WARTBURG COLLEGE
Title of Position – Vice President for Institutional Advancement
Function of Position
The Vice President for Institutional Advancement serves as the College’s chief advancement strategist and a key member of the President’s Senior Leadership Team. This role provides vision and direction for all advancement functions—including fundraising, development, constituent engagement, and alumni and parent relations—to ensure the College secures the resources, partnerships, and public visibility and support necessary to advance the mission, strategic priorities, and long-term institutional goals. In doing so, the Vice President will shape and sustain a forward-looking advancement enterprise—ensuring the technological infrastructure, analytical capabilities, and talent are aligned to enable agility, deepen engagement, and successfully support Wartburg’s evolving philanthropic priorities.
Key Responsibilities
- Strategic Advancement Leadership
- Serve as the chief architect of a comprehensive advancement strategy aligned with the College’s mission, values, and strategic plan.
- Lead the strategic oversight of all fundraising programs, including major and planned giving, annual giving, corporate/foundation relations, stewardship, and campaign planning and execution.
- Develop and execute strategies that strengthen external relationships and elevate the College’s visibility, reputation, and identity within the higher-education landscape.
- Serve as the principal advisor to the President on advancement and fundraising initiatives, providing guidance to support presidential engagement with donors, alumni, community leaders, and other key stakeholders.
- Champion the modernization and integration of Wartburg’s advancement operations, including constituent relationship management (CRM) systems, data governance, and predictive analytics to identify prospective donors, optimize portfolio management, and align all advancement functions—from annual giving and alumni engagement through major and planned gifts and Board stewardship—as a coherent, institution-wide strategy for philanthropic growth.
Team Leadership and Management
- Hire, supervise, coach, develop, and evaluate a diverse team of institutional advancement professionals.
- Foster a collaborative, data-informed, mission-focused, high-performing team culture that emphasizes accountability, innovation, excellence, and professional growth—while maximizing the return on the College’s finite resources.
- Set vision and alignment for advancement services operations including data management, prospect research, stewardship, communications workflow, and donor/alumni engagement strategies.
- Champion the adoption and continued development of advancement technology infrastructure to enable evidence-based decision-making, strengthen prospect identification and cultivation, and support a seamlessly connected giving pipeline from first-time donors through legacy commitments.
Fundraising Excellence
- Lead and mentor a high-performing major gifts and planned giving team, setting clear expectations, coaching gift officers, and ensuring a disciplined approach to portfolio management and donor strategy.
- Develop a continuous learning model for optimizing fundraising activities that spans staff assessment and training, campaign/program design review and research, and technology enablers including artificial intelligence.
- Manage a personal leadership portfolio of key current and prospective donors, including members of the Board of Regents.
Campus Leadership & Board Governance
- Shape the future of Wartburg College as a member of the President’s Senior Leadership Team, advancing institutional priorities and integrating the efforts of Institutional Advancement with other key divisions.
- Provide regular updates, analytics, and strategic counsel to the Senior Leadership Team and the Board of Regents regarding philanthropy, constituent engagement, and advancement progress, challenges, and opportunities.
- Serve as the primary liaison to the Board’s Advancement Committee, guiding volunteer leaders in their roles as advocates and ambassadors for the institution.
- Activate the Board of Regents as an integrated and strategically engaged node in Wartburg’s philanthropic network, cultivating Regents as informed advocates, connectors, and donors whose relationships meaningfully expand the institution’s reach among new and prospective supporters.
- Participate in or chair institutional committees, task forces, or working and advisory groups to strengthen institutional alignment and support shared governance.
Institutional Collaboration
- Partner with academic and administrative leaders to ensure advancement initiatives effectively support student success, academic innovation, enrollment priorities, strategic initiatives, and institutional sustainability.
- Strengthen cross-campus partnerships to align advancement, enrollment, academic, and community strategies.
Additional Responsibilities
- Lead special initiatives, strategic projects, or emerging priorities at the direction of the President.
- Represent the College at campus, community, and professional events to strengthen visibility and engagement.
Supervision & Leadership Scope
Under broad administrative direction, the Vice President sets performance standards, develops policies and procedures within advancement, and provides leadership on complex, high‑level initiatives across the College requiring institution-wide collaboration.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in advancement, higher education administration, nonprofit management, business, communications, or a related field. Master’s degree preferred.
- Eight or more years of progressively responsible leadership experience and demonstrated success in fundraising.
- Proven track record in securing major gifts, developing donor pipelines, leading campaigns, building stakeholder relationships, and leading high‑performing teams.
- Experience in higher education preferred.
- Familiarity with data analytics, dashboard reporting, and predictive modeling as applied to prospect identification, portfolio management, or campaign strategy is strongly preferred.
Application Procedure:
Please upload the following by selecting the “Apply for this Position” below:
1) resume
2) a letter of interest including a statement regarding qualities within the context of the Wartburg College mission
3) contact information for three references
See www.wartburg.edu for further information about the college and the city of Waverly. Screening begins immediately and continues until position is filled.
Wartburg College is dedicated to challenging and nurturing students for lives of leadership and service as a spirited expression of their faith and learning. Founded in 1852, Wartburg College is a selective liberal arts college internationally recognized for its community engagement and academic excellence. As indicated in the vision statement, “Wartburg College is called to be the leading institution in education of the whole person. Together, we create an inclusive community combining diverse curricular and co-curricular experiences to prepare students to be resilient leaders of positive change through service in a complex world.”
Located in northeast Iowa, Waverly is an extraordinary "gigabit" community of more than 10,000 residents in the Cedar Valley metro near Waterloo and Cedar Falls, with an abundance of cultural, musical, and recreational opportunities. Major Midwest metropolitan areas within driving distance include Des Moines, Iowa (2.5 hours); Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn. (3 hours); Madison, Wis. (3.5 hours); Rochester, Minn. (2 hours); Chicago (5 hours); and Omaha, Neb. (4 hours).
