Position Profile

VICE PRESIDENT, DEVELOPMENT & MARKETING

Executive Summary

Since 1981, Ronald McDonald House Charities Toronto (RMHC Toronto) has served as a place to call home for families with seriously ill children undergoing treatment. RMHC Toronto keeps seriously ill children and their families together to improve their health and well-being, providing accommodation, meals, support programs and all the comforts of home. The first Ronald McDonald House at 365 Dundas St. W. opened its doors to families on June 14, 1981. The House had 19 bedrooms and served families with children receiving cancer treatment. In 1990, the Board of Directors expanded RMHC Toronto’s mandate to include families with children being treated for all serious illnesses, which helped better meet the demand for the programs and services. In 1993, they moved to a 21-room house at 26 Gerrard St. E., and in November 2011 moved to the current 81-bedroom House at 240 McCaul St. In a typical year RMHC Toronto serves over 5000 families – at the House and seven Family Room Programs located in five hospitals in the GTA and Sudbury. RMHC Toronto was recognized as an essential service and remained open serving families throughout the pandemic.

Demand for services continues to grow and out-pace RMHC Toronto space – annually turning away over 500 families in need.

Today, RMHC Toronto consists of:

The House – 240 McCaul Street, Toronto

https://rmhctoronto.ca/our-house/

Accommodates 81 families each night and is located just steps from The Hospital for Sick Children and Mount Sinai Hospital.

Family Rooms

https://rmhctoronto.ca/our-family-rooms/

RMHC Toronto also operates seven in-hospital Family Rooms at Credit Valley Hospital, Health Sciences North, Oak Valley Health’s Markham Stouffville Hospital, Scarborough Health Network, and The Hospital for Sick Children.

RMHC Toronto School – inside The House

https://rmhctoronto.ca/rmhc-toronto-school/

The school compassionately provides a unique, student-centred learning environment to facilitate academic, emotional, and social success for both siblings and, where possible, the sick child.

Programs + Services

https://rmhctoronto.ca/our-house/programs-and-services/

20 programs are offered to provide families with mental, physical, and emotional support, relaxation, and a moment to pause during their most difficult times.

About RMHC and RMHC Toronto

RMHC Toronto, along with RMHC Canada and 11 RMHC Regional Chapters, is part of a global network of Ronald McDonald House Charities operating in sixty-two countries around the world serving over five million children and families each year.

Within Canada, RMHC Toronto is part of a highly collaborative and mutually supportive nationally federated structure of 13 RMHC organizations (12 Regional Chapters + RMHC Canada as the national chapter, foundation of support and largest donor).

In total, RMHC’s across Canada has 33 RMHC program locations through 16 RMHC houses and 18 RMHC family rooms, supporting an average of 26,000 families each year.

RMHC Toronto is currently the largest of 12 Regional RMHC Chapters in Canada, supporting families who have a child being treated at one of Canada’s 16 pediatric hospitals.

RMHC Toronto is an independently licensed legal entity and registered charity, operating under a license agreement with RMHC Global and RMHC Canada, supported by a dedicated Board of Directors, seventy-seven staff and five hundred volunteers, working closely with local hospital partners to support families at 8 program locations across central and northern Ontario.

RMHC Toronto is an essential pillar of the social infrastructure for pediatric healthcare, enabling equitable access to world-class healthcare in Canada. In an average year, RMHC Toronto’s 81-bedroom House, seven in-hospital Family Rooms, and suite of programs support over 5300 families from more than 470 communities across Ontario, the country, and internationally annually.

RMHC Toronto and SickKids have a relationship that has extended over four decades, sharing the common goal of providing excellence of care while ensuring sick children have what they need most – to be close to their families.

While RMHC is proud of the families they are serving today, they remain inspired and deeply committed to doing more for the hundreds of families they are forced to turn away each year due to lack of space. RMHC Toronto is operating at capacity, with active and early discussions around the need to expand in the years ahead.

