EVP, Development

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, including:

• Qualified Residential Treatment Program
• Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility
• Foster Care Program
• Community-based and day treatment programs
• Care Management Entity for East Franklin County for OhioRISE
• Behavioral Health Respite program
• Transitional Aged Youth Programs

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

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.

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. Overseeing 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…