Ellis hired as Inaugural Director of Development for Student Affairs
October 11, 2022 - Dorene DiNaro
The UNM Foundation and the Division of Student Affairs are excited to announce the hiring of the inaugural Director of Development for the Division of Student Affairs, Lisa Ellis.
Lisa is a fundraising professional with 14 years experience working in Development in a higher education setting and has twenty-one years’ overall experience working in a leadership capacity for non-profit organizations. Most recently, over the past three years, Lisa served as the director of development for Project ECHO where she helped raised money for global health and education programs. Prior to that she helped lead Ripon College’s development program as the Associate Vice President of Advancement. Focus areas include campaign planning and management, major gift strategy, donor acquisition and retention, analytics and moves management.
Originally from Wisconsin, Lisa graduated from Butler University with a degree in cultural anthropology and sociology hoping to work with vulnerable communities in far off lands. Instead she returned to Wisconsin and began working in non-profit fundraising and management. This allowed her to work with an array of diverse people such as migrant farmworkers, refugees learning English as a second language, and supporters of the performing arts and higher education.
“I’m passionate about helping people reach their fullest potential no matter what challenges they are facing. I am very excited to be able to serve UNM students and help them realize their higher education dreams. I look forward to begin building relationships with Student Affairs’ units, alumni and donors in support of helping students realize their academic and personal success.”
Eric Scott, Vice President for Student Affairs at UNM commented on the importance of this new role. “Lisa brings a diverse and successful history of development work including working knowledge of UNM to her new role. The work done in Student Affairs is critical to the quality of the student experience and can meaningfully change the lives of individual students and our community as a whole, so the potential to identify new resources alongside Lisa could be truly transformational.”
Lisa will begin her new role on October 10 starting her first week of work at the UNM Foundation central office and starting in Student Affairs on October 17.
