Senior Director, Philanthropy Communications & Donor Relations

Join the transformative team at City of Hope, where we're changing lives and making a real difference in the fight against cancer, diabetes, and other life-threatening illnesses. City of Hope’s growing national system includes its Los Angeles campus, a network of clinical care locations across Southern California, a new cancer center in Orange County, California, and treatment facilities in Atlanta, Chicago and Phoenix. Our dedicated and compassionate employees are driven by a common mission: To deliver the cures of tomorrow to the people who need them today.

City of Hope’s Office of Philanthropy plays a critical role in advancing groundbreaking research, compassionate patient care, and biomedical education through philanthropic support. Reporting to the Senior Executive Director, Donor Experience, the Senior Director, Philanthropy Communications & Donor Relations serves as a strategic communications leader responsible for creating compelling, donor-centered content that inspires transformational giving. This role partners closely with philanthropy leaders, physicians, scientists, and executive stakeholders to develop high-impact proposals, cases for support, stewardship materials, and strategic communications initiatives that help fuel City of Hope’s mission and future growth.

As a successful candidate, you will:

• Develop compelling proposals, cases for support, and solicitation materials that support major, principal, and transformative gift opportunities.
• Create donor-focused communications including impact reports, presentations, stewardship materials, letters, and cultivation collateral.
• Conduct interviews with physicians, scientists, researchers, philanthropy leaders, donors, and other stakeholders to gather content and shape meaningful storytelling.
• Serve as a strategic communications partner to fundraising teams by developing effective donor engagement and communication strategies.
• Lead the development of key messaging, white papers, and communications supporting major philanthropy initiatives and priorities.
• Collaborate across philanthropy, marketing, digital communications, donor experience, and enterprise leadership teams to ensure message consistency and effectiveness.
• Develop fundraising toolkits, templates, and communication resources that help advance philanthropic conversations and secure significant gifts.
• Oversee and manage multiple donor-facing projects, ensuring timelines, stakeholder engagement, review cycles, and deliverables remain on track.
• Edit and refine content developed by colleagues, freelance writers, and other contributors to ensure excellence in quality, tone, and messaging.
• Partner with internal and external creative teams on video, digital communications, branding, and special communications initiatives.

Your qualifications should include:

• Bachelor’s degree required; relevant experience may be considered in lieu of educational requirements.
• 5+ years of experience in philanthropy communications, donor relations, institutional communications, nonprofit communications, or related fields.
• Experience working within complex healthcare, academic medicine, higher education, or large nonprofit organizations strongly preferred.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating exceptional writing, editing, and storytelling abilities.
• Proven project management experience with the ability to manage multiple priorities, deadlines, and stakeholders simultaneously.
• Prior supervisory or team leadership experience preferred.
• Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills with the ability to engage senior leaders, physicians, faculty, and volunteers.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex medical, scientific, or technical concepts into compelling donor-friendly communications.
• Strong strategic thinking, political acumen, judgment, and collaboration skills.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications; familiarity with PowerPoint and Adobe Creative Suite is preferred.

City of Hope employees’ pay is based on the following criteria: work experience, qualifications, and work location.

City of Hope is an equal opportunity employer.