Patricia McLaughlin is a consultant focused on advancement, fundraising, event strategy/ logistics, marketing and communications matters.  She also teaches as a Special Lecturer of Law at Providence College.  

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McLaughlin has served as the Senior Director of Donor Relations and Advancement Events at Brown University. She has also served as Head of Institutional Advancement at The Wheeler School in Providence, RI. The Wheeler School, founded in 1889, is a coeducational K-12 independent school with signature programs in the performing and visual arts. In that role, she was responsible for overseeing the development, alumni engagement, parent relations, event management, gift processing, prospect research, marketing and communication functions.

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She served as the Acting Vice President of Institutional Advancement of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and the Interim Executive Director of the MassArt Foundation. 

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Prior to that position, she served as a Senior Vice President of Institutional Advancement at Johnson & Wales University overseeing the same areas for the four campuses of the university located in Providence, RI, Charlotte, NC, Denver, CO, and Miami, Fla. Before joining JWU, she served as Director of Corporate, Foundation and Government Relations at the Rhode Island School of Design.

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Prior to working in Advancement, she served as Director of Administration for the City of Providence, first joining the city administration in 1987 as a city attorney. In that role, she was responsible for overseeing city departments, economic development initiatives, including tax incremental financing and historic tax credits. She also served as the city’s chief lobbyist at the state and federal levels and was the city’s liaison to the arts and business communities in Rhode Island. In 1997, she drafted and secured passage of the first law in the country to provide income and sales tax breaks for artists and designers living and working in the City of Providence.