Join Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld, Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and CASE CEO Sue Cunningham for a discussion on navigating the fraught current environment. Dr. Kleinfeld has written extensively on the role of civil society organizations around the world, and the impact the current political turmoil is having on them. In the US, she sees this impact as a result of the growing political divide. In other countries, governments are shutting down nonprofits on ideological grounds. This opening session will set important context and explore how philanthropists and our institutions can continue to support civil society despite the current unrest and division we face.

How did the University of North Dakota and the University of North Dakota Alumni Association and Foundation create alignment between brands and messaging, strengthening overall brand messaging for the success of the University and Foundation's Campaign? It's all about communication, leadership support, and working smarter together. We'll tell you how we did it.

Join us for an engaging conference session that seamlessly combines the essential elements of crafting an annual plan with the power of effective stewardship. In this session, we will dive into the art of developing a robust annual plan while integrating an Engagement Calendar and Stewardship Matrix to ensure long-term sustainability and success. Discover the key elements of stewardship that drive organizational growth and donor satisfaction. Learn from industry experts and real-world examples as we explore successful stewardship practices that have yielded remarkable results. Leave this session armed with the knowledge and tools necessary to revolutionize your approach to annual planning and stewardship, enhancing your organization's impact and donor relationships. Don't miss this opportunity to elevate your strategy and secure a prosperous future for your cause.

Join the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Student and Young Alumni Programs team for a comprehensive conversation discussing student-alumni life cycle programming, recent graduate and young alumni initiatives, and collaborative strategies employed to link students with the UT Knoxville Office of Alumni Relations and the UT Alumni Network. Your active participation is key – share both successful endeavors and challenges from your own campus, enabling fellow attendees, and yourself, to depart with a diverse range of ideas and proven best practices ready for consideration and implementation at our respective institutions.

Many institutions use audience engagement models, but often only a fraction of their potential is tapped. Are there more creative ways to fully utilize these models? The University of Calgary’s Engagement Scoring Model goes beyond passive metrics, integrating deep engagement points into market segmentation, prospect pipeline construction, and projecting engagement trajectories. Continuously refined, our model adapts to the evolving landscape of alumni, donors, and community interactions. Join us to discover how UCalgary maximizes every tool in our engagement arsenal, driving toward the ambitious goal of tripling engagement by 2030 as part of our Ahead of Tomorrow strategy.

In a constantly changing and global Advancement world, how can we lead our teams with meaning and with purpose to execute a comprehensive campaign? Especially a campaign that has never been attempted before, with ambitious goals that have never been tested? How can we take fundraising and alumni engagement to the next level when there is such a diversity of stakeholders involved? At Niagara College Canada, we have an incredibly large international student population (more than 50 percent of our overall 2023/2024 intake), and we are currently planning for the largest comprehensive campaign in College history (launching Spring 2024). Our two primary campaign goals? To raise $60 million+ and engage 50,000+ alumni over 5 years. This will involve a huge increase in active fundraising and trailblazing alumni outreach unlike anything seen before in our landscape. In this session, come explore key questions and issues with us as we share how the College is devising/executing our strategy while also building out its team resources and community connections to maximize success.

How do you create a lasting stewardship experience that effectively recognizes each donor’s impact and makes the scholarship more meaningful to the recipient? The Foundation for Seminole State has developed a unique technological approach to donor stewardship which has resulted in greater donor satisfaction, higher levels of recipient involvement, and increased giving. This session will demonstrate how the Foundation’s Online Scholarship Catalog has transformed the donor-student experience which has led to significant donor satisfaction, higher levels of recipient involvement, and increased giving. This session will demonstrate how the online catalog has transformed the donor-student experience, which has led to significant growth in the number of endowed scholarships and higher donor gift amounts

There’s nothing more exciting than receiving a big check from a donor. Or is there? Only 7 percent of household wealth is held as cash, yet 85 percent of charitable gifts are made in that form. Research shows that encouraging donors to make gifts of wealth (using non-cash assets) results in larger gifts to charities with greater benefits for the donor. In this session, we’ll look at three methods that leverage the power of shifting from disposable income: gifts of appreciated securities, qualified charitable distributions, and donor advised funds. Even small shops can benefit from incorporating these approaches into their work.

When launching your social media presence, you likely started by outlining a comprehensive strategy. But like any good strategy, you can’t just set it and forget it! Continued engagement and reach require that you regularly review and reevaluate your approach to meet the changing demands of your stakeholders, constituents and platform algorithms. Join this session to learn how the @VillanovaAlumni Social Media Working Group capitalized on the launch of their Instagram account to revisit overall goals for social media, enhance cross-departmental collaboration, create brand-aligned content themes, update workflows, define measurements for success and achieve results. Regardless of your experience level with social media or the size of your team, there are takeaways for everyone!

Every creator has faced it: the dread of the blank page. Sometimes it turns into a full-blown creative block; or if you do manage to get something down, it doesn't engage or inspire you. When these problems strike, the culprit is often your “editor” self, who’s trying so hard to make everything perfect that your “creator” self can’t get a word in edgewise. This workshop will lead participants through in-class writing exercises that will teach you how to sidestep your editor so your creator can step forth and do its job. We'll do timed writings that focus on pure creation — no editing allowed — to help you escape the limitations of an everyday mindset and access “beginner’s mind.” Bring a pen, a notebook and a willingness to unlock your creativity.

Reunion celebrations are the culmination of a year's worth of event planning, volunteer engagement, fundraising, and outreach. So why not start the festivities sooner? Join the University of Chicago team to gain insight into additional opportunities for reunion programming and team collaboration to build momentum for Reunion Weekend and class giving. This session will discuss spreading the magic of reunion milestones throughout the year with pre-reunion engagement, collaborating with signature events, and leaning on your volunteers to make reunion a success.

How can a smaller shop use the new AI tools to work smarter and find more prospects for its fundraising team? I am one person working for eight fundraisers. We are a new team with big goals. I am experimenting with AI like ChatGPT to see how I can use it to find corporations and individuals and what information we can find out about them - quickly, because I have a long and growing list of requests for prospects. AI is changing and developing fast. I will discuss some of the sites and methods I have used and some of my thoughts around prompt engineering and fact checking. This session will finish with a Q and A and a discussion.

Senior leaders identified the most significant challenge facing Advancement as “Scarcity of Talent.” The lack of qualified staff and turnover is a significant challenge at all levels of the advancement profession. How do you begin/continue growing your own talent? The session will help participants understand strategies to embrace the needs of emerging leaders, realize how to engage students, and enhance ones one’s on skillset to advancement the talent pipeline shortage.