Day 1, Wednesday, April 21

NOON- 1:00 PM
Registration

1:00-1:15
Welcome and Introductions

1:15-2:00
Starting the Fire: Overview of Where We Are, and Where We Are Going
What fires in advancement services organizations are consuming our time and energy? How do we keep them under control to give ourselves the best chance for success and to focus on the strategic initiatives that can best support our mission? Kick off the conference with a perspective of where we are today and find out how to keep our operations moving forward.

2:15-3:30
Building Best Practices
Advancement services has changed a lot in the past decade, and is likely to change even more in the next. This session will define the 21st century advancement services operation and will lead you through an evaluative exercise to determine where your advancement services organization is on the basics-to-best practice continuum. Goal setting and strategic planning ideas will be shared to help you return to work with an action plan in mind.

3:45-5:00
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• CASE Reporting Standards: Updates and Applications
  What's new, what's improved and what needs to be done to get the office up to speed? Hear about the changes in the new edition of CASE Reporting Standards and Management Guidelines and join in the discussion of how they are being applied in your shop. Walk away with additional resources and handouts to get everyone on the same page
• Management & Staffing an Advancement Services Organization in the 21st Century
  CASE's discussion leaders will lead interaction with attendees on approaches to further discuss managing and staffing a 21st century advancement services organization. Skills, training, roles, responsibilities, challenges, and successes... what's working and what's not working? How can we form and sustain an efficient and high-performing organization?

5:00-6:00
Networking Reception

Sponsor: Blackbaud

6:00
Conference Adjourns for the Day
Dinner on your own

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Day 2, Thursday, April 22

8:00-9:00 AM
Breakfast Roundtables

Co-Sponsors: Datatel and WealthEngine

9:00-10:15
Crafting the Fire: Managing Conflict in the Development Office and Beyond
Day in and day out we are presented with challenges and changes, most of them not of our own doing. Properly managed, these are the touchstones of our success and professional satisfaction. Under addressed, they become the conflicts and stressors that devour resources, limit achievement and make us look for new employers. How do we become aware of and intentional about our conflict communication choices? What are the critical communicative tactics that we can employ, and when should they be deployed, to help us craft the potential destructive fire of challenge into a useful tool or warming resource?
Keynote Speaker: John W. Zinsser, Co-founder and Managing Principal, Pacifica

10:30-11:45
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• Project Management in Advancement Services
  More than ever, leaders in advancement services are members or leaders on significant project teams. Project management principals can increase productivity and create accountability, both of which add to your organization's value and your own job security. Learn about the tools that others use to deliver projects and services which are on time and under budget, not to mention well designed.
• Technology in Advancement Services: Keeping Up or Giving Up?
  Database systems, Web access, imaging, online communities, reporting, mobile access, third-party systems, the list goes on and on. How do we keep up with all the technology that is available and make sure we have the ‘right' technology to support our users' needs and requirements-both for today and tomorrow? Learn key concepts and approaches for staying on top of the technology that plays a critical role in our management responsibilities.

11:45 AM-1:15 PM
Luncheon Keynote
The Future of Communications in Higher Education
Forces are at work today that will shape the future of higher education and your job in higher education. From an increasing demand for accountability from your constituents and challenges from the competition to the new role of communications and the rise of a new breed of leader, change is happening more rapidly today than at any time in the past. During this presentation we'll look at those forces and how they will affect your life. We'll offer some observations of how to harness the power of change for the benefit of your institution...and your job.
Keynote Speaker: Joe Hice, Chief Communications Officer and Associate Vice Chancellor, North Carolina State University

1:15-2:30
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• Walk Like An Egyptian: Prospect Management, Campaign Pyramids and Institutional Capacity
  Success in campaigns hinges on moving prospects with high capacity to donors of gifts at the highest levels of the gift pyramid. Prospect management is often the bridge between planning a scale of gifts and executing the movement of high-level prospects through the pipeline. One of the ways prospect management advances its position in the institution is to transition itself from profile makers to forecasters of institutional capacity. Discuss the tools for managing that transition and gain techniques for managing information about campaign pyramids, prospect management and performance metrics.
• To Infinity and Beyond! Trends in Social Media
  The current decade has given us a lot of social media tools and technology: Twitter, YouTube, RSS Feeds, LinkedIn, Facebook, online giving, giving via text messaging, and more. This session will identify trends we may see in the next decade for social media. We'll look at the psychological triggers of social media and discuss how to leverage those triggers to assist in collecting data on prospects for our organizations.

2:45-4:00
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• Supporting Reporting in an Information-Rich Environment
  Everyone wants and needs information quicker, faster and more comprehensive. Reporting tools, reporting databases, data warehouses, requirements, users, dashboards, visualization . . . a lot to take into account when building and supporting a reporting infrastructure. As managers of reporting teams, we work with management, users and our report writers and need to bring it all together in a cohesive manner. Learn key concepts and approaches to "supporting reporting" in a dynamic information advancement environment.
• Bringing the Future into the Present
  New technologies are transforming the type of work we perform, the skills required and the way in which we work with partners to develop new processes. Learn how to develop and implement a professional development and staffing strategy by thinking more strategically about the capabilities needed to achieve a high-performing team now and in the future.

4:00-5:00
Panel Discussion: Organized for Success
Examine the myriad of organizational structure in university advancement and foundation operations. Centralized, decentralized, or a little of both. What makes sense for your institution, and why?

5:00-5:30
Faculty Firing Line

5:00
Conference Adjourns for the Day
Dinner on your own

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Day 3, Friday, April 23

8:00-9:00 AM
Breakfast Roundtables

9:00-10:00
Vendor Discussions
Part of our responsibility is to understand what vendors have to offer in the market that can enhance our operations. We have reserved this dedicated time to have vendors interact with us on their current solutions and where they are heading with their solutions. This is a great time to see how additional solutions could fit within our current environment to meet demands of our clients - i.e. the rest of the advancement operation. This will follow a more informal opportunity that will be present at Friday morning birds of a feather topics that will be focused on vendor solutions and clients of them and attended/supported by vendor staff if they are present at the conference.

10:15-11:30
Fire Starters: Advancement Services and Campaign Planning and Readiness
As institutions mature in the ability to conduct campaigns, decision makers see information as a resource equal to revenue or staff. Senior leadership looks to advancement service professionals to transition from putting out fires-responding to requests, fixing records, reacting to new business processes-to starting them-inform decisions about campaign policy, business processes, institutional capacity, and staffing allocation and organization. Focusing on technology, staffing, rules and standards, and current trends, this session will provide tools, techniques and fresh ideas for managing and developing the resources essential to campaign readiness.

11:30 AM-NOON
Closing Session and Conference Wrap-up

NOON
Conference Adjourns

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