Funding

RMHC Toronto’s founding and forever-partner is McDonald’s Canada.

https://rmhctoronto.ca/about-us/our-mcdonalds-relationship/  

McDonald’s Canada is RMHC Toronto’s largest donor, generously providing approximately one-third of the overall operating revenues through a variety of national and regional giving programs and campaigns, as well as capital-specific funding and essential in-kind support. RMHC Toronto is deeply thankful for this continued partnership and for every crew person, manager, franchisee, corporate employee, and customer who has provided essential partnership and steadfast support for this critical mission over the last 40 years.

The other two-thirds of fundraising revenue comes from private philanthropy including generous individuals, foundations, corporate donations, partnerships, community events, signature events, and national fundraising initiatives.

Ronald McDonald House Charity has high levels of recognition, awareness and understanding nationally – as learned through research with Ipsos – there is a strong brand foundation.

Leadership

During the spring/summer of 2023, the Board of Directors in partnership with Preston Human Capital Group, conducted an exhaustive search for Ronald McDonald House Charities Toronto’s next Chief Executive Officer. The board unanimously selected Tania Little, who stepped into the role in August 2023.

Tania has been honing her experience as a fundraising, marketing executive and consultant in local, national, and international social sector organizations on campaigns ranging from $3 – $260 million for 25 years.

Previously with Food Banks Canada, for almost nine years, Tania spearheaded strategy and execution of all national revenue and food generating initiatives, supply chain and innovation portfolios. She was responsible for leading transformation growth (almost 3,000%) during her tenure to benefit over 4,700 independent organizations that make up the food banking system in Canada and in service to the million plus people who visit food banks each month. In addition, she drove the strategy and execution of Food Banks Canada’s 1-year special Covid-19 Response Fund, raising over $160 million, $165 million worth of food, inspiring over 125,000 new individual donors and over five hundred national and multinational corporations to expand their support of Food Banks Canada’s mission to relieve hunger today and prevent hunger tomorrow.

Tania recently served as the Co-Chair of the Canadian Marketing Association’s – Not for Profit & Public Sector Council and was awarded one of 50 Canadian Report on Business Best Executive’s Award’s in 2020. Previously she’s served at the executive board level of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, locally, nationally, and internationally, AFP Foundation for Philanthropy and with Planned Parenthood Toronto as an executive board member and Chair. Tania is a mom of five, and joyful grandparent to three grandchildren.

2023 Strategic Plan

The successful candidate will be joining at an opportune time in the history of RMHC Toronto. Building on the work of the Board and senior leadership, a foundational strategic plan has been created. With continued opportunity to lead, inform and bring to life, the Strategic Plan sets a course for sustainability, growth, and innovation in serving families with sick children.

A strategy task force of the Board was formed in collaboration with management with the purpose of updating the strategic vision, mission, values, objectives, and priorities that will guide RMHC Toronto into the future. The strategic plan is a significant focus for Tania, including the fundraising vision and operationalizing to support the plan. The Board also recognizes the opportunity to further strengthen the plan through Tania’s expertise and insights.

RMHC Toronto’s mission is to act as a community of families, volunteers, staff, fundraisers, and stakeholders to offer compassionate support to as many families as possible so they can stay close to their sick children while their child is being treated at a nearby hospital.

RMHC Toronto’s core values are compassion, integrity, diversity & inclusion, togetherness, and kindness.

Strategic Objectives

RMHC Toronto’s four strategic objectives help to focus their investments and efforts on the areas of the organization that have the greatest impact to advancing the vision and mission which includes:

1. Providing Compassionate Family Services

• Deliver compassionate, family-focused operations.
• Establish and track Key Operational Benchmarks
• Develop Targets and Manage Operational Performance

2. Driving Expansion for Today and Tomorrow

• Develop and deliver on a House and Program Expansion Plan
• Define the role of Family Rooms in the Expansion Strategy
• Build and execute on a resource and operations growth plan.

3. Empowering their People

• Establish a high performing culture.
• Deliver diverse and inclusive recruitment and retention practices.
• Provide ongoing support to people, including pathways for career development.

4. Mobilizing the Community

• Optimize how they collaborate with partners.
• Elevate fundraising.
• Maximize return on any future capital campaigns.

