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Executive Brief

Chief Development & Marketing Officer
Perkins

The Organization: Perkins

Perkins helps kids with disabilities find their place in the world. An international NGO, Perkins is committed to delivering best-in-class education to children, providing immersive training and support to professionals and families, advocating for inclusion, and accelerating innovation for people with disabilities. The School thinks courageously, acts collaboratively, and owns its work.

From Perkins' roots as the first US school for the blind and the alma mater of Helen Keller, the School has expanded its mission to help thousands of students across the US and millions around the world. With over 700 employees, an operating budget exceeding  $100 million, and an endowment of over $330 million, Perkins is an international NGO offering educational services, job training, online teacher training, accessibility design services, and literacy tools.  The School's contemporary mission includes serving children with multiple disabilities, easing their transition to adult living, improving inclusion and accessibility in the workplace and community, pursuing the United Nations goal of education-for-all in developing countries, and leading a national response to a new neurological cause of visual impairment called cortical visual impairment (CVI).

Leadership Spotlight

Dave Power - President & CEO

Dave Power
President & CEO

Dave Power is President and CEO of Perkins, where Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan were both educated. What began as the first U.S. school for the blind nearly 200 years ago has become a diversified, international non-profit organization that is leading the way in serving children and young adults with multiple, complex disabilities including blindness.

Dave oversees the broad reach of Perkins’ operations, including Perkins School for the Blind; Perkins International, which works to reach the most vulnerable children in some of the world’s poorest places; Perkins Solutions, which produces and services braille machinery used around the world and helps organizations ensure their digital experiences are usable by all, the Perkins Library, and the Howe Innovation Center.

Throughout Dave’s career, he has guided organizations as an operating executive, board member and advisor. His diverse background includes roles as CEO, general manager and marketing executive at Sun Microsystems, RSA Security and other successful growth companies. He also led investments in emerging technology companies at Fidelity Ventures.

Dave teaches Design Thinking at Harvard Extension School, receiving the Joanne Fussa Distinguished Teaching Award in 2014. He is also the author of “The Curve Ahead: Discovering the Path to Unlimited Growth.”

The Perkins mission is deeply personal to Dave: his son David graduated from Perkins in 2009. Dave began his work with Perkins by serving on the Board of Trustees from 2003 to 2013.

Dave received a BS in Civil Engineering and MS in Environmental Engineering from Tufts University and an MBA from Stanford Business School, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

The Opportunity: Chief Development & Marketing Officer

Perkins - Chief Development & Marketing Officer - Job Description (PDF Download)

Position Summary

Perkins is looking for an experienced and entrepreneurial leader to raise awareness of Perkins' impactful work by engaging new major donors, foundations, and corporations, and elevating the School’s philanthropic support to match its national and international influence. Partnering with a dynamic, market-driven CEO, the Chief Development & Marketing Officer will create a multi-year strategy to ensure consistent growth in fundraising revenues, including designing a capital campaign for Perkins' 200th anniversary in 2029. This position will oversee fundraising, marketing activities related to fundraising, and corporate marketing across all Perkins operating groups.  Perkins is looking for an individual who is passionate about exploring new ways to leverage the many assets of Perkins and to position the School as a unique and vital nonprofit addressing the unmet needs of children with disabilities around the world. The candidate will be an externally focused leader who excels in opening new relationships and bringing Perkins’ contemporary mission to influential audiences who may be unaware of the ambition and momentum around Perkins’ new mission.

Responsibilities & Expectations

Primary Duties & Responsibilities:
  • Develop and implement a multi-year fundraising strategy
     
  • Design and execute a capital campaign for Perkins' 200th anniversary
     
  • Oversee a comprehensive multi-channel marketing strategy that enhances Perkins’ brand visibility, drives donor engagement, and supports the School’s mission
     
  • Align marketing initiatives with organizational goals and objectives
     
  • Lead a dynamic team of high performing Development and Marketing professionals
     
  • Ensure predictability in fundraising operations with an analytic approach to forecasting, goal setting, and budgeting
     
  • Create new and innovative ideas to bring new donors to Perkins and expand the School’s reach on a global basis
Skills & Abilities:
  • Strong connection to Perkins mission and effective spokesperson for prospective donors
     
  • Entrepreneurial development leader with a track record of innovative fundraising approaches
     
  • Relationship builder - skilled in developing and maintaining relationships across all levels and building comprehensive donor communication strategies
     
  • Action oriented - ability to execute with strong analytical skills, creativity and focus on detail and follow through
Education & Experience
  • Bachelor’s degree is required, advanced degree preferred
     
  • 10+ yearsof Development & Marketing experience with demonstrated achievements in management, leadership and fundraising success, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role
     
  • Broad knowledge of fundraising areas:principal, major, planned, annual giving, and corporate and foundation
     
  • Experience in nonprofit marketing and a passion for Perkins’ mission

Applications & Nominations

Perkins has partnered with Boyden Executive Search. For more information about this opportunity or to submit a cover letter and resume, please email:

Wendy Wilsker
Managing Partner, Boston
wwilsker@boyden.com
LinkedIn

Wendy Wilsker has dedicated her entire career to the non-profit sector, serving in leadership roles within charitable organizations and working alongside them as an executive recruiter and consultant. She excels at identifying the unique challenges and opportunities non-profits face, and partners with senior leadership to build successful organizational structures, teams and advancement programs.

Sara Swisher-Anderson
Senior Executive Search Recruiter
sanderson@boyden.com
LinkedIn

Sara is an experienced Chief of Staff, COO, and Executive Search Recruiter with over 20 years of experience in strategic planning, project management and C-suite/senior leadership executive recruiting across several industries. Sara has successfully executed numerous placements, including C-suite roles in the Higher Education, Non-Profit and Financial Services sectors. After transitioning from administration and operations to executive search in 2018, she has had the honor of filling key leadership roles within HR, Tech, Risk/Compliance, Operations, Advancement, Marketing and more.

Don’t check off all the boxes or meet every single requirement? We have learned that potential candidates hesitate when applying for a job unless they meet every single requirement. Boyden Boston is dedicated to inclusivity and valuing diversity and equity in the workplace. If this opportunity excites you, but your background may not be a perfect match, we still encourage you to apply.

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