Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is pleased to welcome Ruby Campbell as our new Director of Advancement this December. Campbell comes to SFU having recently served as the Intergovernmental and Community Partnerships Manager for the City of New Westminster, where she is also a resident. She brings a wealth of fundraising, advocacy, and community-building experience, having has worked for many years in the Greater Vancouver Regional District with not-for-profits and municipal organizations. She also ran her own fundraising firm, Ruby Group Fundraising & Event Specialists.

Growing up in East Vancouver, Campbell’s commitment to community development began at a young age. She volunteered with high school leadership programs and the Association of Neighbourhood Houses, participating in meal programs, leading children’s camps and taking on other volunteer roles. Campbell also really wanted to be a radio DJ when deciding on a career path and began studies in journalism at BCIT to try and make it happen.

“I quickly discovered I didn’t have a radio voice,” she recounts. “So, I decided to study marketing with the intention to sell radio and TV advertisements.” While studying at BCIT, Campbell continued to volunteer with not-for-profit organizations, finding her passion for social causes ignited while working on marketing and fundraising campaigns. “Turns out I loved helping to support social causes and never looked back.

Before joining the City of New Westminster, Campbell served in senior fundraising positions with the Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation and British Columbia Lung Association. During her eight years with the City of New Westminster, Campbell was instrumental in developing a revenue generation program for the city. And she served as the city’s primary liaison to federal and provincial government funders, corporate sponsors, individual donors and other funding partners.

Of the many projects she’s worked over the course of her career, Campbell says one major highlight has been securing $16 million dollars in federal and provincial funding to establish the City of New Westminster’s Pier Park. “I have prepared a number of successful infrastructure grants but this project remains my favourite because it allowed the City to turn industrial lands into an award winning urban public space and a catalyst to revitalizing the Riverfront.”

“I am also proud of establishing the City’s Innovation Week. Now in its third year, it brings together public sector, industry, government, start ups and others through events where sectors normally don’t intersect to explore new collaborate practices.”

Campbell calls herself an “innately curious person” and in addition to hobbies like hiking and gardening, she enjoys traveling both on her own and with her family. "I've recently had the chance to travel with my husband and teenage daughter to parts of Italy, Turkey, Greece, England, Netherlands and France. I especially value the conversation that occurs in the pre- planning, on the vacation and then expanding our learning as a family afterwards."

Her innate curiosity will serve her well as she embarks on her new role in university advancement for FASS at SFU. Campbell will serve our many units that range from disciplines like criminology and labour studies, and from Scottish Studies to comparative Muslim studies, to name but a few. She’s especially “looking forward to learning how FASS graduates are implementing their learnings and how research projects are impacting public policy and practices.”

Please join FASS in welcoming Ruby Campbell to SFU as she begins her position on December 3, 2018. She is excited to get to know the faculty and take on new challenges, feeding her passion for fundraising, community development and building support for meaningful projects at the university.