Dear Members of the Teachers College Community,

I am pleased that Kelly S. Moody, Vice President for USA Philanthropy at the International Rescue Committee, will join our Teachers College community next month on October 13 as the new Vice President for Development and External Affairs at Teachers College.

In her new role, Kelly will be engaging and mobilizing everyone in TC’s extended family – our trustees, our faculty, staff, students and parents, our devoted friends, and our 90,000 alumni worldwide – to support and advance our mission.

She brings to this critically important role exceptional leadership skills and technology savvy, a wealth of experience in resource development, and an impressive track record of successful fundraising in the nonprofit world, including in higher education.

During her time at IRC, Kelly has been responsible for: increasing the annual cash-flow run rate to more than $60 million, with more than $40 million coming from unrestricted funds; increasing the number of solicited major and principal gifts by more than 55% while increasing the success rate of closing these gifts by more than 160%; and applying data to improve efficiencies and overall performance by transforming her teams into strategic, full-service, and fully integrated units in fundraising, annual giving, prospect research, and donor relations. When the pandemic forced IRC staff to work remotely, Kelly expertly guided her team to employ the technologies and tools they’ve developed in order to maintain effective donor relations, thereby ensuring that USA Philanthropy at IRC surpassed its previous year’s fundraising achievements.

Prior to her tenure at IRC, Kelly worked for many years in higher education, at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and at New York University, where she led an integrated, comprehensive international fundraising program across the University’s 19 schools and colleges, its medical center, three portal campuses and 11 study-away sites. Kelly first honed her fundraising skills at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in Decorative Arts and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees from New York University, and was a PhD candidate in Art and Archaeology in the Mediterranean World at the University of Pennsylvania.

I want to thank the search committee for bringing forward a pool of several outstanding candidates. I also want to recognize the entire team at Development and External Affairs for its unwavering professionalism, dedication, and pursuit of excellence. For the past nine months, I have had the privilege of managing this team directly and getting to know these talented and resourceful people. They have impressed me enormously, and they have taught me a lot. I am confident that the DEA team will thrive under Kelly’s leadership.

Kelly is looking forward with great excitement to joining our TC community. I ask that you join me in welcoming her warmly to Teachers College.

Thomas Bailey
President, Teachers College