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Virginia Tech

Assistant Vice President for Gift Planning

🇺🇸 Blacksburg, VA

🕑 Full-Time

💰 $205K - $235K

💻 Development & Advancement

🗓️ September 1st, 2025

Edtech.com's Summary

Virginia Tech is hiring an Assistant Vice President for Gift Planning. This leadership role directs a team responsible for a significant portion of the university's fundraising, focusing on increasing new gifts through bequests, life income, and complex gifts while cultivating high-value donor relationships.

Highlights
  • Lead a ten-person Gift Planning team to drive fundraising initiatives.
  • Cultivate, solicit, and close six, seven, and eight-figure planned gifts with top donors and prospects.
  • Build and maintain relationships across University Advancement and the Virginia Tech Foundation to support gift planning efforts.
  • Master's degree or equivalent experience required; background in trusts and estates law, accounting, wealth management, or charitable gift planning preferred.
  • Strong knowledge of legal, estate, tax, financial, and gift planning concepts essential.
  • Leadership and team management experience with excellent communication and analytical skills.
  • Preferred qualifications include JD or CPA designation and fundraising experience at large universities or charitable organizations.
  • Salary range from $205,000 to $235,000 annually.
  • Position requires occasional travel and availability for evening and weekend work.
  • Virginia Tech is a comprehensive land-grant institution with a large and diverse academic community and a robust, growing gift planning program.

Assistant Vice President for Gift Planning Full Description

Job Description
The Office of Gift Planning leads a collaborative university-wide advancement program responsible for a quarter of the University’s overall annual fundraising results. Reporting to the Associate Vice President for Engagement, the Assistant Vice President for Gift Planning is a senior position in University Advancement offering the opportunity to achieve results both through program leadership as well as through personal solicitation success. The position is responsible for increasing the University’s new gifts and commitments coming from bequests, life income gifts, and complex outright gifts through (1) leadership of a ten-person Gift Planning team, (2) building relationships throughout Advancement and the Virginia Tech Foundation that support these efforts, and (3) cultivating, soliciting, and closing six, seven, and eight-figure gifts with a select portfolio of highly rated donors and prospects. The University is gearing up for significant opportunity in the years ahead, as the number of prospective planned gift donors is projected to rise significantly. Gift Planning will be an essential part of this anticipated growth. This leadership role offers the chance to achieve significant professional success at a leading university in a highly regarded college-town atmosphere building on a program that has already doubled, then tripled in the past six to eight years.

Required Qualifications
Master's degree or bachelor's degree with experience equating to an advanced degree. 

Demonstrated experience in trusts and estates law, accounting, wealth management, or charitable gift planning, preferably in a complex and collaborative setting.

Demonstrated knowledge of legal, estate, tax, financial, and gift planning concepts. 

Demonstrated strong communication, organizational, analytical and interpersonal skills. 

Demonstrated ability to work within a multifaceted organization requiring collaboration, teamwork, and communication.

Demonstrated experience in charitable gift planning. 

Demonstrated leadership and team management experience.

Preferred Qualifications
Demonstrated knowledge of Virginia Tech, its history, its operations, its current priorities, and its alumni. 

Demonstrated fundraising experience at a large university or other large charitable organization. 

JD degree or a CPA designation.

Overtime Status
Exempt: Not eligible for overtime
Appointment Type
Regular
Salary Information
$205,000 to $235,000
Hours per week
40+
Review Date
October 5, 2025
Additional Information
Safe driving record. 

Unable to sponsor work visas. 

This position requires occasional travel and work hours that include evenings/weekends.
The successful candidate will be required to have a criminal conviction check.

About Virginia Tech
Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech pushes the boundaries of knowledge by taking a hands-on, transdisciplinary approach to preparing scholars to be leaders and problem-solvers. A comprehensive land-grant institution that enhances the quality of life in Virginia and throughout the world, Virginia Tech is an inclusive community dedicated to knowledge, discovery, and creativity. The university offers more than 280 majors to a diverse enrollment of more than 36,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in eight undergraduate colleges, a school of medicine, a veterinary medicine college, Graduate School, and Honors College. The university has a significant presence across Virginia, including Blacksburg, the greater Washington, D.C. area, the Health Sciences and Technology Campus in Roanoke, sites in Newport News and Richmond, and numerous Extension offices and research institutes. A leading global research institution, Virginia Tech conducts more than $650 million in research annually.
Virginia Tech endorses and encourages participation in professional development opportunities and university shared governance.  These valuable contributions to university shared governance provide important representation and perspective, along with opportunities for unique and impactful professional development.

Virginia Tech does not discriminate against employees, students, or applicants on the basis of age, color, disability, sex (including pregnancy), gender, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, ethnicity or national origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, or military status, or otherwise discriminate against employees or applicants who inquire about, discuss, or disclose their compensation or the compensation of other employees or applicants, or on any other basis protected by law.
If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact Advancement Human Resources at advhr@vt.edu during regular business hours at least 10 business days prior to the event.