Description
Assistant/Associate Vice Chancellor for Engagement & Involvement
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Institutional Advancement
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Hybrid work options may be available for this position, with the ability to be on-site as needed per the University’s Workplace Flexibility policy.
The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Institutional Advancement (OVCIA) at the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign seeks an Assistant/Associate Vice Chancellor for Engagement & Involvement (AVC-EI) to provide strategic leadership for constituent engagement, annual giving, donor relations and stewardship, volunteer leadership, and lifelong involvement across the university’s advancement enterprise. This position will develop and advance enterprise-wide engagement strategies that strengthen connections with alumni, donors, volunteers, students, families, and friends of the university – creating meaningful experiences that inspire philanthropic support, deepen institutional affinity, and contribute to long-term fundraising success.
The ideal candidate is a collaborative and forward-thinking leader who brings strategic vision, organizational leadership, and a passion for building relationships at scale. This individual will demonstrate exceptional communication, sound judgment, and the ability to lead through influence in a complex, decentralized environment. The successful candidate will have experience guiding crossfunctional teams, developing innovative engagement strategies, and partnering with senior leaders to drive organizational alignment, constituent participation, and philanthropic impact.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a global, preeminent university. Since its founding in 1867, it has earned a reputation as a world-class leader in research, teaching, and public engagement. The OVCIA serves as the operational backbone and strategic integrator of advancement at Illinois – providing the infrastructure, governance, and leadership necessary to enable a high-performing, coordinated enterprise. Through a commitment to consistency, transparency, and data-informed decision-making, OVCIA works to reduce friction, strengthen alignment, and support meaningful engagement and long-term philanthropic impact across the university.
Organizational Relationships & Job Summary
Reporting to the Vice Chancellor of Advancement, the Assistant/Associate Vice Chancellor for Engagement & Involvement (AVCEI) serves as a senior member of the advancement leadership team and provides institutionwide strategic leadership for engagement, experiences, and involvement that inspire philanthropic support and lifelong connection. The AVC-EI leads through influence, collaboration, and shared accountability to establish engagement frameworks, stewardship standards, and involvement strategies that can be adapted across colleges, schools, and administrative units.
Operating within a decentralized environment, the AVC-EI partners closely with
OVCIA leadership, unit-based advancement teams, the University of Illinois Alumni Association (UIAA), the University of Illinois Foundation (UIF), and university stakeholders to develop and implement enterprise-wide strategies that strengthen constituent involvement and long-term institutional engagement and affinity. During times when the university is in a fundraising campaign, the AVC-EI will also work very closely with the Executive Director of Campaign Strategy and Stakeholder Engagement to ensure application of enterprise engagement frameworks to deliver a cohesive, high-impact campaign. This role is centered on engagement as a strategic driver of constituent involvement, philanthropy, and longterm institutional loyalty, rather than frontline gift solicitation.
Managing multiple areas and a team of approximately 20 staff, with growth expected, the AVC-EI integrates engagement, marketing, volunteer leadership, annual giving, and donor relations and stewardship strategies across the full constituent lifecycle, ensuring that programs, communications, and experiences deliver meaningful value to alumni, donors, volunteers, students, families, and other university stakeholders.
Duties and Responsibilities
Engagement & Experiences
- Develop and lead a comprehensive constituent engagement strategy for domestic and international audiences across inperson, virtual, and hybrid channels
- Design and manage intentional engagement arcs guiding constituents from awareness to involvement, volunteerism, and giving.
- Elevate highimpact engagement moments including events, programming, volunteer leadership, and recognition experiences.
- Ensure engagement strategies reflect institutional values of inclusion, belonging, access, and global reach.
Annual Giving (Centralized Model)
- Provide strategic leadership for OVCIA’s centralized annual giving program and team
- Ensure annual giving functions as a primary driver of involvement, donor retention, and pipeline development.
- Embed annual giving into broader engagement pathways while respecting school and unitlevel priorities.
- Coordinate with the AVC responsible for the leadership annual giving program to ensure alignment
Alumni & Stakeholder Engagement
- Set the OVCIA’s vision for alumni engagement as a lifelong value proposition across regional, global, and affinity audiences.
- Oversee the alumni association liaison function to align institutional engagement, programming, volunteer leadership, communications, and data sharing.
- Guide engagement strategies for parents, families, students, young alumni, patrons, and community supporters.
Volunteer & International Engagement
- Build and sustain enterprise volunteer governance and leadership pipelines aligned with engagement priorities.
- Provide strategic oversight for international engagement programs, including global alumni networks and international events.
