Vida Smith joined the team in 2018 and serves as a coordinator for Advancement Services, Gift Processing. She processes transactions and information related to incoming donations from events, corporate, and individual giving. She ensures that pledges, recurring gifts, memberships, and tributes are accurately processed and linked to donor accounts promptly. Smith also documents donor giving and contact information in the Foundation’s database to ensure its records are kept with best practices in receiving and sending donor information and solicitations.
Vida has tirelessly worked to help Development Officers and leadership achieve their fundraising goals. These duties include preparing pledge data for development officers to view and make their comments, preparing pledge reminder letters and invoice/statements for mailing, uploading all mailed pledge reminder letters and statements to each constituent’s record in the Raiser’s Edge database, and preparing Advancement Services weekly gift reports.
Vida joined the Foundation after serving FAU as an Admission Services Officer for the MacArthur Campus and Senior Secretary of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters — Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, as well as helping the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies with capstone processes.
Vida counts academic, medical, and manufacturing settings as sources of valuable skills-building experiences in customer service, conflict resolution, decision-making, and interpersonal communication. Those include Jeba Ghana Limited, Pentecost Senior High School, Brookdale Senior Living, and Palm Beach State College.
Smith is a board member of the Boca Raton Housing Authority’s Family Self Sufficiency Program and formerly volunteered with the Palm Beach County Office of the State Attorney, working with the Assistant State Attorney in the Traffic Court.
Education:
- Agence D’or Secretarial and Language Training Institute, Accra-Ghana: Diploma in Office Management
- Techni-Pro Institute: CNA License
- Professional Career Development Institute, Ghana: Certificate in Computer Application
- Palm Beach State College: Associate of Arts Degree
- Florida Atlantic University: B.A. in Criminal Justice
- Florida Atlantic University: M.Ed. in Higher Educational Leadership
- Florida Atlantic University: Doctoral Candidate in Higher Education Leadership and Research Methodology
