Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

	AG Annual Giving
	Major Gifts/Campaigns
	Management and Strategy
	Personal Solicitation

Sunday, July 21

NOON-3:00 PM
Registration

3:00-4:00
Opening Session
Welcome and Faculty Introductions

4:45-6:00
Advisee Group Meeting
Meet with faculty and peers from similar institutions and learn how to maximize your learning opportunities at the institute.

6:00-7:00
Tour of Campus (optional)

7:00
Lobster and Clambake
What would a road trip be without a little local flavor? On the first night of the institute, you'll be treated to a traditional outdoor New England Clambake, featuring lobster and other selections.

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Monday, July 22

7:00-8:00 AM
Breakfast

8:00-8:10
Dartmouth Welcome

8:15-9:15
General Session
Overview of Development

9:30-10:45
General Session
Annual Giving

11:15 AM-12:15 PM
Advisee Group Meetings

12:15-1:45
Lunch on your own

1:45-3:00
Elective Sessions (choose one)

Phonathons: Building a Program and Training Callers
Dan Allenby
Geared toward newcomers and first-time phonathon managers, this session will outline 10 steps to building a successful phonathon program.

Young Alumni Programs
David Dini
Young alumni are too often overlooked, as staff resources tend to focus more heavily on graduates with great time and resources. Tomorrow's best volunteers and donors must be engaged at an early age. Explore opportunities involve current students, recent graduates and other young alumni as we discuss ways to successfully engage younger alumni. By actively engaging our alumni as volunteers and donors at an early age, the building blocks for a successful alumni program will be firmly established. Join us as we explore ideas that to augment programs for our youngest graduates.

Basics of Campaign Management
Mike Morsberger
All successful campaigns have four essential pillars: 1) Case; 2) Leadership; 3) Prospects; 4) A plan. The absence of any of these ingredients spells failure. Join us as we walk through a comprehensive campaign plan and review the essentials for success.

Strategic Staff and Volunteer Partnerships: Elements of Success
Trish Jackson
The data are clear that volunteers tend to be more generous donors to the organizations for which they volunteer, especially if they find their work on behalf of the institution meaningful and engaging. Volunteers can also provide useful knowledge and understanding of their peers, and often provide invaluable introductions to key potential supporters. And yet, effective volunteer management requires significant staff resources of time and energy. Explore some of the best practices and better principles of creating strategic staff and volunteer partnerships to advance your institution as well as your own career.

Getting Face-to-Face with Prospective Donors: The Cold Call and Your First Visit
Karen Osborne
Turn up the heat on your cold calls and keep the door open after your first visit. Learn how to get the appointment, how to start the conversation and keep it on track, and most important, how to end the visit ensuring a productive next step. Have to solicit on that first call? We'll cover that as well. The development professional who masters and enjoys cold calls and first visits is destined for success.

Getting Face-to-Face with Prospective Donors: The Art of Asking Strategic Questions  Constance French
Strategic questioning is a powerful life skill. First, it will help you create productive donor relationships. Where are we on your list of philanthropies? What factors go into your philanthropic decisions? As you consider our vision for the future, what do you find most compelling? Quality questions elicit amazing information. Second, it will help you build relationships on campus with your supervisor, peers and faculty members. Learn how to probe for information that helps develop and advance relationships, answer all the "rights," and result in a joyful, generous "Yes" to your request for increased engagement with your institution, a significant gift to one of your priorities or for whatever you were hoping that volunteer or colleague would do to help you achieve your goals.

Getting Face-to-Face with Prospective Donors: The Art of Listening
Peter Hayashida
As a leadership annual fund or major gift professional, you are a detective, uncovering clues to your donor's philanthropic interests, motivations and values. And, like a good detective, you have many different tools for gaining the information you need. Active, effective listening is one of them. Assess your listening skills, learn about different listening styles and come away with the skills you need in order to hear and understand how to advance relationships toward "Yes."

Getting Face-to-Face with Prospective Donors: Making the Ask
Fritz Schroeder
It is more than a meeting: it is ensuring success in every stage of a significant solicitation. We often think of a solicitation as a singular event, the moment when we ask for the order. Look at personal solicitation in a broader context by discussing five stages of the solicitation process, beginning with the call to request an appointment and concluding with post-solicitation follow up. Our goal will be to understand how a thoughtful and rigorous approach to each stage can help ensure the best possible outcome in your solicitation of a high-potential prospect.

Strategic Thinking and Planning for the Development Office
Heidi McCrory
Your head is full of everything you've learned about annual giving, volunteer engagement, personal solicitations, direct mail, prospect management, communications and campaigns. Now what? How do you pull together all the pieces for a successful program? Strategic thinking and planning, of course! We'll discuss ways to plan for success, whether you're managing an office, a program, a staff -- or just yourself and your prospect list.

True Grit: The Path to Peak Performance
Jim Husson
Why do some advancement professionals succeed where others fail? What can we learn from individuals who arrive at the highest levels of expert performance across a range of professions? How might this inform our work and professional development, both as individual performers and in team settings? In this session we will review recent research on expertise and discuss two film scenes that focus on peak performers. Join us as we seek to understand why stars are made and not born.

