities, reunions, annual giving, and other forms of participation respond to the interests and needs of diverse alumni communities and provide meaningful opportunities to connect with Queen's regardless of geography. The Executive Director is accountable for translating strategy and insight into programs and activities and for the delivery, evaluation, and continuous improvement of the portfolio's work.
The Executive Director serves as the senior strategic liaison to the Queen's University Alumni Association (QUAA) Board, working in partnership with alumni volunteer leadership to advance shared priorities. Working collaboratively across Advancement and the university, the incumbent brings a deep understanding of alumni needs, interests, behaviours, and experiences to institutional priorities and works closely with Advancement Communications & Experiences and Development to strengthen alumni engagement and longer-term philanthropic relationships.
As a member of the Strategic Engagement leadership team, the Executive Director contributes to the strategic direction and performance of Advancement and provides senior leadership and counsel on alumni engagement, volunteer participation, annual giving, and their role in building lifelong relationships between Queen's and its alumni.
Travel within and outside of Canada is required. Work on evenings and weekends are occasionally required.
Job Description
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Develops and champions a coherent Alumni Engagement strategy that integrates experiential, volunteer, communications, and philanthropic engagement to strengthen lifelong relationships with Queen's and create intentional pathways toward deeper participation, connection, and giving.
• Provides strategic and operational leadership for the Alumni Engagement portfolio, encompassing Alumni Engagement, Volunteer Programs, and Annual Giving, establishing clear priorities, objectives, measures, and accountabilities aligned with Advancement and university priorities and allocating resources accordingly.
• Leads the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of an integrated approach to the alumni journey, beginning with student experience and strengthening relationships from the student experience through successive stages of alumni life and creating intentional pathways toward deeper engagement, volunteer participation, philanthropy, and giving.
• Develops and delivers a comprehensive portfolio of alumni programs and initiatives that respond to diverse alumni interests, life stages, communities, and geographies, and strengthen alumni understanding of and connection to Queen's mission, impact, and priorities. Ensures Queen's global alumni community has meaningful opportunities to connect with the university and with one another through relevant in-person, digital, and other forms of engagement.
• Ensures Alumni Engagement, Volunteer Programs, and Annual Giving work as an integrated portfolio, with alumni programs, volunteer opportunities, reunions, and giving strategies reinforcing one another and contributing to lifelong engagement and a broad culture of philanthropic participation.
• Provides strategic leadership for Annual Giving, including reunion giving, establishing strategies that increase participation, develop habits of giving, and create effective pathways between broad-based alumni engagement and longer-term philanthropic relationships.
• Works closely with Development to strengthen donor pipeline and support institutional and campaign priorities.
• Provides strategic leadership for alumni volunteer engagement, including the QUAA, branches, networks, and other volunteer-led models. Serves as the senior strategic liaison working with alumni volunteer leadership to advance shared priorities and strengthen meaningful opportunities for alumni service and participation. Ensures appropriate approaches to volunteer support, recognition, and stewardship.
• Defines the alumni engagement objectives, priority audiences, desired outcomes, and strategic content priorities that inform alumni communications, publications, digital channels, and experiences. Works closely with Advancement Communications & Experiences to leverage its communications, marketing, digital, editorial, and events expertise while retaining accountability for the alumni engagement objectives these activities support.
• Builds a portfolio culture in which strategy and execution are closely connected, ensuring teams translate priorities and insights into high-quality programs and activities. Determines when initiatives should be delivered directly by portfolio teams and when partnership with other Advancement functions will strengthen their effectiveness, scale, or impact. Oversees the delivery, evaluation, and continuous improvement of portfolio initiatives.
• Uses alumni, engagement, giving, demographic, and market insights to understand alumni needs and behaviours, identify opportunities, develop programs, and evaluate effectiveness. Establishes meaningful measures of the breadth and depth of engagement and uses results to guide investment, improvement, innovation, and the evolution of the portfolio while monitoring relevant trends and leading practices.
• Builds strong partnerships across Advancement and the university, including with Development, Advancement Communications & Experiences, faculties, schools, and student-facing units, to create coordinated opportunities for alumni engagement and philanthropy and to ensure alumni perspectives inform relevant institutional priorities.
• Maintains meaningful connections with alumni and key volunteers to stay attuned to evolving interests, perspectives, and engagement needs, identifying and advancing strategic opportunities to deepen alumni relationships with Queen's.
• Serves as a trusted advisor and university-wide resource and liaison on alumni engagement, volunteer participation, and annual giving, providing expertise to volunteers, alumni, the Office of Advancement, senior university officials, allied professionals and other partners. Fosters a collaborative, integrated approach to alumni and philanthropic engagement that encourages flexibility, responsiveness, and effective partnership across Advancement and the university.
• Researches, coordinates, and prepares internal and external communications, briefing notes, research profiles, activity reports, and accountability reports to support strategic decision-making and constituent engagement.
• Develops and maintains an in-depth knowledge of the university's activities, priorities and needs in both teaching and research. Applies this knowledge in matching the interests and needs of prospective alumni with the strategic needs of the university.
• Helps develop a process to sustainably identify "big ideas" for consideration by alumni and volunteers.
• Motivates and organizes a broad range of influential strategic alumni relationships, volunteer leaders, and university senior administrators, who assist in securing engagement and philanthropic commitments.
• Establishes timely and appropriate stewardship and recognition of alumni and volunteers in accordance with sound Advancement practices.
• Ensures accurate and timely recording of alumni and volunteer engagement information in the Advancement database to support relationship management, reporting, and evaluation.
• Measures and analyzes initiatives to assess effectiveness and impact, conducts periodic competitive audits and performs ongoing environmental monitoring to gauge program effectiveness. Reports findings and implements changes in strategy as required.
• Reviews progress against short and long-term goals on a regular basis with the Associate Vice-Principal. In consideration of progress-to-date, takes a lead role in identifying and implementing further opportunities and strategies that may have arisen to meet goals.
• Prepares annual budget documents.
• Builds, develops, and leads an outstanding high-performance team of Advancement professionals, fostering an inclusive, collaborative, and engaging work environment that values diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Plans, prioritizes and manages work of employees, providing strategic and tactical advice, guidance and coaching.
• Identifies the need for staff resources, participates on staffing committees, and makes effective recommendations regarding employee selection.
• Manages performance by establishing performance standards, reviewing and evaluating performance, and conducting formal performance reviews and talent reviews on an ongoing basis.
• Assesses staff training and development needs and ensures that employees receive training required to improve and sustain successful performance.
• Investigates, addresses and resolves employee/labour relations issues, including disciplinary matters.
• Acts as a back-up during the AVP (Strategic Engagement) absence, providing leadership and representing Strategic Engagement within the university community.
• Represents the Office of Advancement on university-wide committees ensuring understanding and adoption of Advancement policies and procedures.
• Undertakes other duties as assigned in support of the unit and/or department.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
• University degree.
• Minimum 10 years of progressive experience and demonstrated success in a senior leadership role managing integrated, multi-channel alumni and volunteer engagement programs, with a focus on building meaningful alumni, volunteer, and donor relationships, preferably in a large, complex, and institutionally relevant setting.
• Demonstrated ability to inspire and raise alumni sights, articulate aspirational goals and institutional priorities, and effectively support strategic alumni engagement, volunteer participation, and philanthropic opportunities, with a strong understanding of alumni and donor journeys and effective stewardship and recognition practices.
• Proven track record in strategy development and implementation, project planning, budget and revenue forecasting, program analysis, and meeting objectives.
• Proven ability to effectively build and manage diverse and complex volunteer relationships and partnerships that advance