Donor Relations & Stewardship (EngagementCentered Model) )
- Provide strategic leadership for donor relations and stewardship, ensuring acknowledgment, recognition, reporting, and impact communications are delivered as intentional engagement experiences that reinforce donor trust, satisfaction, and longterm philanthropic relationships.
- Establish enterprise stewardship standards, recognition frameworks, and impact reporting approaches.
- Align stewardship strategies with engagement arcs and lifetime donor milestones.
- Partner with the Executive Director of Campaign & Stakeholder Engagement to ensure donor relations and stewardship support campaign momentum and donor retention.
- Integrate donor communications, recognition events, and impact storytelling into broader engagement and involvement strategies.
Communications & Marketing Enablement
- Provide leadership for marketing and communications to support the work of OVCIA including involvementdriven campaigns through strategic design and content development.
- Oversee and guide the development of shared messaging frameworks, toolkits, and assets in partnership with the university’s Strategic Communications and Marketing team (StratCom) and in collaboration with other university units.
Collaboration & Integration
- Partner with the University of Illinois Foundation (UIF), the University of Illinois Alumni Association (UIAA), and other university offices to develop engagement strategies and processes that provide guidance to colleges and units, maximizing resources and impact.
- Work closely with frontline fundraising partners and UIF to ensure engagement and donor relations/stewardship strategies support cultivation and retention without duplicating solicitation.
- Partner with OVCIA and university corporate and foundation relations teams to align engagement opportunities for external partners.
- Collaborate with other OVCIA leadership to ensure academic and advancement leaders connect missiondriven programming to engagement.
- Partner with university Student Affairs, Enrollment, and Career Services offices to strengthen the studenttoalumni continuum.
Measures of Success
Sustained growth of breadth and depth of alumni and stakeholder involvement and long-term affinity, including alignment with CASE Alumni Engagement Metrics.
- Improved annual giving donor retention, increased average gift size, and donor satisfaction.
- Strong, diverse volunteer leadership pipelines.
- Effective donor relations and stewardship outcomes aligned with engagement strategy.
- Clear alignment across centralized strategy, decentralized execution, and campaign activity.
Impact in Your First Year
At Advancement at Illinois, we value our employees and provide resources to help you continually learn and grow. We foster a strong, collaborative community of professionals who are driven by their ability to make a meaningful impact.
Within 3 months, you'll:
- Build relationships with OVCIA leadership, unit-based advancement leaders, UIF and UIAA partners, and key campus stakeholders.
- Develop a comprehensive understanding of Illinois Advancement's organizational structure, engagement strategies, annual giving efforts, donor relations and stewardship programs, and constituent audiences.
- Assess current engagement, involvement, annual giving, and stewardship initiatives to identify strengths, opportunities, and areas for greater alignment.
- Become familiar with enterprise engagement frameworks, campaign priorities, volunteer structures, and existing performance metrics.
- Begin establishing a vision for how engagement and involvement can further support philanthropic participation and lifelong connection.
Within 6 months, you'll:
- Develop and communicate strategic priorities for engagement, involvement, annual giving, donor relations, and stewardship.
- Strengthen partnerships with advancement leaders across colleges, schools, and units to improve alignment between centralized strategy and decentralized execution.
- Identify opportunities to enhance constituent engagement pathways, volunteer leadership experiences, and donor stewardship practices.
- Evaluate current performance measures and begin implementing enhancements to improve participation, retention, and engagement outcomes.
- Partner with advancement leadership to ensure engagement strategies support campaign readiness, fundraising priorities, and long-term organizational goals.
By the end of the first year, you'll:
- Establish yourself as a trusted strategic partner to the Vice Chancellor and advancement leadership team on matters related to engagement, involvement, annual giving, and stewardship.
- Implement or advance enterprise-wide strategies that strengthen constituent participation, donor retention, volunteer engagement, and philanthropic outcomes.
- Demonstrate measurable progress toward improving engagement and involvement metrics while strengthening collaboration across the advancement enterprise.
- Foster alignment between centralized engagement strategy, unit-level execution, and campaign-related activities.
- Lead a high-performing team committed to innovation, service excellence, and meaningful constituent experiences.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree
- For the title of Assistant Vice Chancellor, a minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible professional experience in advancement, alumni relations, constituent engagement, annual giving, donor relations, stewardship, communications, nonprofit leadership or related fields. For the title of Associate Vice Chancellor, a minimum of 12 years of progressively responsible professional experience in advancement, alumni relations, constituent engagement, annual giving, donor relations, stewardship, communications, nonprofit leadership or related fields.
