This session will provide Advancement staff with strategies to build more equitable engagement pathways, empower diverse constituencies and drive mission impact. We will discuss: why equity and inclusion are critical to Advancement's mission and community impact, challenges and barriers facing marginalized groups, strategies for driving change to foster inclusive participation, and frameworks and language to advocate for equity-focused engagement in a compelling way.

JHU recently completed a major CRM Project - a complete digital transformation of several data systems into one main fundraising CRM. How did they do it? How did their team and project thrive? Join the session to learn how the JHU team engaged with several partners to lead their team, their data and JHU through this change. Learn about the opportunities they took for business process improvement, staff development and overall operational efficiency.

This session challenges the traditional model of community college grant development which can be reactive and inefficient. Leaders from the Dallas College Advancement & Development team will share why and how they have shifted toward a culture of strategic grant seeking. Learn how to use grants strategically to advance the innovation efforts of your college in a proactive and effective way. Participants will gain tools, insights, and strategies they can immediately deploy.

Institutions everywhere are struggling with burnout and its impact on employees. As managers, as colleagues, and as leaders in our institutions, we carry such an incredible load of emotional labor, compassion, and empathy for those we serve at our institutions. How might we put our oxygen masks on first to minimize burnout and find effective strategies for our personal employee engagement? Join this session to reflect on how to prioritize your wellbeing, minimize burnout, and share strategies with your employees on ways to find greater fulfillment and engagement at work.

Join campus leaders from Boston University and Colby College for new insights and a lively discussion around building donor pipeline. From surveying to better understand your audience, to persona building & targeted engagement, to evaluating and implementing new tools to move donors up the ladder at scale, building a pipeline of donors from entry to major gift, is key to fundraising on campus today. In this session, staff from Boston University and Colby College will talk about the work they’ve been doing, the challenges they had along the way, how they ultimately found success at scale, and engage presentation participants in a lively discussion that will prepare them for returning to campus with new strategies and ideas.

In today's ever-evolving workplace, it is crucial to develop effective strategies for managing up to your supervisors, managing across institutions, and navigating organizational structures. It also takes self awareness, resilience, creativity and guts! As recruiters we often have a front-row seat to what hiring managers are looking for in candidates, internal and external. We will explore the art of managing from your seat -- whether in an on-site office or from a remote desk -- and provide you with ideas, insights and practical techniques to cultivate strong relationships with supervisors and peers while influencing the decision-making process, and how to work effectively with key influencers and advisors. We will explore how to effectively communicate your ideas, progress and results to supervisors, ensuring your contributions are acknowledged and appreciated, setting you up for career growth and with ownership of your future.

As a higher education professional, you know the importance of engaging alumni and creating meaningful connections goes well beyond graduation day. In this session, we'll explore how to leverage the existing activities at your university to gather alumni and make an impact on local communities. This session will showcase how to enhance your various events to foster alumni engagement, and create positive change; and will show how you can get the media to tell these stories along the way. Attendees will leave with specific ideas to strengthen their events and create meaningful connections that benefit both the university and the community.

Once upon a time, a few intrepid communicators at Brigham Young University embarked on a daring journey—one that would lead through thick forests of research, across deep oceans of campus conversations, and over soaring summits of strategic planning. On this journey of discovery, they found themselves listening for clues from consultants, campus partners, audiences, students, online data, and university leadership. In the end, what they learned helped BYU launch its first nationwide marketing campaign, grounded in good old fashioned storytelling and rooted in the institution’s mission and values. Now almost two years into the campaign, with hundreds of millions of ad campaign impressions, they have a quiver full of stories, a backpack stuffed with spreadsheets, and a fanny pack of ideas to share about how you can listen effectively to craft a successful marketing campaign.

Over the past 18 months, court decisions and public policy has drastically changed how higher education can approach DEIB. While academicians and student affairs personnel prepare for their work, advancement practitioners face our own unique challenges. This workshop is designed for all members of an advancement organization – from alumni engagement to development to Marketing and Communications. Participants will be taken through a framework that will allow them to examine their own organizations’ readiness to be nimble in this contemporary environment, ultimately to support a culture that will keep all stakeholders engaged. Additionally, participants will come away with tools to structure DEIB work in a way that is mission-centric and supportive of all communities.

Campuses around the globe are facing turmoil and crisis. How do we use an integrated approach to advancement to navigate and draw on the strengths of our colleagues from every advancement discipline? Join this panel discussion to hear from leaders in the field about approaching crisis management through the lens of integrated advancement.