This interactive workshop will give professionals with fewer than two years in the field a robust introduction to donor relations and stewardship through discussion of essential fundamentals, including characteristics of successful stewardship professionals; donor relations as a profession; principles and practices of donor relations, engagement, and stewardship programs; and where to find resources, best practices, and sources of inspiration.

Kick-off your learning with this workshop specifically designed for mid- to senior-level donor relations leaders. The program will provide key insights from conference faculty and interactive discussions with other leaders on topics that help strengthen your skill set in service of your current role or in support of your aspirations. We will cover collaborating with colleagues, strategic decision making, and how to keep current and inspired throughout your career.

Join conference co-chairs Jen McGrath and Eliza McNulty to meet the faculty, and get a big picture overview of the conference and how to get the most out of our time together.

This facilitated conversation and sharing session will prompt reflections on trends our faculty (and you) are seeing in philanthropy and how our work has shifted (or not) to address them.

Professional conferences often double as group therapy for advancement professionals. You not only get to learn best practices and gather new ideas – you also have an opportunity to have your own challenging donor stories validated or hear new ones that dwarf the scale of your own. In this Festivus session you will have a safe space to air your grievances, but also the opportunity to hear ideas and solutions from others that will allow you to return to your institution with solutions for your biggest issues.

Measuring the success of donor engagement initiatives – whether it be our impact and fund reporting, events, retention and recognition programs, communications and more – is a daunting challenge in our industry. Always asked to do more with less, justify our budgets, and demonstrate how donor relations and stewardship affects the fundraising bottom line, we must approach our work with both a heartfelt relational perspective as well as an operational and efficient mindset. This is where the art and science of our work truly collide! Join this session to explore what key metrics we can (and should) be tracking, tips and tricks on how to get this data, idea sharing on tracking and reporting, and to explore many samples of how schools across the country are employing highly successful metric-based, but still donor-centric, engagement programs. It’s a power hour of samples, case studies, and more!

This session will provide tips to help you implement a strategy for executing quick-turnaround stewardship on what is arguably one of your busiest days of the year. We'll share how we utilized a ThankView strategy to send thank-you videos to donors mere hours after they made a gift on our annual day of giving. We'll also share some road blocks and "aha" moments we had along the way that will help you think through how to customize a strategy that fits your organization.

A title doesn’t make us a leader, rather, who we are and how we relate to others does. Over his two decades+ in Advancement, service-leadership has been the heartbeat of Edgardo (Edgar) Gonzalez’ career. From his early days as a student caller to his current role as Vice President of University Advancement at Seattle University, Edgar has been a respected, well-regarded colleague – one who simultaneously pokes, prods, guides, inspires and encourages everyone around him because that’s simply who he is. It’s who and what Edgar is that makes him a good leader. In this interview and facilitated audience conversation, we’ll explore the importance of knowing and being who you are (no matter who you are!) as the key to developing and enhancing your ability to lead from wherever we are. Our topics will include many challenges leaders face regardless of their identity, title or position: imposter syndrome, racial and systemic barriers, self-awareness, personal values, just to name a few.