University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) President Jay A. Perman, MD, announced that effective Aug. 15, 2016, Thomas J. Sullivan, CFRE, MS, will join the University as chief development officer (CDO) and vice president. Sullivan, who has led or had an integral role in philanthropy programs that have yielded nearly $1 billion in charitable investment, also will serve as president and CEO of the University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation, Inc.
As CDO, Sullivan will lead the University’s central development operation and will be responsible for cultivating and stewarding principal and transformational gifts to UMB. He also will serve as key strategist and consultant to the deans and their development officers.
“As resources to higher education grow more and more constrained, we are increasingly reliant on philanthropy to strengthen our impact, locally and globally,” Perman says. “Tom is the ambitious and proven leader UMB needs to enlarge our fundraising effort — to cultivate an energetic community of donors and build for them a compelling case to give.”
Sullivan has more than 35 years of experience as a fundraising executive, with particular expertise in health care and education.
As president of the Children’s Memorial Hospital Foundation from 2001 to 2013, Sullivan was chief architect of a $600 million campaign to build the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. The campaign exceeded its goal, generating $675 million from more than 250,000 donors. It was among the largest fundraising totals ever achieved in pediatrics and included the first-ever $100 million gift to a pediatric institution. During his tenure at the foundation, Sullivan led a staff of 100 and raised more than $800 million in gifts.
His latest assignment before coming to UMB was as senior vice president for philanthropy at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) and president of the RIC Foundation, where he led a $300 million campaign to build a state-of-the-art hospital in downtown Chicago for Northwestern University’s top-ranked center for excellence in rehabilitative medicine and science.
Born in Olean, N.Y., and raised in Oklahoma, Sullivan is no stranger to Baltimore, having served as president of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center Foundation from 1986 to 1993. He was vice president of philanthropy at Washington Hospital Center from 1993 to 2001, implementing a $25 million capital campaign.
“I look forward to working with Dr. Perman and the deans and the philanthropy leaders at UMB to enhance the understanding and appreciation for the powerful impact philanthropy has,” Sullivan says. “There is great philanthropic potential out there in the community. Most people are motivated and want to do good things, want to move the needle in improving the community and society in general. Philanthropy is an effective lever in doing that.”