CASE-NAIS 2022 Sessions
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A New Development: Fundraising’s Emerging Role as a Trust Builder
As the adage goes, “Trust is the easiest thing to lose and the hardest thing to get back.” And because of the importance of trust in donor relationships and school communities, the role of the development professional can be made all the more difficult when there is a lack of it.
Yet, development professionals are often expected to be the conveners of trust – to instill it in new relationships, to notice when it is shaky, and to rebuild it when it is lost.
In their talk, Graham-Pelton Senior Vice President Jennifer R. Harris, Ph.D., and University of Chicago Laboratory School Executive Director of Alumni Relations and Development Damon Cates, will share their experiences of building and rebuilding trust and share:
- Ways to build and establish trust with colleagues, leadership, and donors
- How to build a transparent donor environment
- How to mitigate emergent or chronic trust issues
Data + Heart = Pipeline: Using and Implementing Data Management
When giving officers receive a portfolio of donors, it can be challenging to create relationships with a large group of individuals while integrating into a new position. Pipeline management can help lighten the load and provide a strategic road map for future fundraising. In this session we will share the steps to implement a fully functional donor pipeline utilizing the donor centric lens of Independent Schools and integrating the donor management processes of a large institution. Integrating these processes in a smaller shop allows the fundraising team to craft donor outreach strategies in conjunction with a large-scale fundraising campaign. This level of pipeline work can help determine which individuals are ready for active solicitation, while engaging and cultivating others through targeted outreach.
Widening the Aperture: Redefining the Advancement Experience
Times are changing at a whirlwind pace. The way we engage with prospective donors, alumni and families is rapidly shifting. For too long, advancement teams have focused almost exclusively on the giving funnel—nurturing prospect relationships from engagement through gift. Keeping constituents engaged through this journey is critical, but it’s no longer enough to sustain our catholic schools. To meet our advancement and fundraising goals nowadays, we have to nurture donors for the entirety of their education journey digitally and face to face.
A Questions Approach: Asking How Advancement Work Can Build Inclusive Communities
How do we authentically honor and commit to our equity goals while raising the most money for our institutions possible? What questions do we need to ask to get us there? In this session, we will explore the relationship between Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Development work in our school, recognizing the benefits of the strong partnership. As the Development Director and DEIB Director from The Spence School, a NYC K-12 girl’s school, we will share our approaches and some of the ways the partnership has benefited our school. We will then offer an approach and an equity framework that we can use as tools to examine how we approach fundraising, volunteering, parent and alumnae programming, office culture, hiring and talent development and so much more. Join us if you are interested in deepening your practices, and bring your ideas. We will have time to plan concrete steps to make your advancement program more inclusive!
Data & Benchmarking Office Hours
Join Cara Giacomini, VP of Data, Research, and Technology (CASE) and Hilary LaMonte, SVP, Data and Analysis for School Leadership (NAIS) to discuss the future of advancement data and benchmarking. Bring your questions, your ideas, and your curiosity as we talk about the next big step in measuring and analyzing our progress toward our goals. This session will be a mix of formal and informal discussion and is designed as a follow up to this morning’s Key Session.
Hands-on Major Gifts Engagement: The Strategic Planning Interview
Are you looking for a meaningful and authentic way to engage your community's leaders and closest friends to unearth new major gifts? This session on the strategic planning interview will allow you to experience for yourself the value of asking and being asked the right questions. Participants will partner with another attendee and participate in a questioning process that helps to engage donors and future donors in a productive way. We will experience the process together by taking on both the role of questioner and listener and sharing the experience of being in those roles. We will also discuss the details of how to get an appointment for the interview, questions to ask, and next steps. This is ideal for major gifts officers and heads of school and is also useful for those just starting out at a school and want to get to know the community better.
The Senior Class Gift: Maximize Your Engagement
This session will discuss how the Lycée Français de New York relaunched it's Senior Class gift as a collaboration between the development office, students, and parents.
How to Use Social Media to Reach More Best-Fit Students
The Ellis School’s social media campaign, which makes students the marketing voice of the school, drove up website sessions 133%. And it’s finding more right-fit families, the most elusive catch in the admissions world.
So what’s holding your school back from making a true leap into social? Maybe you’re thinking: Is it worth my time? Do we have enough social followers to make a noticeable impact? Will our investment even pay off?
This session highlights the key elements you need to launch and track an effective social media marketing campaign.
Learn how to:
- Build a brand that attracts the students you want most
- Let your students be the marketing voice of your school
- Include your curriculum in your storytelling
- Use video to target prospective students — not just parents
- Deploy stories across channels and audiences strategically
- Leverage both paid and organic social media
The lessons learned from the Ellis School team — which created nearly 40 profiles to share across channels and increased social media clicks 238% shortly after campaign launch — could apply to your school.
Polite Persistence at Fairfield Prep: How Donor Experience Officers are Booking More Meetings
Robert Cottle, VP of Advancement at Fairfield College Preparatory School, knew that his team could improve donor participation and build relationships in pursuit of a more sustainable future for the institution. Teaming up with EverTrue, Fairfield Prep created a new position in their Advancement organization: the Donor Experience Officer (DXO).
Powered by data insights and a clear strategy, a Donor Experience Officer has begun working to deliver high-volume, personalized outreach to more donors. By using a cadence-based approach, their Donor Experience program is strategically targeting donors with giving and affinity indicators to book meetings and have continued, intentional conversations throughout the year. The goal is to reinforce relationships through multiple touchpoints that are scalable, rather than relying on an annual solicitation or reactive stewardship.
Tune in to learn the ins-and-outs of this exciting program and what’s next for Fairfield Prep!
It's a Wild, Hybrid World: Mixing In-person and Virtual Engagement for Maximum Impact
Every non-profit organization, school or institution put forth a monumental effort during an extremely difficult year and a half. To successfully connect with our constituents and inspire support, we have had to be nimble, courageous, creative, collaborative, gracious, and grateful. What will the new reality hold? How can we meaningfully engage our communities, virtually and in-person, locally and beyond? Join this session to hear a few innovative hybrid approaches that have been working for communications, events, and raising support, and to brainstorm what might be possible for your team to accomplish in the year to come.