Heaton Smith Group

Jonathan has two decades of experience directing capital, annual, and endowment campaigns for an array of organizations including the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson, Albright College, and People First of Canada. As a consultant to World Gospel Mission, he negotiated a seven-figure gift from US AID that funded construction of a 60-acre campus for Universidad Evangelica Boliviana, the first private university in Bolivia, South America.  Among his credits in planned giving are two years as Director of Development for KidsPeace and its National Hospital for Kids in Crisis and seven years as Director of Development for the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Medicine.  

 At UIC he worked closely with University of Illinois Foundation professionals in gift planning, development services and endowment administration, traveled nationally with department heads and a Foundation board member, and established Surgery as the first department at UIC to host five endowed chairs.  In 2005 the College of Medicine’s Warren H. Cole, MD Society presented Jonathan with its prestigious Service Award, the first time it had ever presented it to a non-surgeon.  In 2007, Jonathan joined UIC Chancellor Sylvia Manning as she invested Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti, MD as the Lloyd M. Nyhus, MD Chair in Minimally Invasive and Robotic Surgery, an endowed chair that Jonathan built with planned and outright gifts to honor Lloyd Nyhus, one of the world’s foremost authorities on hernia.

 Having secured across the years a portfolio of asset gifts including Cayman Island property, IRAs, and highly appreciated securities; having witnessed the satisfaction that legacy estate planning has brought to philanthropic individuals and their families; having observed how good stewardship of estate gifts has led donors to increase their current giving; having experienced first-hand the power of individual gifts to leverage corporate, foundation and government grants; Jonathan sees a bright future for planned giving in the U.S. and abroad. 

 Jonathan is an active member and a former director of the Chicago Council on Planned Giving.  He received his M.B.A. in Finance from Rutgers University and his B.A. in Music from Muhlenberg College.  A classically trained pianist, he enjoys performing chamber music and coaching young instrumentalists toward the same.  A long-time resident of metropolitan New York City and Pennsylvania before immigrating to Chicagoland, Jonathan is a proud resident of Elmhurst, Illinois.