Mar 5th, 2025
Knox College
About the Organization https://www.knox.edu/
Job Description
Knox College
Galesburg, IL
Vice President for Advancement
With the public launch of its $175 million Venture Boldy comprehensive campaign now under way, Knox College, a paradigmatic College That Changes Lives, seeks a new Vice President for Advancement. The Vice President is responsible for the oversight and management of Knox’s advancement operation, including annual and campaign fundraising; alumni, donor and parent relations; major and planned gifts; and special events.
Reporting directly to Knox President Andy McGadney, whose career in higher-education leadership began in institutional advancement, the new Vice President will supervise an advancement staff of 25 and will also work closely with an enthusiastic Senior Staff that is a mix of ambitious new hires and dedicated veteran College leaders who constitute a dynamic and high functioning team.
Knox is an independent, four-year, residential baccalaureate institution of approximately 1,200 students (from 42 states 56 countries). The College currently offers 60 courses of study with a student-faculty ratio of 11-1. As the Prairie Fire, Knox fields 14 varsity sports in the Division III Midwest Conference and 2 in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, with notable recent success in women’s and men’s soccer. The College’s enduring hallmarks, dating from its founding in 1837 by abolitionists, are academic rigor; student access without regard to gender, race or financial circumstances; a social justice ethos and a supportive, richly elaborated student culture that inspires high affinity and loyal, active alumni devotion. The word alumni use most often in describing their Knox experience is “transformational.”
The College’s location, midway between Chicago and St. Louis, affords both urban proximity and a small-town setting conducive to a close-knit campus and local community engagement. Its academic attractions include strengths in business, computer science, creative writing, history and the sciences. Experiential education and immersion terms across disciplines, including business, theatre, and the College’s interdisciplinary and immersive Green Oaks term, are well established. The College has a strong commitment to internationalism, including its piloting of a Peace Corps Preparatory Program that is now a model for other American institutions. Knox is a broad-minded campus notable for its passionate student activism, but also for its inclusivity, kindness and warmth. Accolades from The New York Times and Washington Monthly cite Knox’s effectiveness in launching engaged graduates, encouraging public service and promoting social mobility. A member of the American Talent Initiative, Knox is among the most successful colleges in retaining and graduating students who are first-generation. The College ranks in the top four percent of institutions whose students go on to earn PhDs. The Princeton Review guidebook The Best 388 Colleges describes Knox as an “independent-minded, uncannily smart” college that fosters a “lifelong love of learning and a sense of competence, confidence, and proportion,” and enables students to “live with purpose.” The Princeton Review also states that at Knox, students and faculty work closely together, and teaching is distinguished by “inviting and expecting students to pursue fundamental questions in order to reach their own reflective but independent judgments.”
Knox enrolled its third largest entering class in September 2024—398 first-year and 35 transfer students (433 total)—and current statistics suggest another banner year for sustained enrollment growth. During the past decade, the College has pursued greater curricular differentiation in the admissions marketplace—including the addition of a Bachelor of Science degree, new majors in business, data science, and journalism, and the creation of five new minors linking arts-and-sciences study to career paths. Recent facility updates at Knox include the addition of the Knight Living & Learning Center, a new, 4500 square foot year-round facility, and a renovated laboratory and classroom space at Green Oaks, Knox’s prairie campus. Recent years also saw the renovation of historic Alumni Hall as a new gateway to the campus, the construction of the Whitcomb Art Center (for art and art history) and the re-imagined core of the Umbeck Science-Mathematics Center. With the redevelopment of Galesburg’s Seminary Street as an independent shopping district, the campus is now more deeply integrated into the life of the City of Galesburg (population 30,197), the seat of Knox County, a railroad hub three hours from Chicago, and “home to the largest number of historic houses in Illinois.” With 18,975 living alumni, Knox raised $12,332,414 in fiscal year 2023-24.
Qualifications: The ideal candidate will be an accomplished advancement professional, with a proven record of successful fundraising, including experience with campaign planning and direction, as well as lead and major gift solicitation. Candidates must demonstrate at least ten years of progressively responsible and successful development experience, including prospect identification, cultivation and solicitation of donors, as well as substantial experience with the administration and management of a large staff in a high-affinity institution with a culture of excellence. A bachelor’s degree, preferably in an arts-and-sciences discipline, is required, with a master’s or professional degree preferred. Other qualifications include:
•Expertise to create a metrics-driven and results-oriented work environment that promotes collaboration, achievement and calculated risk-taking.
•Experience in closing transformative gifts.
•Cross-cultural competency equipped to engage the notably diverse, international community of Knox students, alumni and parents.
•An appreciation of the transformative impact of a residential national liberal arts college, and the ability to advocate effectively for Knox to be a top philanthropic priority for its community members.
•Outstanding relationship-building and collaboration skills, with the ability to work with diverse constituencies and collaborate across administrative functions, especially academic affairs, student affairs and enrollment management.
•Successful supervisory experience that demonstrates the ability to lead, coach, mentor, develop and retain professional staff.
•Experience with cutting-edge approaches to engagement and annual giving.
•Fluency in estate planning and planned giving.
•The disposition of an innovative and autonomous self-starter, who seeks out new opportunities and leads with a sense of urgency.
•A systems orientation and the aptitude for and willingness to use technology and social media to foster community building and to facilitate online fundraising.
•Commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, including the ability to advance college culture and fundraising connected to these priorities.
Review of candidate materials will begin immediately and continue until the appointment, with a target public announcement date of May 2025. A complete application will include a letter of interest, a curriculum vitae and contact information for five professional references who can speak about the candidate’s qualifications for this appointment. Named referees will not be contacted without the candidate’s prior consent. Chuck O’Boyle of C. V. O’Boyle, Jr. LLC is leading the search. Expressions of interest, applications, nominations and inquiries should be directed to Mr. O’Boyle at chuck@cvoboyle.com