Susan M. Gallegos

Serve as a senior leader and strategic advisor to the CEO on advancement operations, campaign planning, gift policy, and donor stewardship. Align fundraising strategy, operational infrastructure, and executive decision-making to support institutional priorities.

• Lead prospect research and pipeline strategy for a $35M+ capital campaign, informing cultivation priorities, and executive-level fundraising strategy.
• Advise the CEO and Board leadership on complex gift agreements, naming strategy, and policy interpretation, including an eight-figure building naming commitment.
• Oversee annual fund strategy and solicitations, including leadership annual giving initiatives that strengthen donor pipeline development and retention.
• Partner across Advancement, Finance, and Communications to align processes, reporting, and donor experience with campaign and organizational objectives.

Served as a strategic thought partner to the CEO and senior leadership team on organizational effectiveness, operational alignment, and financial governance across advancement and scholarship programs.

• Strengthened strategic planning, budgeting, and performance tracking to better align program investments with mission, institutional goals, and board expectations.
• Provided executive-level analysis and recommendations on process redesign, operational workflows, and cross-unit collaboration.
• Oversaw financial operations and governance for the Ridley Scholarship Program, increasing accountability, transparency, and reporting rigor.
• Developed scholarship endowment spending and compliance frameworks that ensured sustainable, responsible, and auditable fund management.
• Anticipated policy and legal shifts and prepared operational and compliance strategies to mitigate institutional risk.

Led advancement gift processing operations for the University of Virginia and 17 affiliated foundations, with responsibility for accuracy, reconciliation, internal controls, and audit readiness in a complex, multi-entity environment.

• Directed high-volume processing operations, and strengthened accuracy, compliance, and alignment between development and finance partners.
• Implemented workflow redesign and automation initiatives that reduced error rates from 4% to under 1%, and improved processing speed and data integrity.
• Collaborated with technology teams to modernize systems and integrations, eliminating duplicative processes, and improving staff capacity and service quality.
• Restructured staffing model and operational procedures, reducing team size from 18 to 12 through efficiency gains, while maintaining high standards of performance.

Directed gift processing and financial interface operations across 19 museums and 10 research centers in a decentralized environment; supervised, and developed a three-member team. Served as an institutional subject-matter expert for gift administration, database systems, and advancement policy.

• Led the transition from paper-based workflows to electronic submission and GL-linked deposit tracking, reducing processing time from four weeks to one week.
• Managed and approved data conversion during enterprise migration to the Advance CRM, ensuring accuracy, continuity, and audit readiness.
• Produced executive, administrative, and audit reports that strengthened financial reconciliation and operational accountability across units.

Progressively responsible roles in donor relations, gift administration, and development operations supporting multiple graduate and professional schools and the university foundation.

• Redesigned stewardship, pledge management, and financial reporting workflows, increasing pledge fulfillment, accuracy, and alignment between development and finance.
• Centralized endowment financial reporting and strengthened documentation, spending oversight, and fund tracking for donor reporting and audit compliance.
• Implemented receipting and document management improvements that increased efficiency, accuracy, and internal controls across development operations.

• Supported campaign pipeline and prospect management strategy, including portfolio tracking, solicitation-cycle reporting, and new prospect identification.
• Streamlined stewardship planning and reporting processes, enabling greater focus on major gift cultivation and relationship management.