Awards
- IU Indianapolis Spirit of Philanthropy Award - 2025
About Elizabeth Hibel
In his final year of law school in 1993, Andy Hibel was introduced to the idea of a career in planned giving by a close friend. In his mid-twenties at that time, he has since gone on to full and gratifying career positions as an assistant director of planned giving at Penn State University, Vice President of Planned Giving and developer of the planned giving program at the Advocate Health Care system in Chicago and eventually an integral part of the planned giving services at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago as the Director of Gift Planning and Estate Administration. Meeting wife Elizabeth, who was at the time Director of Planned Giving for DePaul University, gave rise to their joint interests and passions for sustaining important charitable work through initiatives in planned giving that they could develop together. With past experiences at Northwestern University and University of Chicago, Elizabeth supplied the perfect blend of technical skills, interpersonal dynamism, board service and ingenuity to bring new and innovative ideas in planned giving to fruition, and as Co-Founder of the Advise Us Foundation, her strengths were put to action. Elizabeth’s broad base of advancement skills combined with her passion for doing good for others has inspired her work and life’s mission.
In the early 2000’s, an unexpected career twist happened for the Hibels. What began as a way to supplement their development salaries became a full-time career shift. HigherEdJobs, a company Andy started with two friends from Penn State, began to explode and experience great success. Andy decided to take a hiatus from planned giving to pursue HigherEdJobs’ success. Today the three original founders still own and run the company from locations in State College and Chicago and have 1,500,000 people a month coming to the website looking for jobs and over 4,000 colleges and universities a year posting their open positions.
From both for profit and not-for-profit backgrounds, the Hibels were presented with opportunities to serve nonprofits in a governance capacity, notably a two-year term as president of the Chicago Council on Planned Giving. Philanthropically, the Hibels are passionate advocates of the hidden joys of careers in planned giving and have focused on fostering this path for others by establishing endowments at Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy (LFSOP) for their planned giving certificate, scholarship funds to send professionals to the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners (CGP) national conference. Through the Planned Giving Initiative, the Hibels have enthusiastically funded grants to CGP’s local councils, summer internships in partnership with CASE, and the funding of the curriculum design for the LFSOP’s planned giving certificate.
They have a strong interest in the ability of planned giving to address systemic inequities over time and PGI and the foundation have reflected that interest. Grants have been made for fellowships in planned giving at HBCU’s in conjunction with CASE as well as funding a Montgomery and Selma open source curriculum through TeachRock and funding for a music education center in a economically disadvantaged neighborhood in west Chicago for BandWith. Through a specific grant to CGP, inclusion and belongingness in planned giving are also being addressed.