Giving News
Veteran Duke Fund Raiser Ross to Retire
DURHAM, NC—Susan Cranford Ross, who over nearly three decades served successively as a fund-raising leader for Duke University's Annual Fund, Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Athletics, and most recently Duke's Financial Aid Initiative, will step down from the university on June 30.
Ross, a Durham native, retires as assistant vice president for financial aid development, six months after the completion of the Duke's Financial Aid Initiative, which surpassed its goal by raising more than $308 million in endowment funds over four years.
Robert K. Steel, former chairman of the Duke University Board of Trustees and another Durham native, said, "Susan Ross was the perfect choice to lead Duke's Financial Aid Initiative. The Board of Trustees and I were deeply appreciative of her leadership of this fundamental project at a critical time in Duke's history. She did a tremendous job with great distinction."
During her Duke career, Ross led teams that raised more than $500 million.
She joined the Duke staff in 1980 as assistant director of annual giving, later serving for seven years as director of the Duke Annual Fund. She became the first associate dean and director of development for Trinity College of Arts and Sciences in 1992, where she led the first years of the school's $325 million portion of the $2.3 billion Campaign for Duke. From 1998-2004, she served as associate athletics director and director of athletics development before being named to lead Duke's Financial Aid Initiative.
Ross and Raleigh fund raiser Mary Moss, will start moss+ross, a consulting firm offering strategic development services to educational and nonprofit organizations in the Raleigh-Durham area and eastern North Carolina
Ross has been a leader in Durham's non-profit community, serving as president of the Durham Rotary Club and the Junior League of Durham and Orange Counties, and chairing the Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Durham program, the Orange/Durham Coalition for Battered Women, Duke's United Way campaign, and the building campaign at Trinity Avenue Presbyterian Church. She received Durham's Women of Achievement Award in 1988 and was honored by the Jaycees as one of North Carolina's Distinguished Service Award winners in 1994.
A graduate of Hillside High School, Ross received a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina in 1977, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She began her career as college relations director at Saint Mary's College in Raleigh before coming to Duke.
At Duke her work won three awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), and she is a frequent presenter at national conferences. She has taught fund raising through Duke's Public Policy and Continuing Education programs and been a guest trainer for undergraduate courses.
She is married to Duke fund raiser Tom Hadzor and together they have six children, ages 19-28.
For more information contact:
William Conescu, director of development communications
Office of Alumni and Development Communications
(919) 681-0434
June 5, 2009