The School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia seeks a seasoned and accomplished Director of Annual Giving.  Reporting to the Associate Dean for Advancement, the Director of Annual Giving will play a leadership role on a growing advancement team pursuing ambitious goals for fundraising ahead of the University’s Bicentennial Campaign.  This is a wonderful opportunity for an experienced professional to revitalize and grow an annual giving program directed at a large, diverse, and highly successful alumni population from one of the finest universities in the world.

The chosen candidate will be a person of impeccable integrity, with an impressive track record of achieving sustained growth in annual giving for a university or other non-profit organization.  We also invite applications from direct response marketing professionals with experience in the for-profit sector.  S/he will bring a full complement of deep knowledge and skills to the position, and use her/his command of direct marketing, communications, data management and analytics, and project management to take the annual giving program to new levels of achievement.

Specific responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Full responsibility for strategy, execution, and ongoing assessment of an integrated mail, electronic, phone, social media and web-based annual giving program for the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) and its academic departments.
• Conceive and develop yearly and multi-year integrated fundraising campaigns directed at alumni, parents, friends, faculty, staff, and current students. Set and achieve ambitious goals for established metrics for performance in both revenue and participation.
• Independently and confidently utilize a complex alumni database and other software – especially Microsoft Excel — to create, develop and maintain segmentations, mailing lists, reports, queries, and other information sets, and mine data to develop and test strategies and tactics for their effectiveness, and to produce reports for all established performance metrics.
• Write creative and compelling letters, emails, collateral material, and telemarketing scripts.
• Identify, negotiate with, and supervise the work of external designers, copywriters, creative agencies, printers, mailing houses, US Postal service, and electronic delivery providers.