Assistant Vice President, Gift Planning, Duke Alumni Engagement and Development

Assistant Vice President, Gift Planning, Duke Alumni Engagement and Development (AED)

Occupational Summary

Reporting to the Associate Vice President of Individual Giving, the Assistant Vice President of Gift Planning strategically leads all aspects of the Gift Planning program. This position directs the overall strategy for fundraising, marketing, administration and stewardship of the program, solicits major outright and deferred gifts, provides technical assistance to senior administrators and colleagues, directs the work of gift planning officers, and oversees the management of the trusts and estates administration group.

Work Performed

Provide creative leadership and vision to the Gift Planning team and program within the Office of Alumni Engagement & Development. Develop and help to implement new programmatic concepts as shifts in the fundraising landscape present opportunities.  Manage a team of frontline gift planning officers. Oversee the management and operation of the trust & estates administration team that administers a life income gift program and liaises with executors, trustees and custodians on behalf of the university regarding realized planned gifts.

Provide effective leadership in working with senior administrators, other university offices, and colleagues across campus to promote and maintain the gift planning program. Represent Alumni Engagement & Development by serving on and/or leading institutional committees or task forces. Assist in formulating policies related to the acceptance and management of gifts.  Lead training and education of university-wide development staff about Gift Planning strategies.

Serving as a frontline fundraiser, develop relationships with prospective donors as a representative of Duke and help them to explore creative gift strategies with complex tax and legal implications relating to outright, deferred, or split-interest gifts; manage a portfolio of donors and prospects; work collaboratively with development colleagues throughout the university to craft strategies for gift cultivation, solicitation and stewardship; work with the attorneys and/or financial advisors of prospective donors as requested to help explore gift planning techniques.

Collaborate on a strategic stewardship plan for gift planning donors at the highest levels, including helping to envision stewardship of the Duke Tower Society.  In collaboration with colleagues in the Marketing, Communication & Stewardship Office, oversee the planning, implementation, and evaluation of marketing efforts regarding gift planning techniques in support of the university and its schools and units.

Management Duties

• Representative Duties - Appropriately represent Duke University as “employer” to direct reports and direct reports as “employees” to Duke University
• Programmatic Duties - Ensure alignment of given programmatic, departmental, and/or organization-wide activities with AED strategic goals, priorities, and expectations
• Financial Duties - Exercise fiduciary responsibility for given individual, programmatic, departmental, and/or organization-wide activities in accordance with Duke’s financial policies, procedures, and standards, and AED expectations.
• Personnel Duties:  Supervise direct reports in accordance with Duke’s human resource policies, procedures, and standards, and AED expectations.
• Personnel Duties:  Hire & Onboard new employees (and offboard separating employees) in accordance with programmatic, departmental, and organization-wide priorities, Duke’s human resource policies, procedures, and standards, and AED expectations.

Perform other related duties incidental to the work described herein.

Required Competencies

Organizational awareness:  The ability to understand and learn organizational relationships and dynamics and use them to achieve objectives. 

Promote innovation and creativity: Improves organizational performance through the application of original thinking to existing and emerging methods, processes, products and services. Identifies issues and takes a proactive approach to dealing with them. Seeks ways to provide added value. Formulates distinctive strategies emphasizing high levels of creative thinking. Can demonstrate recognition and development of new ideas and market opportunities. Employs sound judgment in determining how innovations will be deployed to add value to the organization.

Delegation: The ability to clearly and easily delegate responsibility and authority to others based on roles and abilities, while still sharing both responsibility and accountability, in order to maximize organizational and individual effectiveness.

Collaborating with others: The willingness and ability to work with others to achieve shared success. It includes formal and informal collaborative efforts within one's work group and across the organization.

Performance Management: Takes the time to effectively plan and evaluate performance, provide feedback, recognition and coaching, and develop employees to be their personal best. Demonstrates situational leadership, observing individual and group dynamics and quickly changing behaviors to appropriately fit the situation. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Commitment to Duke University’s mission;

• Demonstrated successful experience and effectiveness in major, planned, and principal gift fundraising, preferably in an education setting, for a minimum of ten years;
• Significant experience working with attorneys, accountants, and investment and financial advisors;
• Strong interest and commitment to sharing knowledge with colleagues through effective training programs;
• Demonstrated ability to handle multiple, complex fundraising activities simultaneously and coordinate solicitation strategies in a decentralized environment;
• Excellent oral and written communication skills;
• High level of creativity, initiative, and motivation;
• Team orientation and willingness to set an example for real leadership; and
• Ability and willingness to travel

Minimum Qualifications

Education

Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree (J.D. or M.B.A.) preferred. Legal experience or expertise in the area of estates and trusts is preferred as is experience in tax planning and knowledge of charitable tax laws.

Experience

Work requires the ability to provide creative leadership and vision for a comprehensive gift planning program as well as the ability to effectively manage the gift planning staff, generally acquired through ten years of relevant experience in estate, financial, gift, or tax planning, including three to five years in a management/supervisory or project leadership role.

Duke is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing employment opportunity without regard to an individual's age, color, disability, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status.

Duke aspires to create a community built on collaboration, innovation, creativity, and belonging. Our collective success depends on the robust exchange of ideas—an exchange that is best when the rich diversity of our perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences flourishes. To achieve this exchange, it is essential that all members of the community feel secure and welcome, that the contributions of all individuals are respected, and that all voices are heard. All members of our community have a responsibility to uphold these values.

Essential Physical Job Functions: Certain jobs at Duke University and Duke University Health System may include essentialjob functions that require specific physical and/or mental abilities. Additional information and provision for requests for reasonable accommodation will be provided by each hiring department.