Leadership and Staff

Email Erin Aldridge

Erin Aldridge is the director of gift planning and development for the Washburn University Alumni Association and Foundation. Aldridge joined the Foundation in August of 2022 after having served as the executive director of The Library Foundation. For the eight years prior, she was the Jayhawk Area Council Boy Scouts of America's development director overseeing all fundraising efforts including Topeka’s Top 20 Under 40. Her fundraising experiences include special events, direct mail, annual funds, member relations, legacy gifts, capital campaigns and major gift fundraising.

As director of gift planning and development, she helps donors and supporters navigate their path to financially supporting Washburn University's students, programs and campus. She aims to create a continuum of giving through the gift planning department with oversite of annual giving, digital engagement and planned giving. Aldridge coordinates I Will for Washburn: The Greenwood McPherson Legacy Challenge, an innovative campaign to increase the amount of planned gifts made to the University as well as the Foundation's Whiting Society. In her first two years at Washburn, she has overseen the procurement of 76 planned gifts.

She has a degree in journalism with an emphasis in strategic communications from the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. In 2011 she was recognized as the Topeka Chamber of Commerce’s Young Professional of the Year. In 2021 she was named one of Topeka’s Top 20 Under 40.

As a civic leader, she has chaired the Topeka Chamber’s Young Professional organization, served as a board and committee member for numerous organizations and completed a two-year term as president of the Junior League of Topeka in 2020. Aldridge is a member of the Mid-America Charitable Gift Planners organization and serves on the program planning committee and the scholarship committee. She is currently the committee chair for Scouts BSA Troop 12 serving girls, director of sustainer relations for the Junior League of Topeka, vice president of the Jivaro Lake Club and an active parent volunteer of the Topeka Swim Association.

Erin and her husband, Brandon, own a State Farm Insurance office and live in the Shawnee Heights area with their children, Kaitlyn and Reid.