EVP, Development

EVP, Development

The Buckeye Ranch

About The Buckeye Ranch

The Buckeye Ranch restores hope and provides healing through a comprehensive continuum of care including mental health treatment, child welfare, and education-based services for youth and their families.

Celebrating its 65th anniversary in 2026, The Buckeye Ranch is a leading provider for emotional, behavioral, and mental health care for youth and families in Ohio. The Buckeye Ranch operates seven locations throughout Central and Southwestern Ohio and serves more than 9,200 youth and families annually. The organization uses a continuum of tailored programs to meet parents and youth where they are.

• The Buckeye Ranch’s Qualified Residential Treatment Program (QRTP) offers a secure treatment facility and intensive support—from individual counseling to psychiatric services to music, art, or animal therapy—for youth struggling with the most acute mental health and behavioral challenges.
• Opened in 2025, The Buckeye Ranch’s Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility (PRTF) is the first of its kind in Ohio, bridging the gap between hospitalization and home. With on-site medically directed treatment, schooling, community building, alternative therapies, and recreation, the PRTF offers comprehensive care youth need to heal and build a foundation for long-term wellness.
• The Foster Care Program connects children with committed foster families who belong to The Buckeye Ranch’s network of almost 300 homes across Ohio, with offices in Columbus, Newark, and the Greater Cincinnati area.
• Through community-based programs, The Buckeye Ranch provides youth and families with a comprehensive suite of mental health services, such as outpatient care and counseling, homebased treatment, integrated co-occurring therapy, medication management, and other vital services.
• Day treatment programs, such as the Bonner Academies, support youth struggling with behavioral problems that impede success in a traditional school environment. By removing barriers to learning, these programs equip students to reach their behavioral and academic goals and ultimately return to their home school districts. The Buckeye Ranch also offers mental health services in over 25 schools across Central Ohio to support youth in their home schools.
• Since 2022, The Buckeye Ranch has served as the Care Management Entity for East Franklin County for OhioRISE, working with a network of providers to serve over 3,200 youth and families with complex, multi-system needs.
• Other key programs include the Behavioral Health Respite program, which supports families whose children have mental health challenges; and Transitional Aged Youth Programs, which provide youth with housing, support with workforce readiness, and aid as they transition from foster care or group homes to adulthood and self-sufficiency.

Throughout all programs, The Buckeye Ranch practices four core principles of quality care—traumainformed, strength-based, culturally competent, and family-centered—and upholds an enduring commitment to strength and healing.

The Opportunity

The Buckeye Ranch seeks a seasoned and strategic fundraising leader to advance the urgent and important mission of restoring hope and providing healing for youth and families in Ohio. This is an exciting opportunity to join a statewide leader in mental and behavioral healthcare and shape a future in which youth and families have access to the high-quality mental and behavioral health services they deserve.

The Buckeye Ranch operates with discipline and clarity, guided by a visionary President and CEO, Vickie Thompson-Sandy, a committed board, and a well-established leadership team. With longstanding philanthropic support from many of the region’s most prominent individual and institutional supporters and recent investments in development, marketing, and communications staff and infrastructure, The Buckeye Ranch has seen significant increases in philanthropic support in recent years. The EVP, Development will play a pivotal role in building on this momentum, expanding the donor community, and ensuring that The Buckeye Ranch’s bold vision becomes a reality.

The EVP, Development will be a strategic leader and frontline fundraiser. The ideal candidate brings deep experience leading talented, multi-functional teams, while also managing their own portfolio of major individual and institutional donors. This is an exciting opportunity for a leader who thrives at balancing management responsibilities with direct donor and stakeholder engagement. Positioning the development and communications team to lead the creation of a culture of philanthropy across the organization will be critical to aligning efforts with organizational priorities and fostering the collaboration that will be necessary to achieve The Buckeye Ranch’s ambitious goals.

The work of The Buckeye Ranch is multifaceted and complex, requiring a leader who can balance thoughtful, trauma-informed, person-centered storytelling and a data-driven fundraising and communication strategy to increase philanthropic support for the organization. The Buckeye Ranch benefits from an exemplary reputation and a legacy of high-impact programming; the ideal candidate will bring an entrepreneurial approach to building on this support to identify and engage new donors across The Buckeye Ranch service area.

Key Position Functions

The incoming EVP, Development will lead The Buckeye Ranch’s efforts to inform and engage stakeholders in raising the funding resources necessary to support the organization’s mission and core values. They will oversee a team of nine with three direct reports including the Director of Development, Director of Grants, and the Director of Marketing and Communications. With a contributed revenue expectation of $2.5M annually and near-term plans for growth with a newly completed comprehensive development plan, the EVP, Development has a unique opportunity to scale the efforts of The Buckeye Ranch to provide hope and healing for youth and families across Ohio.

