Session Description:Trust is the cornerstone of alumni and supporter relationships. In an era of skepticism toward institutions, building trust requires more than transactional engagement. The University of Sydney Community Festival was designed as a bold, inclusive event to reconnect alumni, donors, and the broader community with the University’s purpose, people, and impact. This session will unpack the strategic thinking behind the Festival, share insights from its evolution from the inaugural Alumni Festival in 2023, to the rebranded and more inclusive title of Community Festival in 2025 which drove a 230% increase in registrations. The renaming from Alumni Festival to Community Festival was more than a branding update, it was a strategic decision to widen participation. By explicitly inviting the broader public, families, local residents, partners, and future students, the University reframed the event as a place where everyone could belong. This shift played a critical role in driving scale, diversifying attendance, and strengthening trust through openness and accessibility Presenters will discuss the challenges and opportunities of creating a festival that balances institutional priorities with authentic community experience, and how this approach strengthens long-term engagement and philanthropic readiness. Participants will gain practical strategies for leveraging events as trust-building platforms, including stakeholder alignment, storytelling, and measuring impact beyond attendance.

Session Description:This workshop is for any fundraising professional who wants to level up the way they write for donors: from emails to proposals to appeals. Learn our foundational practices for crafting compelling fundraising collateral. This session will include an exercise for participants to work through, reflect upon and share experiences. Please also bring a fundraising writing task relevant to your organisation to work through during the session (it won’t be shared).

Session Description: Education is undergoing significant transformation as institutions respond to shifting student expectations, evolving learning models, and increasing demands for relevance and impact to society. This session explores what it truly means to rethink education and why a shift in thinking about innovation and purpose has become a critical priority for institutions today. The session will also highlight the critical role of advancement teams in supporting this work – from enabling strategic priorities to building cultures that embrace change.

Session Description: Enterprise CRM transformations are some of the most disruptive – and defining – projects a university Advancement team will ever face. In this candid, practical panel, four leaders from four universities share what really happens behind the scenes: the pitfalls no roadmap warns you about, the decisions that matter most, the cultural shifts required, and the unexpected wins that made the change worthwhile. Whether your institution is preparing for, mid‑stream, or recovering from an enterprise CRM rollout, you’ll walk away with grounded insights, realistic expectations, and strategies you can apply immediately to set your team up for success.

Session Description: This session explores the role of code-switching, highlighting how cultural and linguistic adaptability can shape connection, collaboration, and community engagement. Through real-world scenarios and interactive discussions, participants will examine why individuals code-switch and how understanding these dynamics can strengthen trust, rapport, and a sense of belonging. The session will also address the balance between authenticity and adaptability—skills essential for professionals working across diverse communities. By the end of this session, participants will gain actionable strategies to foster inclusive, genuine communication that deepens relationships and supports meaningful, long-term engagement. Understand the nuances of code-switching, whether at the workplace when interacting with colleagues, or in advancement/fundraising settings Reflect on how identity (race, religion, socioeconomic status, etc.) influences expectations and communication styles Explore the balance between being strategic and authentic when interacting Learn how professionals can support authenticity, self-awareness, and cultural fluency Gain practical tools to recognize and respond to code-switching in ways that promote inclusivity and build stronger connections in diverse community and organizational settings

Session Description: This roundtable explores how we can design clear and compelling pathways that support strong beginnings in the early alumni experience. We will examine why early engagement drops off and share challenges related to unclear pathways, forming alumni identity, and cross departmental alignment. We will also consider approaches that encourage recent graduates to stay involved through volunteering, storytelling, communications engagement, and event participation. Guided prompts and collaborative discussion will support open dialogue, peer learning, and the co creation of ideas that strengthen long term alumni connection.

Session Description: When an academic leader walks out the door it can throw years of relationship-building into turmoil. It can be upended again when the next one walks in. This talk will explore how to retain your donor community’s confidence and achieve strong alignment with your leader, whoever it is that month. This is a talk for those who believe the mission continues no matter who is at the helm.

Session Description: Fundraising is built on relationships, but those relationships can sometimes carry hidden risks. Unequal power dynamics between fundraisers and donors can create environments where boundaries are blurred and safety is compromised. Recent research, including the Speaking Truth to Power in Fundraising report, highlights that sexual harassment in our profession is more widespread than previously acknowledged. The University of Melbourne created the Safe External Meetings Toolkit, which won a CASE Award in 2019. Since then, the University of Melbourne has been running twice yearly workshops utilising the resources in the Toolkit to upskill our staff to be alive to these risks and empowering them to tackle these realities head-on, equipping staff with practical strategies to recognize, navigate, and mitigate unsafe situations. This session will bring the University of Melbourne’s Safe External Meetings workshop to APAC. Participants will explore real-world scenarios, practice assertive communication techniques, and learn how to redirect conversations when boundaries are crossed. We’ll dive into storytelling as a tool for resilience, share best practices for personal safety, and highlight the institutional supports available when things go wrong. Attendees will leave not only with heightened awareness but with actionable skills to protect themselves and their colleagues—ensuring that fundraising remains a profession rooted in respect, integrity, and safety. The Safe External Meetings Toolkit (available through the CASE library) will also be shared at the session. Participants are welcome to take this and create a similar artefact for use in their own context after the workshop session.

Session Description: Presenting the 2025 CASE Circle of Excellence Silver Award, “Alumni Engagement Plan (AEP) Dashboard - Embedding data driven decision making”, this presentation will showcase the dashboard created to monitor, analyse and action initiatives and campaigns to engage a large alumni and donor base against the Alumni Engagement Plan (AEP) 2024-2026, the University's strategic plan for alumni engagement. The dashboard examines the engagement of alumni and donors against the objectives of the AEP, and was created in PowerBI using a modular data structure, to enable quick and effective data appends as required. The creative use of visuals to monitor KPIs and track trends over time, works with the consistent use of interactive elements across the Alumni Engagement reporting suite to empower users in developing a deeper understanding of the impacts of their programs, and has embedded a culture of data driven decision making within Alumni Engagement at Monash.