Position Overview

Organization: Ronald McDonald House Charities Toronto,240 McCaul Street. 3 days a week in office.

Title: Vice President, Development & Marketing

Reports to: Tania Little, Chief Executive Officer

Team: Five direct, twelve overall

Compensation: $165,000-$185,000 with a comprehensive benefits and vacation package.

Key Internal Relationships:

• Senior leadership
• The Board of Directors
• Development committee of the board
• Marketing & Development team
• Mission Impact team

Key External Relationships:

• Families
• Healthcare partners, RMHC Canada and RMHC Global, 12 RMHC Regional Chapters across Canada, McDonald’s Canada Franchise Partners, community partners, donors, volunteers. and supporters
• Select funding partners, including all three levels of government as designated over time.
• Maintaining strong community relationships as the philanthropy and marketing leader of the Charity among external stakeholders

Is This You?

You are reading this position profile as it’s entirely possible you could be the next Vice President, Development & Marketing for Ronald McDonald House Charities Toronto.

With hands-on experience with both fundraising and marketing you possess intellectual curiosity and apply innovative, entrepreneurial, and creative thinking in developing and implementing marketing and development strategies and programs.

You would describe yourself as an accomplished fundraising generalist who has a deep appreciation for, and track record in, major gifts within a campaign environment. You enjoy digging into data and understanding the history of an organizations donor pool to chart forward the plan for what’s to come. You possess a growth mindset and are always looking for ways to improve. You are an excellent communicator and a natural collaborator; you’ve been known to bring teams and stakeholders together to achieve a common objective that before your involvement was stagnating. You are trusted by your colleagues because you follow through on your commitments, and your integrity and commitment to your word has attracted a followership around you – people want to work with you because you are respectful, you hear others out, but above all, you get it done and have fun along the way.

You are a unique blend of fundraiser and marketer. You respect and appreciate that a strong brand leads to fundraising dollars in the door. You have experience developing a brand strategy with the goal to increase share of voice within a competitive fundraising environment. You are comfortable with managing agency and vendor relationships and ideally have worked successfully within a federated charitable model.

You have been successful at securing investment for your organization because of your strategic thinking, savvy negotiation and partnership skills and laser beam focus.

You are known for an ability to guide and lead with high emotional intelligence.

You have a deep commitment to continuous learning and advancing equity, diversity, inclusion, and reconciliation in all its forms and must be curious and open to welcoming ideas from all stakeholders to drive the mission forward.

You would be motivated to work for an organization that is poised for growth under the exceptional leadership of a newly placed CEO who has a vision to transform and empower a beloved Canadian charity to the next level. If this sounds like you, read on.

The Role

In this newly created role, the Vice President, Development & Marketing will report to the Chief Executive Officer. The ideal candidate will be an exceptional relationship builder who adeptly wears two hats and is an integrative thinker for both the fundraising and marketing portfolio.

The Vice President, Development & Marketing will be passionate, energetic, committed to leadership and collaboration with a results orientation. Our candidate will be bold yet diplomatic and will possess a deep passion for the RMHC Toronto mission, vision, and values. The Vice President, Development & Marketing will be able to skillfully navigate the complexity and dynamics of a federated organization and will partner within the federation of Ronald McDonald House Charities and McDonald’s Canada to advocate for brand marketing investment for Ronald McDonald House Charities Toronto. They will be accountable to building and implementing the House’s marketing strategy. In addition to brand strategy, our candidate will oversee the internal and external communications strategy and key stakeholder communications. Our successful candidate’s scope of responsibility within fundraising will include annual, corporate, individual, foundation, campaigns, major gifts, and events with an annual target of $8.5M and to build a scaling plan for growth.

Fundraising will undergo a significant shift away from events focus to relationship-based fundraising, targeting both McDonald’s owner operators and external individual donors, foundations, and corporations.

Our candidate will oversee a team of five direct reports and an overall team of twelve.

