Associate Vice President, Advancement Strategy

Advancement & Partnerships:

Join UCF’s dynamic and growing Advancement & Partnerships team as they work to build meaningful partnerships and transform lives through philanthropy.

Together, you can help unleash the potential of people and ideas to positively change the world. Your efforts on the team will help build the University for the Future.

The Opportunity: 

The Associate Vice President for Advancement Strategy is a senior leadership position reporting to the Senior Vice President for Advancement & Partnerships. This role will serve as Strategic Advisor, Campaign Co-Director - Administration, and Chief of Staff, as a member of the division's Executive Team and helping convert executive vision into clear priorities, disciplined execution, and measurable progress.

The Associate Vice President partners closely with the Senior Vice President to ensure the division stays aligned, focused, and prepared to act on its highest priorities. This person creates clarity from ambiguity, anticipates risks and opportunities, frames options with sound judgment, and helps the Senior Vice President and Executive Team spend time on the work that matters most. The role also leads two functional teams, one focused on relationship management with the university's foundation board, and one focused on communications and marketing for advancement and partnership initiatives and holds administrative oversight of all phases of the university's comprehensive campaign, from planning through execution and results analysis.

Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership and Campaign Management:

• Serve as a strategic advisor to the Senior Vice President and Executive Team, translating strategy into action by connecting day-to-day decisions to long-term goals, aligning stakeholders with different priorities, supporting disciplined decision-making, and tracking division-wide goals and performance metrics.
• Working alongside the Senior Vice President and the Senior Associate Vice President for Advancement (Development), serving as Campaign Co-Director – Development, lead the marketing and communications administrative side of the university’s fundraising campaigns with constant evolution in mind.
• Oversee campaign planning studies, timelines, committee coordination, goal setting, strategy, and progress tracking while creating the systems, communications, and accountability routines needed to keep complex campaign work moving across multiple teams.

Chief of Staff Duties:

• Serve as a trusted advisor to the Senior Vice President and Executive Team, offering confidential counsel on fundraising, alumni engagement, volunteer management, organizational priorities, and sensitive leadership matters.
• Identify issues before they become crises, help teams distinguish between matters requiring executive attention and those that can be delegated, and ensure the division remains aligned, focused, and prepared to act on its highest priorities.

Team Supervision:

• Provide leadership across foundation board relations and advancement communications and marketing, a team of 10 to 15 staff members overseen through 2 direct reports.
• Delegate work, set expectations, develop talent, monitor performance and accountability, and model the emotional intelligence, discretion, influence, and collaborative problem-solving expected of a senior Chief of Staff role.

Executive Support and Communications:

• Research and prepare reports, briefings, presentations, speeches, talking points, and decision materials for the Senior Vice President, for both internal and external audiences.
• Communicate with clarity, brevity, and executive presence, tailoring messages for senior leaders, staff, donors, volunteers, board members, and university partners.
• Partner with the executive assistant to help manage the Senior Vice President's calendar and communications flow, ensuring meetings, follow-up, and information-sharing are purposeful, well-documented, and aligned with the Senior Vice President's highest-value work.

Division Coordination:

• Gather regular reports from teams across the division and work to keep operations running smoothly and efficiently.
• Serve as a communication link between departments, build trust across the organization, surface difficult issues early, resolve conflicts diplomatically, keep the Senior Vice President informed of important matters, and respond on the Senior Vice President's behalf when needed with sound judgment and discretion.

Budget Oversight:

• Develop and monitor the Senior Vice President's budget and sponsorship opportunities and provide budget approval oversight for the foundation board relations and communications/marketing teams, along with related annual plans, hiring, training, and evaluations.

Minimum Qualifications: 

Bachelor's or Master's degree and 12+ years of relevant experience with at least 5+ years of leadership experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience pursuant to Fla. Stat. 112.219(6).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working in higher education advancement, fundraising, or a related nonprofit environment.
• Direct experience supporting or advising a senior executive in a chief of staff or similar capacity.
• Experience with capital campaign planning or management.
• Demonstrated success leading and developing teams of 10 or more staff.
• Experience with budget development and oversight.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including experience preparing executive-level materials such as briefings or presentations.
• Demonstrated strategic thinking, sound judgment, and ability to make decisions with incomplete information while maintaining confidentiality and discretion.
• Proven ability to influence without formal authority, align stakeholders across departments, create clarity from ambiguity, and move priorities forward in a fast-paced executive environment.
• High emotional intelligence, executive presence, adaptability, and relationship-building skills across senior leadership, staff, volunteers, donors, and campus partners.
• Master's degree in a related field.

Special Instructions to the Applicants:

• The anticipated starting salary for a well-qualified candidate is $185,000 to $215,000. Advancement and Partnerships values the unique contributions that each team member brings to our division. The final determination of a successful candidate's starting salary will vary based on several factors, including education and relevant experience. The anticipated pay scale indicated for this position generally applies to candidates who meet the minimum requirements and several of the preferred qualifications outlined above. All offers are contingent on successful background and reference screens.
• All applicants must be authorized to work for any U.S. employer. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position, and the university cannot accommodate H‑1B transfers or employment-based visa processing for individuals currently sponsored by another employer.
• This role requires the successful candidate to work on-site at UCF as their primary work location. On-site presence is an essential function of this role.

Are you ready to unleash YOUR potential?  

As a next-generation public research university and Forbes-ranked top employer in Florida, we are a community of thinkers, doers, creators, innovators, healers, and leaders striving to create broader prosperity and help shape a better future. No matter what your role is, when you join Knight Nation, you’ll play an integral role at one of the most impactful universities in the country. You’ll be met with opportunities to connect and collaborate with talented faculty, staff, and students across 12 colleges and multiple campuses, engaging in impactful work that makes a positive difference. Your time at UCF will provide you with many meaningful opportunities to grow, you’ll work alongside talented colleagues on complex projects that will challenge you and help you gain new skills, and you’ll have countless rewarding experiences that go well beyond a paycheck.

Working at UCF has its perks! UCF offers:

• Benefit packages, including Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, Flexible Spending, and Employee Assistance Program 
• Paid time off, including annual and sick time off and paid holidays
• Retirement savings options 
• Employee discounts, including tickets to many Orlando attractions 
• Education assistance 
• And more…For more benefits information, view the UCF Employee Benefits Guide.

Dive into our Total Rewards Calculator to discover the diverse selection available to you, giving you a glimpse into the benefits that together shape your comprehensive rewards package at UCF.

Unless explicitly stated on the job posting, it is UCF’s expectation that an employee of UCF will reside in Florida as of the date the employment begins.

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The University of Central Florida is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment based on any characteristic protected by law.  The University maintains programs for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities in accordance with all applicable federal and state laws.

As a Florida public university, the University of Central Florida makes all application materials and selection procedures available to the public upon request.  

UCF is proud to be a smoke-free campus and an E-Verify employer. 

For general application or posting questions, please email talent@ucf.edu.

If an accommodation due to a disability is needed to apply for this position, please email onac@ucf.edu.