Faculty
Conference Co-Chairs
Juan García
Juan García is the assistant vice president for advancement strategy and campaign director for the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, he served as chief strategy, analytics and campaigns officer with Texas Athletics, as associate vice president and campaign director at Wake Forest University, as vice president of operations and CIO at Arizona State University Foundation, and as assistant vice president for development services and analytics at the University of Texas at Austin.
His experience includes campaign planning and goal setting, case statement development, fundraising project planning and management, and analytics modeling. He has also led the development of multiple business intelligence capabilities that include data sources from CRM systems, ticketing systems, donation systems, donor capacity ratings, demographic profiles, behavioral indicators and additional third-party data sources. In addition, he has implemented reporting, data mining and statistical modeling capabilities to assist with prospect identification, revenue projections, and process optimization.
Prior to joining development community, García spent 11 years as a management consultant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Arthur Andersen and BearingPoint. His project assignments focused on data-driven business analysis, and development of business plans for strategy and operations projects. His experience includes strategy formulation, merger integration, revenue growth enhancement, and operational improvement consulting projects.
García received a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin.
Jay Davenport
Jay 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 VCU enterprise, including the Monroe Park Campus, the health sciences campus and VCU Health. Areas under his purview include Advancement Solutions, alumni relations, annual giving, corporate and foundation relations, development and alumni communications, donor engagement, planned giving, presidential advancement, principal giving, regional philanthropy and the universitywide 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 six years, Jay has helped VCU and VCU Health raise over $1 billion and is currently designing the first comprehensive campaign for the VCU and VCU Health.
Jay has previously led fundraising teams at Wake Forest University, including 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 and the Benedictine Schools of Richmond. 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.
Faculty
Mark Delos Reyes Davis
Mark has spent two decades working in senior and executive leadership, at private and public universities, responsible for driving a wide range of initiatives including campaign planning, alumni relations, executive communications, international programs, and university operations. He served as a thought-leader on international initiatives at two prior universities and has independently consulted for universities and non-governmental organizations including the United Nations Development Programme in Beijing.
Christine Hoffman
Christine Hoffman is the Vice President for Advancement, Campaigns and Administration in the Office of Advancement at Tulane University. In her role, she is charged with managing all key elements of the $1.3 billion, Only the Audacious, campaign. She is responsible for developing and executing an integrated strategic approach to fundraising for the annual giving, reunion giving, and corporate and foundation relations programs as well as providing executive oversight of information services, research, donor relations and stewardship, business analytics, budget, human resources, and facilities management. Christine has over 30 years of higher education fundraising and management experience and is now in her 18th year at Tulane.
Charlie Melichar
Charlie Melichar is a senior consultant in strategic communications at Marts & Lundy. For the past 15 years, he has been immersed in the field of nonprofit communications, serving as an adviser and thought leader for colleges and universities and the professional organizations that support them.
Most recently, Melichar served as associate vice chancellor of development and alumni relations communications at Vanderbilt University. His has served on the CASE Commission on Communications and Marketing, CASE District III Board of Directors and co-chaired the Task Force on Social Media. He is a past chair and current member of the Executive Committee for the Public Relations Society of America's Counselors to Higher Education section, which is focused on senior leaders in higher education public relations.
At Vanderbilt, Melichar took the lead in enhancing the university's communications in support of the completion of its successful $1.94 billion fundraising campaign. He merged the university and medical center development and alumni communications teams and redesigned project management processes to achieve a more strategic, data-oriented approach. He partnered with the public affairs office to develop a university-wide strategic communication planning process and design an integrated approach to communications across Vanderbilt's graduate and professional schools.
Prior to his work at Vanderbilt, he was vice president for public relations and communications at Colgate University from 2005 to 2010. During that time he led the communications efforts for a $400 million fundraising campaign. He came to Colgate in 2003 as director of media relations. He previously worked in a similar position at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, before being named director of news and information.
In his early career, Melichar worked for PR Newswire, a news service distribution company, and ProfNet, a subsidiary service that links academic experts to journalists.
Lisa M. Moore
Lisa M. Moore is the Vice President for Advancement and Chief Development Officer for Saint Mary’s College of California and is responsible for the oversight, strategic planning, and management of all fundraising and alumni engagement efforts for the College.
Her career spans more than 20 years across all areas of development in Catholic Higher Education. She has led annual giving programs, principal and major gift outreach, advancement services, corporate and foundation relations, planned giving, and prospect research. She has been instrumental in securing principal gifts for the College.
Most recently, she has led Saint Mary’s most ambitious comprehensive campaign seeking $125 million. Defining the Future: The Campaign for Saint Mary’s will close December 31, 2019 and will set the stage for new strategic fundraising initiatives, including a $75 million Library & Innovation Center.