Primary Responsibilities

Development

• Alongside the CEO, create and implement all facets of the fundraising strategy, including major gifts, events, annual, corporate, individual, and foundation to meet annual operational targets.
• Provide strategic and operational leadership to ensure the effective cultivation, management, stewardship, and appropriate recognition of all existing/new donor and funding relationships.
• Scale efforts to identify and expand potential new partnerships and opportunities with more communities and donors.
• Develop and implement a diversified, balanced fundraising plan over the next 7-10 years that supports the strategic plan – which could include a Capital Campaign and a significant increase in operating funds.
• Specific focus on redesigning the major gift strategy with a focus on engagement of owner-operators where this is opportunity for expanded stewardship and deepened major gift engagement.
• Work within the federation to share and collaborate wherever possible to ensure a unified and consistent experience for donors at all levels.
• Partner with the board, senior volunteers, and fundraising team to identify, cultivate, and solicit key prospects for significant gifts.

Marketing & Communications

• Within the federation, manage and promote RMHC Toronto’s brand identity while ensuring the integration of national materials are consistent across all platforms.
• Develop and implement the strategic communication (internal and external) and marketing plans for RMHC Toronto ensuring marketing and communications are integrated with program, fundraising, and public policy goals.
• Participate in the selection of an agency of record and actively manage the agency relationship and any other vendor relationships as required.
• Oversee the writing and production of brand materials with the aim to capture success stories for creating public awareness and brand resonance inspiring donors and new engagement.
• Manage key stakeholder communications to deepen engagement and scale partnership.
• Alongside the CEO, act as a spokesperson (when appropriate) for the House while managing any crisis or issues communications.

Leadership

• As a member of the senior leadership team, work alongside the CEO and other leaders to set the direction and example to the team.
• Oversee both fundraising and marketing teams providing active coaching and mentorship, performance management plans and succession planning.
• Lead recruitment efforts for marketing and development as needed.
• Position self as a subject matter expert and respected thought leader in marketing and development within the federation

Qualifications

Our ideal candidate will possess/have:

• A commitment to the mission, vision, and values of Ronald McDonald House Charities Toronto
• A minimum of 7-10 years progressive and successful fundraising, brand marketing and communication and team leadership experience
• Depth of understanding in research, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship strategies with demonstrated experience in major gifts
• Ideally has experience in multi-year campaigns.
• Strong leadership and administrative experience with proven success leading, mentoring, and motivating teams.
• An analytical and organized thinker – who posses the ability to plan, manage, set priorities, and focus on the detail while not losing sight of the big picture.
• An excellent presenter, communicator, and persuasive writer with high attention to detail
• Excellent interpersonal skills who works harmoniously within the federation, donors, volunteers, the board of directors, committees and the public
• A comfort level with being on site and interacting with families and staff.
• Existing knowledge of the GTA’s philanthropic community
• Experience in health and social service would be an asset.
• A bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience required; master’s degree considered an asset but not required; CFRE designation considered an asset.

Application Instructions

If you are looking for an outstanding challenge, working with an exceptional leader, senior volunteer and leadership team, within a high functioning global federated model for a very important, focused, and successful organization that is poised to go through bold and ambitious change, then please submit your CV, along with a covering letter explaining why you should be a serious candidate to:

lindsay@phcap.ca at Preston Human Capital Group by 5pm ET on November 17, 2023.

Ronald McDonald House Charities Toronto hires based on merit and is strongly committed to equality and diversity within its community and to providing a welcoming and inclusive workplace. RMHC Toronto welcomes applications from Indigenous persons, visible minority group members, women, persons with disabilities, people of all sexual orientations and genders, and others with the skills and knowledge to productively engage with diverse communities.

RMHC Toronto requires proof of COVID-19 vaccination (2 doses).

As an equal opportunity employer RMHC Toronto will accommodate your needs under the Ontario Human Rights Code. Upon individual request, hiring processes will be modified to remove barriers to accommodate those with disabilities. Should any applicant require accommodation through the application, interview, or selection processes please notify us so that we may provide appropriate assistance.

Please note all inquiries and applications will be held in strict confidence and only qualified respondents will be contacted for interview. We thank you in advance for your interest.