Campaigns Workshop 2023
Learning Objectives
- Discuss current best practices for planning and implementing successful campaigns.
- Build a robust volunteer and campaign leadership team for your institution.
- Analyze data and research regarding current and emerging trends in campaign planning, campaign communications and campaign implementation.
- Highlight perspectives from private and public, as well as large and small institutions.
- Illustrate how successful campaigns can advance your institution’s strategic initiatives.
Who Should Attend
You are encouraged to bring your entire campaign leadership team, including:
- Vice presidents, vice chancellors of advancement and chief development officers
- Campaign directors and staff
- Academic deans and other institutional leaders
- Chief communications officers
- Anyone planning for, or engaged in, campaigns for their institutions
Meet your co-chairs
Jay Davenport
Jay E. Davenport, CFRE, serves as vice president of Development and Alumni Relations for Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Health.
As VCU’s chief development and alumni officer, Jay leads fundraising and engagement efforts for the entire VCU enterprise, including the Monroe Park Campus, the health sciences campus, and VCU Health. Areas under his purview include advancement solutions, alumni relations, corporate and foundation relations, development and alumni communications, donor engagement, medical philanthropy, planned giving, primary giving (annual), presidential advancement, principal giving, regional philanthropy, and the university-wide development staff.
Jay joined VCU and VCU Health in 2017 in the middle of a $750 million campaign and helped steer the campaign to a successful conclusion, raising over $840 million. In the past eight years, Jay has helped VCU and VCU Health raise over $1.5 billion. In September 2025, VCU and VCU Health launched Unlocking Potential, the enterprise-wide comprehensive campaign with a goal of $1.838 billion to honor the founding year of VCU’s medical school.
Jay has previously led fundraising teams at Wake Forest University, as assistant vice president of college development, assistant vice president of major gifts, and associate vice president and campaign director. He has also served as director of development and team leader at Rice University and held fundraising positions as a college development director at the University of Memphis College of Business and Wright State University College of Engineering. He began his higher education career as an assistant dean of admissions at Wittenberg University.
Jay has served on the board of directors for Make-A-Wish of Greater Virginia, the Benedictine Schools of Richmond, and is currently serves on the board of Trinity Episcopal School in Richmond. In addition, he has served as a poll worker for 15 years. Jay holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Xavier University and a master's degree in higher education administration from Ball State University.
Jennifer L. Howe
Jennifer Howe joined the Georgia Institute for Technology as its Vice President for Development on August 15, 2022. She is the first female to hold this role at Georgia Tech and succeeds Barrett Carson who led the Institute’s fundraising efforts for over 25 years.
Prior to arriving at The Flats, Howe served as the Vice President for University Advancement for the University of Dayton (UD), where she was responsible for managing the full range of fundraising programs and constituent engagement functions (alumni, parents, friends and donors); serving on the President’s Cabinet; and working with the University’s Board of Trustees on new trustee recruitment. In her six years at UD, the University Advancement team achieved significant investment in terms of staffing, resources and infrastructure – and the results followed, significantly elevating the total new commitments received by the institution, including notable gains in principal and major gifts as well as the launch of new fundraising and engagement initiatives in student philanthropy, parents, peer-to-peer ambassadors, DEI/affinity-based groups, and digital/virtual lifelong learning. In October 2018, UD’s Board of Trustees voted to approve its first comprehensive campaign in over 20 years under Howe’s direction; and the University will go launch the public phase of that effort later this spring.
Her professional history includes a 16-year tenure at Vanderbilt University, where she was part of a development and alumni relations leadership team that completed a $1.93B fundraising campaign in 2012. In her role as an Associate Vice Chancellor, she established a stellar record in leadership and fundraising, including planning and implementing successful campaigns, cultivating and closing principal and major gifts, significantly increasing annual giving, and supporting athletics' capital needs. Before Vanderbilt, Howe started her career in higher education career at Emory University, where she was the director of development, foundation and international relations for five years, as well as worked for their provost as a project manager during her initial year at the institution.
Howe earned a Bachelor's degree with honors in English from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and has served on a number of leadership and conference committees for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). A native of Georgia - she and her husband, Andrew, a retired insurance professional, were college sweethearts and have been married for over 30 years. They currently share their homes in Atlanta, GA and West Falmouth, Massachusetts with their Welsh Corgi, Skylar.