Please join me in welcoming some new team members to the Annual Giving team:

Indi Jackson will join the team on Thursday, May 13th as an Associate Director, Leadership Annual Giving on the Sorin Society team. Indi is a 2017 Notre Dame alumna and former Notre Dame student-athlete who joins us from the Fighting Irish Media team where she served as an associate producer. Her passion for storytelling is not only contagious, but will serve her well in her new fundraising role.

Abigail (Abbie) Spica will join the team on Monday, May 17 as the new Associate Director, Law and Graduate Business Annual Giving. Abbie is a 2017 graduate of St. Mary’s College and has worked in sales and recruitment since graduating, most recently with Northwestern Mutual. She and her fiancée will be relocating to South Bend from Grand Rapids in the coming months.

Kasey O’Connor will make a return to the Annual Giving team on Tuesday, June 1 as the new Director of Academic and Athletic Annual Giving. In this role, Kasey will oversee a team charged with raising unrestricted funds for the Law School, Mendoza, and Notre Dame Athletics, as well as the stewardship and engagement strategy for the Badin Guild, Order of St. Thomas More, O’Hara Society, and Rockne Athletics Fund. Kasey will have a particular focus on growing the revenue from and experience for the $25k and $50k levels of these societies, and will co-lead Friends of Ted and Ned with Mary Jane Anon. Kasey has served in numerous roles in both Athletics and Development, including on the Annual Giving team as a leadership annual gift officer from 2018-2019. Most recently, she served as a Regional Director on the Southwest Team.

I’d also like to congratulate the following colleagues in Annual Giving who have been promoted to new roles:

Brandon Tabor will now serve as Director, Annual Giving Programs and Operations. In this capacity, he will oversee 2 teams charged with the execution of all mass communications and solicitations, as well as a focus on growing both total donors and undergraduate alumni participation. Brandon has been a leader on the Annual Giving team for 3 years after several years on the Storytelling and Engagement team. I am thrilled for him to expand his leadership in this way.

Katie Kerby will serve as the Senior Associate Director, Annual Giving Programs. Katie and her team are charged with the growth of all programmatic efforts of annual giving outside of the giving societies, including the Notre Dame Fund, ND Loyal, Notre Dame Day, ND Listens, For Good, and Senior Legacy. Katie, a former UR intern, has served as the manager of ND Listens since 2019 where she helped shape an incredible culture that empowers students and has become one of the top student employers on campus. Additionally, Katie has been a key player in engaging students in creative ways to generate a pipeline of future undergraduate alumni donors to Notre Dame.

Lauren Dolzan will serve as the Senior Associate Director, Marketing Operations. Lauren’s team oversees the development and execution of engagement, cultivation, and stewardship vehicles including email, mail, and digital. This team also plays a critical role in the execution of Notre Dame Day, The Fight, and other crowdfunding campaigns. Lauren has served as Annual Giving’s Project Manager since 2018 where she has invented and implemented processes that guide the execution of all Annual Giving campaigns and solicitations. Additionally, Lauren has helped to oversee the vision, creation, launch, and maintenance of For Good, our new monthly giving program at Notre Dame.

Please refer to the UR Pingboard as these changes become effective for an overview of the new annual giving team structure, and let myself or any of the leaders on the team know if you have any questions. We look forward to collaborating with all of you as we close FY21 and look to FY22. -Brian Diss