As institutions deal with The Great Resignation, The Great Realignment, Quiet Quitting and the Act Your Wage post-pandemic crisis, the need for meaningful connection has never been greater. Increasing workloads, elevated stress levels and initiative fatigue have all resulted in a disengaged workforce. Learn why meaningful connection is vital to fostering a sense of belonging and how building a culture of connection, will reignite our passion and lead us back to our North Star: Students. Meet Toya Webb, Ed.D.

CASE Competencies: Relationship Building; Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking

Generating buzz—grabbing the attention of your alumni, donors, and friends—can be challenging in a crowded media environment. And not every school has a stable of boldfaced name alumni. In this session we will provide a toolkit for rich storytelling that elevates your accomplished alumni and faculty to celebrity status, creating far-reaching engagement. We will share how integrated storytelling—social media, alumni newsletters and magazines, events, and solicitations—can build up the reputation of your subjects and add up to a successful constituent journey to engagement and giving.

CASE Competencies: Global and Cultural Competence; Relationship Building; Strategic Thinking

This session offers insight into developing and implementing an admitted student outreach effort to engage your alumni in a way that is meaningful to them, increase alumni engagement with the university and grow your volunteer base, and help your university's enrollment efforts. Insights include conceptualizing and executing a new alumni engagement program; relationship building with key stakeholders; and volunteer recruitment, training, and management.

CASE Competencies: Leadership

Why aren't there more women in leadership positions in higher ed? And what can we do about it? It turns out that many of the issues keeping women from advancing within the sector are pervasive within many different countries and cultures. During this session, Dana Cummings, doctoral student, will share current findings from her research on the topic, pulling back the curtain a bit on reasons for so few women in leadership positions within higher education, and will offer important suggestions for institutions who are interested in developing a culture where women not only survive, but thrive.

CASE Competencies: Business and Financial Acumen, Strategic Thinking

The word insight implies a perspective driven by intuition. However, intuition feels more impulsive than it is. When informed by data, our insights become increasingly accurate and trustworthy. How does intuition become insight? This session will summarize CASE’s ongoing research, focusing primarily on three surveys. These are the Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey, now in its 66th year, the Alumni Engagement Metrics (AEM) survey, now in its 4th year, and the CASE-Marts&Lundy CampaignSource survey. We will also touch upon made-to-order reports and consultations available from CASE.

CASE Competencies: Global and Cultural Competence; Integrity and Professionalism; Relationship Building; Strategic Thinking; Leadership

When you hear culture team, do you think of party planners? Not so fast. The Michigan LSA Advancement culture team is a self-empowered workgroup that seeks to discover, embody, and champion our values, advising leadership and leading teams in order to build a high-performing organization and foster a positive culture. Learn how this staff lead team functions as a working group: creating positive culture deliverables, advocacy group: speaking up for values and change and culture stewards: modeling the behavior for an inclusive culture for all. The CT breaks barriers and eliminates leadership hierarchy to build cross team collaboration and cohesion.

CASE Competencies: Global and Cultural Competence, Relationship Building

In 2020 the University of St. Thomas merged its Career Development Center into University Advancement, on a new team combining Alumni Relations, Corporate Relations and Career Development. The new approach is proving to be a win for students, the university, alumni, and employer and corporate partners. We have been able to identify opportunities for collaboration and ways to better support our diversity, equity and inclusion work. Learn about the transition to this new model, the challenges and successes, and key opportunities you can seize at your institution -- no matter your organizational structure.

CASE Competencies: Relationship Building; Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking

Have you ever implemented a new strategy for your giving day and found its results lacking? Us, too! In an industry that demands constant improvement to remain relevant, sometimes “best practices” do not look their best at our own institutions. In this interactive session, Ohio Wesleyan University will share specific examples of how we have troubleshooted our giving day strategy over more than 10 years of iterations. Come prepared with questions about your own giving day and walk away with crowdsourced solutions. While no single institution has all the answers, our collective wisdom provides the expertise our giving days need.

CASE Competencies: Global and Cultural Competence; Integrity and Professionalism; Relationship Building

Ethical storytelling involves shared respect and shared vulnerability between a story source and storyteller. It recognizes power dynamics. And it involves story sources as equal partners, from the first contact to the finishing touches on the final product. In this presentation, we'll share some simple changes that we at the University of Minnesota Foundation have made to be more inclusive in the way we work and share tips you can incorporate into your own work starting tomorrow.