About Me

Joyce D. Henckler has had over 30 years of experience in teaching, higher education marketing, fund raising, educational administration and the arts. As a third grader attending a private school in New Jersey she received a talent-based scholarship to attend theater and acting training classes at the Children’s Theatre Guild in New York. Moving to rural New York state at the age of eleven put an end to her dreams of a career on the stage. The next family move was to Maine, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree with a major in History and a minor in English and a master’s degree in Counseling which opened the door to a career in education.

Living in Maine for over 30 years, her work as an educational administrator included the development of a successful enrollment management model for the recruitment, selection and retention of students. As Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Management at the University of Maine, her oversight included: Admissions, Financial Aid, Career Planning and Placement, New Student Programs and the Registrar’s Office. In 1997 having served on the boards numerous not for profit organizations and as a consulting fund raiser to community agencies she entered the field of Development.

The scope of her work has encompasses consulting for private for-profit and nonprofit organizations, including the American Red Cross where she became Director of the Pine Tree Chapter, to assisting with a major comprehensive campaign which successfully raised over $360 million at the University of Central Florida. Currently, as Assistant Vice President for Major Gifts at the University of Central Florida Foundation, she oversees the major gift fund raising staff across the colleges and is responsible for acquisition, cultivation and stewardship at the individual, corporate and foundation level of major gifts to enhance program excellence, facility development, scholarship creation, endowment enhancement and the creation and completion of capital projects.

In addition to making numerous presentations for professional and civic organizations on fundraising and various aspects of philanthropy she maintains several avocational interests. She has been a writer for: Elle magazine Readers Panel and Book of the Year 2007 Readers Panel; the Maine Journal of Antiques and Collectibles, and Bangor Broadside, a weekly community paper. In addition, her childhood interest in the theatre has not been extinguished. She currently serves on the board of the Orlando Repertory Theatre in Orlando, FL; has participated in numerous theater productions; served as a movie extra in several films (she is the fleeting image of a flight attendant in the Stephen King movie, Pet Semetary) and has appeared in print and television ads.

Her most valuable professional training, which has dramatically assisted in fundraising work, includes her degree in counseling and her experience in the theatre world. These two areas bring to the forefront not only the skills involved with listening to donors and truly hearing what they are saying (counseling) but also provides (through acting) the essential presentation skills to help move the donors forward to action.