Jon Dellandrea

Jon Samuel Dellandrea, CM (born October 8, 1949) is a Canadian educator and university administrator, and former Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Development and External Affairs) at the University of Oxford. In September 2010, Dellandrea was appointed Chancellor of Nipissing University.^[1] In 2012 he was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Sunnybrook Foundation in Toronto.^[2]

Biography

Dellandrea was raised in Northern Ontario, Canada. His father Aubrey was a Plymouth Brethren preacher^[3] who in the 1960s started the Heavenly Sunshine Broadcast. He attended high school in North Bay, Ontario, where he met his wife, Lyne Edwards. They married shortly before moving to Toronto, where they both attended the University of Toronto. Dellandrea received his BA (English Literature) from Scarborough College and both his MEd and EdD from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. The couple moved to Waterloo, Ontario in 1979 to raise their two sons, Matthew and Brendan, and for Dellandrea to take a position at the University of Waterloo. During this time, Dellandrea took on a central development role, culminating in his appointment to the newly created position of Vice-President, University Development in 1983.

After serving Waterloo, Dellandrea spent several years as President of the Mount Sinai Hospital Foundation. In 1994 Dellandrea returned to the University of Toronto to serve as its Vice-President and Chief Advancement Officer, a position he held for 11 years. The initial goal had been to launch a fundraising campaign for $300 million (CAD) to establish more endowed chairs and student aid. By the time the campaign was publicly announced in 1997, most of the $300 million had already been raised under the leadership of Dellandrea and then-President Robert Prichard.^[4] The goal was reset at $400 million, and then later reset at $575 million. By the 2000 departure of President Prichard, the University had raised $705 million. The campaign was extended to the year 2004, with a new target of $1 billion.^[4] Dellandrea and his team surpassed the $1 billion goal a year ahead of schedule, and the campaign closed in excess of $1.2 billion.^[5] The number of endowed chairs grew from 15 to 175, with an additional 80 joint hospital-U of T chairs established during the campaign. As a result of the campaign, endowed student aid rose from $68.7 million in 1995 to $463 million in 2004.^[6]

Dellandrea has sat on or chaired numerous boards and foundations, including the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education (1985–86), Youth Assisting Youth (1979), and the Canadian Gallery of Clay & Glass (1988–92).^[7] Dellandrea is a member of the board of directors of the Council for Canadian Unity, the board of Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto), and former member of the board of the Canadian Bureau for International Education.^[5]

Dellandrea taught for part of his career in university advancement, on the last occasion as a professor in the Division of Management and Economics at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.^[5]

It was announced on July 29, 2008, following media speculation of a disagreement between Dellandrea and Oxford volunteer and donor Michael Moritz,^[8] that Dr Dellandrea will leave his post at Oxford in Autumn 2008 to take up a series of international consultancies.^[9] Robert Prichard, former President of the University of Toronto and now TorStar CEO, was quoted in the Toronto Star as stating that he, Prichard, was 'critical of Oxford's leadership' and that the leadership 'may have played a part in Dellandrea's decision to leave'.^[10] The nature of Dellandrea's departure is vague, having been called neither a resignation nor a dismissal. Britain's Telegraph newspaper characterised Dellandrea as 'an amiable bon vivant' whose six-figure salary was supplemented by a 'grace-and-favour' house in Oxford and use of a chauffeured car.^[8] Moritz, the volunteer chair of Oxford's North American fundraising campaign, allegedly stated in a telephone call to Vice-Chancellor John Hood that he found Dellandrea "obtuse" and uncooperative"'.^[8] Dellandrea's abrupt departure was met with shock by his colleagues in development and alumni relations, some of whom 'offered fulsome praise' for his contributions to Oxford.^[10]

Jon Dellandrea is working as the President and CEO of the Sunnybrook Foundation.

Awards

Dellandrea was the 1996 recipient of the Outstanding Fundraising Executive Award, given by the Toronto chapter of the National Society of Fundraising Executives. In 1999 the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education awarded him their "prestigious" Outstanding Achievement Award.^[5]

In 2001 he became the first Canadian to receive the Laureate Award of the Institute for Charitable Giving in the United States.^[5]

Dellandrea was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada in 2006 for his contributions to higher education.^[11]

On June 18, 2008, Dellandrea was awarded an honorary doctor of laws by the University of Toronto "for his transformative influence on the advancement profession and the culture of philanthropy in Canada and internationally".^[5]

Career

• 1973 to 1975: Executive Assistant to the Principal of Scarborough College
• 1975 to 1979: Associate Director of Development at the University of Toronto.
• 1979 to 1983: Director of Development and University relations at the University of Waterloo.
• 1983 to 1989: Vice-President, University Development at the University of Waterloo.
• 1989 to 1994: President of the Mount Sinai Hospital Foundation.
• 1994 to 2005: Vice-President and Chief Development Officer at the University of Toronto, where he headed the single largest fundraising campaign in the history of Canadian universities. The campaign succeeded in raising over $1 billion CAD one year ahead of schedule.
• 2005 to 2008: Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Development and External Affairs) at the University of Oxford, where he launched a campaign for over $2.5 billion, making it the largest campaign to date in Europe.^[12][13]
• 2012: President and Chief Executive Officer at the Sunnybrook Foundation

References

External links

• Jon S. Dellandrea, Vice President and Chief Development Officer, University of Toronto.
• Dellandrea going to Oxford, University of Toronto, December 16, 2004.