Speaker Biography
Jennifer “Jen” L. Howe serves as a Principal on the Huron Advancement & Fundraising team, offering 30 years of experience in securing private philanthropy as well as building and leading advancement teams within higher education. She has designed, launched, and led comprehensive campaigns ranging from $2+ billion to $400 million at both public and private institutions, with significant exposure to institutions that have academic medical centers and interdisciplinary research efforts. Her areas of expertise include: fundraising performance management, principal gift strategy, campaign development and counsel, integrated advancement operations, academic leadership onboarding, talent management and team building, board and volunteer management, and donor acquisition and experience/stewardship.
Throughout her career, Jen has focused on the creation and enhancement of integrated advancement teams that achieve record-setting fundraising outcomes by elevating all aspects of the development cycle – alumni engagement, new donor and volunteer acquisition, major and principal giving programs, corporate and foundation support, planned giving, and stewardship. She also has developed expertise in launching new fundraising programs, assessing existing advancement operations to accelerate their outcomes, and envisioning and implementing new organizational structures for advancement operations that maximize the return on advancement investments made by her previous institutions.
Prior to joining Huron, Jen served as Senior Philanthropic Advisor to the President and Vice President for Development at Georgia Institute of Technology (GT), where she was responsible for publicly launching their $2+ billion Transforming Tomorrow campaign while resetting their entire fundraising structure to best practice. Before GT, she held the role of Vice President for Advancement at the University of Dayton (UD) – fully rebuilding their advancement effort and launching their first comprehensive campaign in over 20 years. Her most extensive time was spent as Associate Vice Chancellor for Development and Alumni Relations at Vanderbilt University – helping to lead their comprehensive campaign efforts; managing multiple college, school, and central unit fundraising teams; developing new fundraising programs for international and interdisciplinary support needs; coordinating fundraising efforts with the medical center; and directly securing major and principal support. All this experience was built on the foundational, early-career exposure Jen achieved at Emory University, where she in multiple roles across the Office of the Provost and Advancement.