Raissa Smorol
Senior Director, Leadership Gifts
Raissa joined the Center in 2022. She brings over 25 years of fundraising and donor relations experience to her role as Senior Director, Leadership Giving. Raissa is responsible for creating a pathway for highly engaged donors to participate in the Center’s mission. She oversees the teams that secure major and planned gifts, and that produce fundraising events for the Center.
Prior to joining the Center, she served as Chief Development Officer at the Santa Barbara City College Foundation. She has also led development teams at Direct Relief, an international medical aid NGO, and the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara. As a consultant in New York, she provided fundraising counsel to such clients as the Innocence Project, Safe Horizon, GMHC (formerly Gay Men’s Health Crisis), MENTOR, Greyston Foundation, BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), the New York Police Foundation, and Guiding Eyes for the Blind. She also served as a lead consultant on the team that helped World Vision USA successfully launch a $500 million fundraising campaign.
Raissa resides in Santa Barbara, California. She earned her B.S. degree from Cornell University and her MPA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
