Christopher Crooker
Senior Consultant
Christopher (Chris) brings nearly three decades of nonprofit fundraising experience, with deep expertise in principal and major gifts, higher education advancement, and organizational leadership. Most recently, he led principal gifts strategy at Partners In Health, advancing transformational support for global health equity.
His previous roles include assistant dean at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, where he directed all development efforts, and assistant vice chancellor for development at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, overseeing central development functions for the commonwealth’s flagship university. Chris began his advancement career at Cornell University, his undergraduate and graduate alma mater, where he spent 17 years in a variety of fundraising roles. He holds a master’s degree in industrial and labor relations and a bachelor’s degree in history, both from Cornell.
Before entering the nonprofit sector, Chris served as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy. His active-duty service included deployments during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm aboard ships homeported in Japan and California. He later taught at the Navy’s Surface Warfare Officers’ School in Newport, Rhode Island, and continued his service in the Navy Reserve, including a 2009 mobilization to the US Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia. Chris is based in Ithaca, New York, where he lives with his family.