3:30-5:00
General Session
Major Gifts

5:15-6:00
General Session
Storytelling

6:30
Reception and Barbecue
A festive barbeque highlights the second night of the Institute. A DJ provides entertainment.

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Tuesday, July 23

7:00-8:00 AM
Breakfast

8:00-9:00
Advisee Group Meeting: The Language of Asking (hands-on workshop)
Meet with faculty and peers from similar institutions and learn how to maximize your learning opportunities at the institute.

9:30-11:00
General Session
Stewardship and Donor Relations

11:30 AM-12:45 PM
Elective Sessions (choose one) 

Read Me! Direct Mail Tips, Trends and Techniques
David Jones
Explore the nuts-and-bolts of this traditional and reliable solicitation medium as well as many of the current trends, techniques and strategies in developing more effective direct mail, including variable data and imaging. Discuss messaging, formatting, packaging and text development. Samples from the real world (both exemplary and questionable) are viewed and offered for feedback. What's attractive and trendy isn't always effective. Discuss and learn what elements make direct mail the mainstay of annual giving solicitation.

Online Annual Giving, Integrated with Phone and Mail
Dan Allenby
Are you balancing your phone and mail campaigns with your email and social media efforts? Are your online and offline fundraising strategies in sync? Which channels resonate with which audiences? This session will help you develop an online fundraising strategy that is integrated, efficient, and effective.

Student Philanthropy Programs
Trish Jackson
Though many institutions have solid senior class gift programs, those schools, colleges and universities that introduce comprehensive student philanthropy programs from the time students first matriculate, are well-positioned for greater success. Explore some of the best practices in creating a culture of philanthropy on your campus, and consider how you can design programs that work for your institution even in a time of constrained resources.

Gift Planning 101: The Basics - What Donors Give (or Should Give) and Why
Mike Morsberger
Planned giving is often thought of as complicated and overwhelming. It is also a topic that tends to engender discomfort among donors, volunteers and staff because it can involve discussions of complexity and, in some cases, mortality. At the same time, it is one of the most important areas of our work as we partner with donors to help them make the most efficient and effective gifts possible. Join us for an introductory session on planned giving to learn more about the various types of outright and deferred gift opportunities that can benefit not only your institution, but also your donors.

Developing Major Gift Strategies
Fritz Schroeder
Working with an individual to make a major philanthropic investment in your organization is a very personal and unique experience, with no two donors and no two gift plans being exactly alike. Your success or failure in closing a major gift depends on how well you know the donor, how well you listen and your understanding of what he or she wants to accomplish with his or her philanthropy. Learn how to gain the trust of major donors and prospects, how to use faculty, trustees, colleagues and volunteers, and how to develop customized gift strategies that will maximize results. Walk away with a strategy for one of your donors that you can begin implementing as soon as you get back to campus. In fact, maybe the next step toward that gift begins as soon as this session ends.

Parents Programs
David Dini & Heidi McCrory
More and more campuses are recognizing the important roles that parents can play in institutional life as donors, volunteers, ambassadors, and even recruiters. Schools and colleges of all types are creating programs to engage and involve parents during and even after their children's campus experiences. We'll explore ways to attract and involve parents. Whether you're in on a large public university, and independent school, a private college, or another institution type, this session will explore well-established and emerging ideas that can energize your campus with new resources.

Getting Face-to-Face with Prospective Donors: The Cold Call and Your First Visit
Constance French
Turn up the heat on your cold calls and keep the door open after your first visit. Learn how to get the appointment, how to start the conversation and keep it on track, and most important, how to end the visit ensuring a productive next step. Have to solicit on that first call? We'll cover that as well. The development professional who masters and enjoys cold calls and first visits is destined for success.

Getting Face-to-Face with Prospective Donors: The Art of Listening
Martin Shell
As a leadership annual fund or major gift professional, you are a detective, uncovering clues to your donor's philanthropic interests, motivations and values. And, like a good detective, you have many different tools for gaining the information you need. Active, effective listening is one of them. Assess your listening skills, learn about different listening styles and come away with the skills you need in order to hear and understand how to advance relationships toward "Yes."

Getting Face-to-Face with Prospective Donors: Making the Ask
Jim Husson
It is more than a meeting: it is ensuring success in every stage of a significant solicitation. We often think of a solicitation as a singular event, the moment when we "ask for the order." In this session, we will look at personal solicitation in a broader context, by discussing five stages of the solicitation process, beginning with the call to request an appointment and concluding with post-solicitation follow up. Our goal will be to understand how a thoughtful and rigorous approach to each stage can help ensure the best possible outcome in your solicitation of a high-potential prospect.

Managing Up, Down and Sideways
Peter Hayashida
As the leader of an advancement program, your success is tied to more than just leading your team. You need to manage your boss, your key volunteers, and your colleague partners across the organization. So, how can you make the most of these relationships, even if they are not ideal? Just who do you work for? How can you flex your own strengths to bring out the best in your manager and important partners? We'll talk about tools and tips, yes, stories from the dark side that will help you manage up, across and sideways—with success.