For Stacey Conrad, MBA, associate dean for development and alumni relations at the University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON), it’s all about making connections.

In her role, which she assumed in January, she leads UMSON’s engagement efforts with donors and its more than 23,000 alumni, overseeing major and planned gifts, annual giving, alumni relations, and stewardship.

“What I like most about my job is it makes me feel like I’m doing something good for the world and my community,” she said. “I’m not a nurse. I’m not a doctor. I’m not saving lives. But what I’m doing is making connections so that someone who has a passion to support something and the capacity to do so can live that passion. I get to make that connection and see that they’re helping students receive a nursing education. And then those students who become nurses do go out and change the world and help their communities.”

For her donor and alumni relations efforts, Conrad was named the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) April Employee of the Month. She was surprised during an April 8 videoconference call with UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS; Jane M. Kirschling, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Bill and Joanne Conway Dean of UMSON; and her UMSON colleagues.

Kirschling said she was proud of Conrad’s accomplishments. “This is so well-deserved, and Stacey is a joy to work with,” she said.

Laurette Hankins, who retired at the end of last year and had been Conrad’s supervisor, returned for the videoconference. Conrad, with 13 years of experience in the department, succeeded Hankins as associate dean.

“She’s just so incredible, and not only is she knowledgeable, diligent, dedicated, and terrific, but she always helps everybody,” Hankins said.

Conrad has had an important role in the gifts given to UMSON by Bill and Joanne Conway through their Bedford Falls Fund. The Conways have committed nearly $30 million to UMSON and the Conway Scholars program, which provides full scholarships, tuition, fees, and books to students in all programs. Conrad has been involved in creating each of the proposals that UMSON has submitted to the Conways over the past seven years, and she serves on the committee that helps to manage the programmatic and financial aspects of the philanthropic gifts.

“Stacey has earned trust, admiration, and respect from alumni, staff, faculty, and non-alumni donors, which has been a tremendous boon to UMSON,” Hankins said. “Stacey is a strategic and effective fundraiser, whether in the area of annual gifts, bequests, or major gifts. She is a wonderful ambassador for the school.”

Conrad also has helped to streamline UMSON’s scholarship award process, strengthening the connection between donors and students.

“What’s important about our scholarship funding is this money comes from people who made a choice to support the school, so there’s a real personal connection between the scholarship and the student who receives it,” Conrad said. “And we want to make that connection.”

She worked on forming a committee that reviews the process to ensure that students receiving the scholarships meet the guidelines set forth by donors.

“We always want to make sure that we’re using the funds as the donor intended. And then to follow through on that, we contact each and every scholarship recipient and ask them to write a thank-you letter to their donor,” she said.

Conrad also works with the school’s alumni, holding virtual and in-person events as well as opportunities for them to volunteer and become involved with UMSON students through mentoring and student speaker series.

“By building and maintaining countless strong relationships with alumni and other donors, Stacey serves as a fantastic role model for advancing the goals and mission of UMSON,” Hankins said.

In January 2020, Conrad participated in a three-day intensive workshop to become a restorative justice facilitator. Since then, she has been an integral part of UMSON’s Restorative Justice Workgroup, which meets monthly, and has participated in several committees, including one to create the group’s mission, vision, and evaluation process and another to determine strategy to train a new group of facilitators.

“I thought the program was a wonderful opportunity and something that I wanted to get involved with because it’s a way of handling conflict that’s not punitive,” Conrad said. “You’re looking at ways to repair harm and build community, which can also be beneficial to the work I do in development.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Conrad, who often travels to visit with donors and prospective donors and holds in-person events, looked to the positives of how it changed her job.

“One of the challenges of our work is we’re dependent on this personal interaction,” Conrad said. “The world around us is changing regardless of COVID, and we need to adapt to that. And I think it can be easy to get stuck in the ways that you’ve always done things because they work. Pivoting to virtual events and virtual meetings with donors and alumni showed us that we could have a wider reach. We’re not letting go of that virtual piece of our work because we’ve realized there’s a place for it.”

As Employee of the Month, Conrad will receive a plaque, a letter of commendation, and an extra $250 in her next paycheck. She thanked Jarrell, Kirschling, and Hankins for their leadership and her teammates for their support.

“We have such a wonderful team that is committed to the mission and committed to helping each other,” Conrad said. “Any success I have is at least partially attributed to each of them.”

— Jen Badie