Jessie Brooks, CFRE

Jessie joined Marts&Lundy in 2024, bringing extensive experience in advancement leadership, donor engagement, donor strategy, and campaign planning, implementation, and completion. Jessie has more than 26 years of experience in higher education fundraising and recently served as the Senior Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Spelman College until October 2023. During his tenure at Spelman College, the school initiated and completed the most successful comprehensive campaign in its history, exceeding the established goal of $250M and raising $339M. As a Spelman’s senior leadership team member, Jessie oversaw the College’s fundraising program. His division included individual giving, planned giving, corporate giving, foundation giving, annual giving, advancement services and operations, donor stewardship, donor events, campaign office, and alumnae engagement.

Immediately before joining Spelman College, he served as the Senior Director of Development for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) for five years. Jessie’s role focused on securing major and principal gifts to support oceanographic and environmental initiatives.

Jessie held various roles at San Diego State University over his eight-year tenure there. He was Associate and Assistant Vice President for University Development, responsible for the Advancement Team and Development Operations, and the Senior Director of Development for the College of Health and Human Services and College of Sciences concurrently. Jessie has also worked at the University of Washington as the Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations for the College of Engineering and started his development career as the Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations at Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management.

Jessie has been active with CASE and AFP during his career. He recently served on the District III Cabinet and has been a CASE Speaker. Jessie is an African American Development Officers (AADO) member and participates in Men of Color in Development (MOCID) initiatives. Jessie enjoys traveling, exercising, and making new friends when not working.