- For the title of Assistant Vice Chancellor, a minimum of 5 years of leadership experience, including responsibility for managing staff, teams, programs, or organizational functions. For the title of Associate Vice Chancellor, a minimum of 7 years of leadership experience, including responsibility for managing staff, teams, programs, or organizational functions.
- Demonstrated success developing and implementing strategic initiatives that drive engagement, involvement, relationship-building, philanthropic support, or organizational growth.
- Experience leading complex, cross-functional initiatives and building partnerships across diverse stakeholder groups.
- Experience utilizing data, metrics, and constituent insights to inform decisionmaking, assess, outcomes, and improve performance.
Preferred Qualifications
- Master’s degree or other advanced degree in higher education, nonprofit management, business, communications, public administration, or a related field.
- Experience developing and implementing enterprise-wide engagement or participation strategies in a decentralized organization.
- Demonstrated success leading teams through organizational growth, change, or transformation.
- Experience managing complex budgets and multiple functional areas.
- Experience with implementing and leveraging artificial intelligence effectively toward engagement goals.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- Strategic Leadership & Vision: Ability to develop and communicate a compelling vision that aligns engagement, involvement, annual giving, donor relations, and stewardship with institutional priorities and philanthropic goals.
- Leadership Through Influence: Ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and drive alignment without direct authority in complex, decentralized environments.
- Organizational & Change Leadership: Ability to lead teams and initiatives through growth, change, and continuous improvement while fostering collaboration and accountability.
- Communication & Executive Presence: Ability to communicate effectively with others including, the ability to effectively engage senior leaders, volunteers, donors, and stakeholder groups.
- Collaboration & Partnership Development: Ability to establish and sustain productive relationships across organizational boundaries, aligning multiple stakeholders around shared goals.
- Constituent Engagement & Relationship Building: Deep understanding of engagement strategies that foster lifelong relationships with alumni, donors, volunteers, students, families, and other stakeholders.
- Project & Resource Management: Strong organizational and project management skills with the ability to balance competing priorities, manage resources effectively, and deliver results in a complex environment.
- Data-Informed Decision Making: Ability to leverage data, metrics, and constituent insights to evaluate performance, identify opportunities, and inform strategic decisions.
- Adaptability & Problem Solving: Ability to navigate ambiguity, anticipate challenges, and develop proactive solutions in a fast-paced, evolving environment.
- Experience partnering with separately governed alumni associations and integrating marketing/communications in matrixed models.
Appointment Information
This is a 100% full-time position. The budgeted salary range for this position is $200,000-$220,000 at the Assistant Vice Chancellor level and $210,000-$230,000 at the Associate Vice Chancellor level. When extending job offers, the University of Illinois carefully considers factors such as (but not limited to) the role’s responsibilities, the candidate’s experience and education, essential skills, internal peer equity, budget constraints, and market trends. The rate provided reflects the University’s good faith and reasonable estimate at the time of posting. It is not typical for an individual to be offered a salary at or near the top of the full range for a position.
Sponsorship for work authorization is not available for this position.
To Apply
To ensure full consideration, application materials must be received by August 17, 2026. The expected start date is as soon as possible after the close date. Apply for this position using the Apply Now button at the top or bottom of this posting and upload a resume, cover letter, and the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of three professional references. Applications not submitted through https://jobs.illinois.edu will not be considered. For further information about this specific position, please contact Katie Walker at [email protected] and/or visit our Application FAQ site for tips. For questions regarding the application process, please contact 217-333-2137.
At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — the state’s flagship public university and one of the world’s leading research institutions — every staff member helps shape what’s next. Founded in 1867, Illinois is home to a vibrant community of 59,000 students from all 50 states and 129 countries, supported by 15 colleges and instructional units, more than 20 research institutes, and one of the most comprehensive student service ecosystems in the nation. Whether you’re empowering first-generation students, fueling breakthrough innovation, or strengthening communities across Illinois and beyond, your work here has a farreaching and deeply meaningful impact. The university offers a highly competitive benefits package designed to support your well-being, growth, and financial security. Join a top 10 public university that has launched over 330 startups and continues to redefine excellence — where the Illinois Value Proposition ensures that your contributions are recognized, your potential is nurtured, and your career can thrive.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools may be used in some portions of the candidate review process for this position; however, all employment decisions will be made by a person.
This position is intended to be eligible for benefits. This includes Health, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, a Retirement Plan, Paid time Off, and Tuition waivers for employees and dependents.
