Christopher Taylor is the vice chancellor for external affairs and chief of staff in the Office of the Chancellor at USC Upstate. He joined Upstate in October 2021 from the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga., where he served as assistant vice president and campaign director since 2016.
As a member of the school’s Office of Institutional Advancement leadership team, he helped cultivate, solicit and steward transformational and leadership gift prospects that supported institutional priorities. This included working on a $225 million comprehensive fundraising campaign and providing critical leadership on a team that raised more than $132 million in campaign investments.
Taylor has an extensive background in higher education fundraising and expertise in leading capital campaigns, major and planned gift programs, and corporate and foundation relations. His past roles include assistant vice president for constituency programs at Lipscomb University, where, among many other accomplishments, he helped increase fundraising from $9.5 million to $32 million annually.
From 2003-2010, Taylor served as senior director of major gifts at the University of Louisville’s College of Business and College of Medicine. He was director of major gifts at the University of Kentucky’s Chandler Medical Center from 1999-2003, assistant director of development at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine from 1997-1999 and was the development coordinator of Washington State University’s College of Liberal Arts from 1994-1997.
Taylor holds a B.S. from the University of Idaho, where he was scholar-athlete as a member of the Vandals football team. He also has a certificate in medical management from the University of Kentucky.