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.

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.  

Joanna Hootnick serves as Associate Vice Chancellor, Campaigns at the University of Denver advancing a $1B campaign, where she oversees the advancement communications and events teams. Previously, she worked at Columbia University in the City of New York for nearly 14 years, most recently as Executive Director for Campaign Planning and Analysis overseeing a $5B campaign. Her experience includes roles at Columbia's law and business schools, the president's office and at NYU in major gifts, annual and reunion giving, and communications. She has also served as a principal gifts officer at Teach For America, responsible for raising gifts over $1M.

Joanna earned her BA at Harvard College, an MA and MEd at Columbia University’s Teachers College and an MBA at NYU’s Stern School of Business. Joanna is co-chair of her college class's participation fundraising committee and volunteers as an alumni interviewer. In her spare time she enjoys skiing, running, comedy, reading, cooking, and spending time with her husband, daughter and dog.

As the Associate Senior Vice President, Alumni Relations at the University of Southern California, Erika Jordan serves as the chief alumni engagement officer for the campus and plays a key role in providing leadership and strategic guidance to ensure uninterrupted engagement for the nearly 500,000 alumni in the Trojan Family. 

Prior to this role, Erika served as the Vice President, Alumni Engagement at Boston University where she led the Alumni Engagement, Annual Giving, and the Development Events & Communications teams. Additionally, she spent six years serving as Assistant Vice Chancellor, Alumni & Constituent Engagement at UC Irvine. Throughout her career she has been instrumental in exponentially growing alumni engagement and annual fundraising, elevating communications and events, establishing UCI’s dual alumni engagement campaign goal and leading special projects.

Erika has spent her career in politics, special events, alumni relations, frontline fundraising, and served as the Director, Alumni Relations and Annual Giving for the USC Marshall School of Business. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Howard University and executive masters in leadership from USC.

Henry W. Taylor is the Founder and Managing Partner of Legacy Consulting Group (LCG), a strategic consulting practice serving non-profits, higher education institutions, churches, religious organizations, K-12 schools and other entities seeking to enhance their mission driven impact. LCG builds on Henry's significant experience in advancement and strategically addresses opportunities for improvement in non-profit management, fundraising, alumni/constituent engagement, communications and marketing, diversity, board relations and operational effectiveness. Most recently, Henry led Golden Gate University's (GGU) advancement division as vice president. His team focused on rebuilding GGU’s fundraising, alumni engagement and communications efforts resulting in improved outcomes and CASE awards recognizing their achievements. 

Prior to GGU, Henry served as Senior Director of Development at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA. He managed the office of development, which included annual giving, corporate & foundation relations, donor relations, leadership and legacy giving, as well as research & prospect management. Under his leadership at Agnes Scott, the college saw a 62-percent increase in money raised from FY19 to FY20, totaling a record-breaking $21.1 million. For FY21, Agnes Scott boasted its highest annual giving total in college history for The Fund for Agnes Scott. Prior to Agnes Scott, he was vice president for institutional advancement at Clark Atlanta University, where he was tasked with strengthening the advancement function and elevating the professionalism of staff, infrastructure and activity to deliver increased outcomes.

In total, Mr. Taylor’s advancement career spans more than 25 years and includes work at California State University-East Bay, Georgia State University, Princeton and Stanford as well as the KIPP Foundation and Level Playing Field Institute. He has successfully solicited more than $65 million personally and has led teams responsible for securing over $150 million throughout his career. His significant experience and expertise as well as passion for philanthropy and commitment to the advancement profession have made him a frequent keynote speaker and workshop presenter at professional conferences including for CASE and AFP. Mr. Taylor received a bachelor’s degree in government and religion from Claremont McKenna College and a master’s degree in leadership at St. Mary’s College of California.

Catherine Wiggins is a skilled fundraiser with more than 18 years of experience raising gifts at the major, principal, and leadership giving levels at the University of South Carolina. She has worked her way through all levels of the fundraising paradigm at USC beginning as an Assistant Director of Development, a Director of Development, Chief Development Officer for a unit and then moved over to the central development program as a principal gift officer and now Assistant Vice President leading all of the leadership giving and presidential engagement efforts. The University of South Carolina just celebrated their best fundraising year since 2017, closed a $30m college-naming leadership gift, and have developed a new model of focusing on leadership giving to lead into their next capital campaign. Catherine holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of South Carolina and a master's degree in Sport and Entertainment Management. She additionally is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Sport and Entertainment Management and teaches courses on live entertainment management. She is happily married with a teenager and a toddler that keep her busy outside of the office.