Joan E. O’Neill is vice president for alumni affairs and development. At Yale for over 35 years, she leads the university’s work with alumni and its fundraising efforts, including capital campaigns. YourYale recently spoke with O’Neill about her role, her teams, and the campaign that has been engaging the entire Yale community.
Can you describe your division?
I am responsible for the leadership of the Yale Alumni Association (YAA) and the Office of Development. Together this includes 20 units and 330 staff members. Right now, we’re in the middle of the capital campaign For Humanity. It’s comprehensive, so it includes all parts of the university. We held a virtual launch in the middle of the pandemic, and we are down to the final two years. We expect to wrap it up coinciding with Yale’s 325th birthday on June 30, 2026, having surpassed our $7 billion goal. What a great, big, celebratory moment that will be.
What is the role of the YAA?
YAA finds ways to connect our alumni to the university and to keep them connected to each other, and it makes sure that alumni stay knowledgeable about what’s happening at Yale. This work is consistent with the campaign’s non-dollar goals, to deepen alumni engagement and strengthen our pipeline of potential volunteers and supporters for the future. This engagement work has been a way that the YAA and the development teams have come together in this campaign because the non-financial goals are shared across the organization.
How does the work of your division relate to Yale’s mission?
We are directly tied to Yale’s mission because our role is to help fund it. When we think of the mission, we see clearly the role of the fundraising side of our house. But the alumni affairs side is also very connected to Yale’s mission because we work to make sure that the alumni are involved in what’s happening on campus, to be Yale’s eyes, ears, and voices of feedback and pride.
The alumni are one of the most important communities at the university. They become leaders of everything from the Yale Board of Trustees to the various school and unit councils. Many interview potential new undergraduates, and others become mentors to alumni and to students through our Cross Campus platform.
What do you find rewarding about your work?
Our alumni, parents, and friends are amazingly talented and accomplished. To spend time talking with them about their life journeys, what brought them to Yale, how they’ve used that knowledge and their accomplishments to make a difference in their communities is one of the most exciting and fun parts of my job.
Another exciting part of my job are our amazing teams. We have a bit of every expertise — volunteer managers, event planners, fundraisers, data analysts, writers, marketing managers, an operations team, and so much more. We have people at all stages of their careers, too. It’s wonderful to see the career arc of our staff members. Someone comes in, say, and starts as a proposal writer, and then they become excited by something they have worked on and end up working in the School of Medicine doing more complicated grant writing. We see a lot of career movement across our organization, and seeing these careers evolve and develop is another satisfying part of my role.
What are some of the challenges that you face in your role?
One of the biggest challenges is helping our potential supporters and the Yale community at large understand what the Endowment is and how it functions. The Endowment serves as the university’s largest revenue source, supporting all aspects of Yale’s mission, but it is not a spending account we can dip into at will. Every dollar in the Yale Endowment came from a donor choosing to make a specific gift to Yale and as a result, over 75% of the endowment is restricted and the university is legally required to use the gifts for their stated purposes. As new ideas are developed, we have to find new resources to fund them—the current endowment funds cannot be redirected away from their intended purpose—so we have to raise new funds.
We also strive to help our donors understand that gifts of every size make a difference. The annual fund, which is what we ask everyone to support every year, is unrestricted dollars, and therefore are some of the most impactful dollars because they get used right away. In fact, several of our professional schools use 100% of their annual fund contributions to support students in current use dollars.
What lesson have you learned during your career?
I think that every time you have an opportunity, especially early in your career, to volunteer for work outside of your primary role is a great opportunity. Growth often happens at that intersection of what your main role is and what others are doing. When you show a willingness to roll up your sleeves and be part of a team, you learn about aspects of the work that you’re connected to, but maybe not responsible for.
I remember when I first started, there was a big celebration at the Yale Bowl. I had nothing to do with athletic fundraising, but Athletics needed help, so I volunteered. I met all sorts of interesting people. It made an impression on me early on that there’s so much more beyond what I am responsible for in my own job.
