So you find yourself in the wonderful world of advancement: now what? Whether this is your dream job or you fell into the role because it aligns with your skillset, how do you navigate the first few years? This preconference program is designed for newcomers to build the foundation they need to find success as they begin their journey in educational advancement. Attendees will walk away with a greater understanding of the functions of the different departments and teams, new connections with mentors and peers at other institutions, reflections on important topics and themes in our work, and a roadmap for how to tackle their first CASE Conference. Breakfast will be included.

In an era marked by profound shifts in higher education across North America, advancement and alumni relations professionals are uniquely positioned to harness disruption as a catalyst for connection and transformation. Drawing on insights from the Hope Circuits project, Dr. Jessica Riddell explores how institutions can build sustainable, resilient, and hopeful communities by aligning advancement strategies with the principles of relational wellness and shared purpose. This talk reflects on a year of applying Hope Circuits’ tools across 13 universities and seven organizations, with a focus on how advancement teams can foster trust, cultivate belonging, and empower alumni to co-create the future of higher education. By framing alumni and donor relationships as active partnerships in institutional flourishing, Dr. Riddell offers a model for navigating uncertainty with a values-driven approach centered on respect, inclusion, justice, and accessibility. Key strategies include fostering shared vocabularies and visions with alumni, creating actionable pathways for community engagement, and ensuring authentic agency for stakeholders across the advancement ecosystem. Attendees will gain actionable insights on how to embed trust-building, iterative feedback loops, and diverse storytelling into their advancement practices to not only strengthen alumni relations but also reinforce the institution’s capacity to thrive in the face of change. At CASE's annual conference, this keynote invites attendees to envision a future where advancement and alumni relations play a pivotal role in fostering humane, inclusive, and hopeful institutions. By activating HopeCircuits within their work, advancement leaders can transform challenges into opportunities for alumni and institutions alike to flourish.

This session will look at how to apply in-house engagement scoring, wealth screening data and other internal information to help create projections that identify gaps in fundraising opportunities. It will also examine how this data can be applied to assess current fundraising staff against projections.

Are they your alumni, or ours? Is their gift in support of athletics or the university as a whole? Is that an athletic event or an alumni event? Managing partnerships across campus that impact the alumni experience are tricky at best. Understanding the relationships that student athletes have with their coaches, teammates, and through their affinities are the foundation to their future relationship with the institution and with the institution's teams. We will explore the different approaches to managing these relationships while they are students and will help to identify how to steward them as volunteers, donors, and engage them as alumni. As potentially your most engaged alumni population, this session will highlight the wins and losses when both advancement and athletics don't have a clear playbook for athletic alumni in their portfolio.

From launch to close, learn how the MIT Resource Development design team approached branding, marketing, digital, events, and thanking donors with memorable experiences, collateral, and gifts during MIT's recent capital campaign, and take home ideas you can leverage for any campaign, whatever your role.

Break out of the silos and join us for "Stronger Together: Uniting Alumni Relations & Annual Giving for Enhanced Engagement," a session focused on maximizing the impact of collaboration between alumni relations and annual giving. Explore successful initiatives like our annual day of giving, reunion program, student and young alumni engagement, integrated communication strategies through e-newsletters and new websites, and the power of personalized outreach driven by data. Discover how leveraging alumni networks and fostering a culture of philanthropy increases engagement, and learn how metrics and key performance indicators can help measure and refine these strategies. Gain actionable insights into creating a cohesive and dynamic alumni experience that drives both involvement and support.

Babson College prioritizes the importance of affinity groups in our alumni engagement and annual giving. This workshop will focus on Babson’s career and identity-based affinity groups: partnering with alumni volunteers, the role of passive programming, and implementing targeted fundraising initiatives to boost annual giving through affinity groups.. Come ready to hear our stories and share your own on how to engage alumni around affinity programs as one of the key components of successful alumni engagement.

Data storytelling is one of the best ways to empower your organization’s donors to understand the impact of their philanthropy. Join Lynne as she explores effective writing and communication techniques that artfully blend storytelling and data that resonates with your readers and moves them to action. She will cover fundamentals and samples of data storytelling and visualization so that you too can deliver key messages that matter to your donors in a clear, concise, and meaningful manner. Learn how to turn your data into stories and modernize your communications.

No, viral dances were not performed to garner views and followers. Learn how harnessing the power of the individuals consuming your content can be transformative for your pages. Impactful organic and authentic content doesn’t need to be overthought. It’s time to lean on those who are consuming as much content as your social media managers. Hidden skill and talent can be found among your institution, and it will cost your department nearly nothing — well, perhaps just the cost of a mini mic.

The #1 way to ensure your institution's success & your future success as a fundraiser is ambitious, consistent discovery now. But discovery is one of the hardest parts of fundraising! When you're getting in the door with amazing new potential donors, discovery can feel like an adventure. When you're slogging through names in your database and getting zero responses, discovery can feel overwhelming and oppressive. Join this session for tactical discovery tips from sending better emails to cold calling to turning the conversation to money in that first visit.