Erin Lanahan, MBA

Erin specializes in building research-informed programs that promote health equity and sustainable fundraising. She brings more than 20 years of healthcare philanthropy experience to partnership building, grant making, and strategic health system development. Erin has deep knowledge of, and interest in, social determinants of health, grateful patient fundraising, development performance management, and trends in health strategy. She enjoys conducting research that leads from insight to action.

Erin currently serves as the Interim Managing Director for Advisory Board’s Philanthropy Leadership Council, where she previously led research from 2004-2011. In this role, she supported chief development officers at over 750 hospitals and health systems.

Erin also served as Associate Director of Cedars-Sinai’s Community Benefit Giving Office, which she helped to launch in 2013. In partnership with community and hospital leaders, Erin developed and implemented a proactive grant making strategy that included the flagship Community Clinic Initiative, a capacity-building endeavor for 35+ community clinics serving over 800,000 patients annually. Other portfolios include elevating community-based behavioral health and streamlining the philanthropic sponsorship process.

Erin has served as a member of the speaker committee and a judge for the Awards of Excellence at the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Group on Institutional Advancement. She currently serves on the advisory board of the Institute for High Quality Care, is an alumna of Coro’s Women in Leadership fellowship, and has completed a two-year fellowship for senior-level grant makers in Southern California. Erin has also authored publications on planned giving, grateful patient fundraising, performance management for development officers and sustainable fundraising strategies and is a nationally recruited speaker.

Erin received an MBA from University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA in History from Yale University. She enjoys baking pastries and traveling anywhere warm enough to surf.