The Jindal School of Management at UT Dallas has experienced exponential growth, expanding to over 40+ academic programs, centers and institutes, each with their own philanthropic goals. The school’s entrepreneurial environment encourages programs to actively seek support to fund their individual growth and long-term sustainability. This session will discuss our efforts to help programs develop plans that meet their goals and funding needs in coordination with the school’s overall priorities, as well as developing relationships with faculty members, guiding them towards articulating priorities through a faculty toolkit, identifying individual, corporate and foundation prospects, and sample action plans.

Please join Centenary College of Louisiana’s Director of Student Involvement and the Assistant Director of Stewardship and Donor Relations in an interactive discussion about new and different initiatives designed to engage and educate students about the importance of philanthropy. During the session, we will discuss current and future co-programming (student activity) ideas and why collaborative programming is important for current students and future alumni.

In the age of TikTok and 37-second Instagram reels, learn how the Alumni Association at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, built an old-school mentoring program, focused on meaningful peer-to-peer connections between current students and successful alumni. Learn how the staff cleverly uses a limited budget, no fancy software, and a time-honored matchmaking approach to create one of the most sought-after student experiences on the Island.

We created and would like to share the LAI (Linkage, Ability, and Interest) scoring method with the goal of identifying and ranking the most likely prospects in the three major areas of giving: Annual, mid-level, and major. Application of the customizable and dynamic scoring process to each of these efforts is up to us, which has proven to be more flexible and manageable over the resources we have. LAI scoring is not time-stamped data nor uniform in application because it can measure the most important and relevant data points that speak to the likelihood of giving for constituents.

Netflix knows what movies you should watch, Amazon knows what should be in your cart…can you say the same about the alumni, donors, and parents in your database? This session will explore best practices and tools utilized by commercial, nonprofit and higher education industry experts to drive constituent experience and behavior. Personalized journeys are every consumer’s expectation now and your fundraising and alumni relations programs need to be ready to deliver!

WTAMU is in the middle of a 125 million dollar comprehensive campaign. We have 3 major gift officers, an assistant VP and the Vice President for Philanthropy and External Relations that operate strictly from a portfolio, so we will be focusing on centralized/passion-driven fundraising and how to manage portfolios and prospects. We will cover topics like stats and financial data, engagement - working through stalls and starts, portfolio prospect management, working with multi-generational families, how to get your donors passionate about a gift and more!

Whether we’re communicating with prospective students or current students, building campaigns, or writing for the c-suite at regional public institutions, communications teams have to be able to do it all – and do it all well. In this session, Carrie and Rachel share concrete tactics and strategies to collaborate across departments, build meaningful relationships, and empower the diverse voices of your campus community to tell powerful stories (that drive enrollment, retention, and alumni engagement!) You’ll come away from this session with effective methods for creating authentic content that resonates with the varied audiences you’re tasked with serving.

When it comes to data entry, we all know "if you put junk in, you get junk out." There are many strategies for how to input data effectively and correctly, but what do we do about junk data already in our database? In this session we'll learn strategies for identifying bad data, locating the source of incorrect data entry, and managing cleanup processes.

This roundtable is a discussion on how to use surveys to generate qualified leads for your planned giving team. Session will cover audience segmentation, list development, lead grading, supporting marketing efforts and more. We welcome participation from roundtable attendees so we can learn from one another in regards to how to generate leads as well as cultivate and solicit those who respond to surveys for a legacy gift.

We had a challenge. The Division of Student Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin needed to stand out and tell our story. As a non-academic unit, we are uniquely positioned to positively impact the lives of every Longhorn by offering co-curricular opportunities that help UT Austin students. The Division wanted the ability to connect with students while empowering them to express their individuality and understand the integral role they have in creating the UT Austin culture and family. Through this lens, Living the Longhorn Life® was developed.