• Fundraising Strategy: Lead and implement a short- and long-term strategic fundraising plan and the related tactical plans and activities to achieve the fundraising and strategic goals of the organization. Develop and implement a multi-year fundraising strategy including major gifts, planned and endowment giving, government contracts, grants, corporate partnerships, and appropriate engagement and stewardship activities. Lead the departmental budget proposal and review process, including coordination with peer leaders in programs, administration, and professional development.
• Communications, Marketing, and Public Relations Strategy: Oversee the creation and implementation of an external communications strategy for the organization. Oversee the Director of Marketing and Communications in the creation of annual marketing & external communications plan, including crisis communication and public relations. Oversee the crossteam collaboration to create and publish fundraising collateral, and raise awareness of The Buckeye Ranch and its primary goals through outreach efforts, events, social media, internal digital content creation, and public relations. In partnership with the Director of Marketing and Communications, provide direction to PR vendor for media placements; appropriately represent The Buckeye Ranch to internal and external stakeholders, vendors, and media.
• Advocacy and Public Policy: Serve as a key partner in advancing the organization’s public policy priorities, working closely with the CEO and executive leadership and an external lobbying firm to elevate awareness of issues impacting youth and families. Help shape and support the organization’s advocacy agenda by aligning policy priorities with strategic goals. Build and maintain relationships with policymakers, community leaders, and sector partners to advance legislation and public funding opportunities that strengthen outcomes for the youth and families served by The Buckeye Ranch.
• Leadership and Management: Motivate and manage a nine-person development team, directly supervising three leaders. Hire, train, retain, and develop a team by providing adaptive coaching and support to empower staff to grow, learn, and develop as fundraisers and professionals; create intentional succession plans to develop, promote, and retain high-performing team members; build a strong team culture grounded in inclusivity and belonging as well as dedication to fueling the organization’s mission; and ensure all team members have tools, resources, role clarity, and support to achieve ambitious portfolio goals.
• Donor Engagement and Stewardship: Cultivate, strengthen, and sustain strategic relationships with key individual donors and corporate leaders, ensuring a high level of donor satisfaction and involvement. Oversee the creation and implementation of donor, solicitation, and stewardship plans, including strategies for endowment growth and legacy giving opportunities. Guide strategy for the creation of recognition activities for key stakeholder groups.
• Portfolio Management: Directly manage a small portfolio of top donors, focusing on donors with capacity to make six- and seven-figure gifts. Support the board and the President and CEO in managing their portfolios of donors. Develop and execute individual strategies.
• Operations: Develop, implement, and monitor appropriate metrics for overall team performance to achieve strategic objectives. Ensure the fundraising infrastructure provides an efficient and effective pathway for donor engagement; provide strategic direction to the team responsible for all donor data tracking and reporting, donor relations, gift acknowledgement and gratitude activities, donor solicitation tracking and portfolio management, and gift and fundraising policies and processes. Ensure the marketing and communications team provides an efficient and effective pathway for telling The Buckeye Ranch story that engages the community to participate and supports the growth of the services. Ensure that the grant management team provides an efficient and effective pathway to support the strategic growth of the programs and infrastructure of The Buckeye Ranch.
• Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Partner with EVP, Programs and Services to align fundraising efforts with program priorities, ensuring fundraising and communications strategies are informed by client needs and programmatic goals. Collaborate on storytelling, impact measurement, and stakeholder engagement to elevate the visibility of programmatic impact. Partner with program staff across the enterprise to develop and implement strategies that inspire volunteers and in-kind donors to become long-term supporters and donors.
• Board Relations: Guide and lead board members in identifying and cultivating friends & donors. Develop and maintain positive relationships with the governing board and provide tools and training to support board members’ friend- and fund-raising efforts.

Qualifications

Competencies and Attributes for Success in the Position:

• Engages People
• Self Management
• Leadership Agility
• Growth Mindset
• Builds Relationships
• Executive Presence
• Collaboration
• Strategic Leadership
• Drives Impact
• Learning Agility
• Achievement Oriented
• Unrelenting Advocate

Required Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree preferred, Bachelor’s degree required.
• Ten or more years of experience in philanthropy with progressive roles.
• Proven experience overseeing a comprehensive communications and fundraising program including individual major and annual giving, legacy giving, institutional giving, and government grants.
• Proven team leadership experience, including oversight of remote or multi-site teams.
• Keen ability to implement and grow a geographically diverse fundraising program.
• Ability to work in person at The Buckeye Ranch’s Columbus, Ohio, office and travel to offices and stakeholders across the organization’s entire geographic service area.

Desired Qualifications:

• Fundraising leadership experience in mental and behavioral health organizations, hospitals/health systems, or human service organizations.
• CFRE or other advanced fundraising certification.

Compensation

The Buckeye Ranch is pleased to offer a competitive compensation and benefits package for this position. Target compensation for the position is $150,000-$190,000, commensurate with experience, with eligibility for additional performance-based and deferred compensation.

Application Process

Benefactor Group is pleased to be assisting The Buckeye Ranch with this executive search. Applications will be reviewed as they are received. All applications are considered highly confidential. To be considered for this position, please submit a resume at the link below. In the application, you will also be asked to provide a brief answer to a question describing your interest in the role.

To apply, please visit: https://apptrkr.com/7174936.

To learn more about The Buckeye Ranch, please visit: https://www.buckeyeranch.org/.

Please do not contact staff or board of The Buckeye Ranch with questions or interest in the role. All inquiries about the position should be directed to Benefactor Group.

Benefactor Group Recruitment Team
[email protected]
http://www.benefactorgroup.com

Applicants are considered for all positions in accordance with statutes and regulations concerning nondiscrimination on the basis of race, ancestry, age, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, non-disqualifying disability, veteran status, or other protected classification. The Buckeye Ranch is an equal opportunity employer, as well as a substance and tobacco free workplace. All offers of employment are contingent on satisfactory pre-employment drug screen, references, FBI/BCI background check, ARCS registries check, and SACWIS database checks. At this time, The Buckeye Ranch is unable to provide visa sponsorship. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship now or in the future.