*Separate registration required The Senior Leadership Forum is a deep learning opportunity for chief advancement or communication officers, heads of school, trustees, and other school leaders to explore high level topics including building trust with your board, the leadership work needed to secure transformative gifts, and the opportunity for AI to inform your strategies. This preconference workshop will include: The Trust Factor: How AI and Psychographics Turn Donors into Believers Big gifts don’t come from big asks. They come from big trust, and the smartest schools are now using AI to understand exactly how to build it. In this high-energy session, a senior school leader and an AI expert team up with a special guest AI copresenter to reveal how the latest advancements in artificial intelligence and psychographic data are transforming advancement strategy. You will see how you can uncover the values, motivations, and emotional drivers behind giving, helping leadership teams build genuine confidence with donors and each other. Learn how today’s top schools are combining behavioral insights and AI to predict donor behavior, personalize engagement, and strengthen trust across the entire philanthropic ecosystem. This is a look into the future of relationships, where data, discernment, and authenticity work together to inspire transformational gifts that advance mission. Building Constituent Trust in the Era of Grievance: What You Need to Know & Do This Year Engaging with your constituents is difficult right now. Whether it's polarization, challenges between different generations of faculty and staff, or a general sense that "parents don't trust schools like they used to," things are tricky—to say the least. As we face the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history, school leaders and revenue-generating teams must adapt to the unique preferences, motivations, and communication styles of different generations to maximize both tuition and advancement revenue. Get an overview of psychographic trends among millennial and Generation X audiences and actionable ideas to craft compelling strategies and messages that resonate with diverse groups that make up your school community. Gifts of Significance: Working with High-Potential Donors on Meaningful Gifts Hear from four seasoned advancement leaders who have built their careers on working with high-level donors. This panel discussion will review the mindset required to have success with our highest-level donors. What time should be carved out for this work? Where does it fit in the priorities for the head of school, board leaders, and advancement professionals? Each panelist will be involved in posing questions that are on the minds of many.

Parents are a significant part of our school communities. They are key volunteers, supporters, champions, and yes, they are also the clients of our institutions. Join us for a special preconference offering featuring three sessions designed to explore the best ways to engage your parents for the success of your school. Advocates, Activists, and Other A-Words explores how schools can turn parent voices into powerful allies when implementing major changes—whether launching new programs, overhauling systems, or pursuing ambitious building projects. Drawing on real-world lessons and strategies, this session equips you to navigate advocacy and activism effectively, ensuring your school improvement plans succeed. Designing a New Parent Journey that Builds Connection and Drives Giving shares Seattle Academy’s proven blueprint for cultivating lifelong engagement and early philanthropic support. From personalized summer meetings to curated events and mission-driven touchpoints, learn how to create authentic, high-touch experiences that build trust, nurture loyalty, and inspire meaningful first-year giving without sacrificing authenticity. Turning Tension Into Trust: Fundraising in the Era of Parent Grievances addresses the growing challenge of zero-sum thinking and parent frustrations that can derail fundraising efforts. This session provides actionable strategies to lead with empathy, reframe tough conversations, and partner with school leaders to defuse tensions—protecting your role as a trusted advisor and sustaining a resilient philanthropic culture even in challenging times. Walk away with actionable tools to strengthen community, deepen trust, and secure transformational support—starting now. Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your impact!

As we adapt to a rapidly changing world, "people problems" can be the most complex and critical challenges we face—but they don’t have to be. Humans are not chaotic, they are predictable, even in chaotic times. That means all adults pass through sequential stages of development that feature different fears, motivators, and goals. By constructively exploring these stages, we can transform our understanding of ourselves AND each other. In this interactive, entertaining, and highly actionable keynote, former Disney+ host, tech founder, and Adult Development Theory expert Arel Moodie introduces the overlooked science of human potential to help us Build People Power™ inside our organizations like never before. You’ll walk away with a clear understanding of how to predict and drive certain behaviors—no matter which stage someone is in. This roadmap will give you a renewed and restored sense of where your organization can go, and help you move people into action so you reach bigger goals together. *Conference badge is required for entry into the Convention Center. Please visit CASE Registration desk on the 3rd floor at the Hyatt Regency to pick up your badge.

For a school head and leadership team, alignment with the board of trustees is crucial; in times of change, it is even more essential. In this session, Morva McDonald will talk through governance practices--big and small--in the context of ambiguity and uncertainty. She'll also share key trends independent school boards and leadership teams should be aware of, as well as ways to frame these trends in the context of a school's unique culture, market, and tolerance for risk.

Tired of chasing down emails, outdated mailing addresses, and job information? Learn how one school leveraged strategic—and sometimes sneaky—methods to refresh alumni contact data without making it feel like a chore. In this session, the team shares how they embedded data collection into quick five-minute surveys, incentivized updates through visible contact displays at events and online, and used an alumni portal with gated features that encouraged logins and profile updates. They also collected deeper insights through thoughtfully designed, well-timed alumni surveys to maximize participation and integrated all updates seamlessly back into the database through efficient tech workflows.

Leadership transition is a difficult process in the field of advancement, especially when the outgoing advancement leader or head of school has served successfully for more than a decade and built strong relationships in the school community. In this session, the previous and current directors of advancement at The Kinkaid School will discuss the lessons they learned in their recent baton-pass during the fourth year of a $200 million campaign as well as from previously onboarding new Heads of School. They will offer suggestions on managing the expectations of trustees, staff, colleagues, and the community; documenting the outgoing leader’s institutional knowledge; creating a 100-day onboarding plan for the incoming leader to meet key donors and stakeholders; assessing the staff and its structure; learning about School operations; and building a strong relationship with the Head of School or advancement leader. The lessons learned by Kinkaid provide valuable insights for any school, regardless of its size or length of service by the advancement leader or head of school.

When the Palisades Fire devastated parts of Los Angeles in January 2025, Carlthorp School found itself at the epicenter—its families, alumni, and community members deeply affected. In the immediate aftermath, the Advancement team, in collaboration with key internal and external partners, stepped into a central leadership role, launching both urgent relief efforts and long-term recovery initiatives. This session will explore how Advancement galvanized support—from mobilizing resources such as uniforms, furniture, and essential supplies to fostering unity during a time marked by both heartbreak and division. One year later, the work continues. Learn how a school community became a lifeline, how storytelling and relationships inspired generosity, and how your own advancement office can serve as a force for resilience in times of crisis.

This session will discuss 5-6 facets of the most important fundraiser in your school, the Annual Fund, and how three different schools in Houston, Texas, achieved their goals, sometimes taking different paths. All experienced increased success with their Annual Funds, both in terms of dollars raised and the cultivation of a culture of generosity. Each school will provide descriptions of the different routes they chose for their community, along with what worked, and, in some cases, what did not. We will cover key areas of importance in the planning and execution of the Annual Fund, including the timeline, use of volunteers, Giving Days, giving societies, donor fatigue, and more.

Launching a major gifts program can feel daunting, but with the right foundation, it’s entirely achievable. This session will explore how to build a sustainable program from the ground up, discussing the importance of leadership commitment, a culture that supports philanthropy, and an appropriately sized and strong team of staff and volunteers. The panelists will share their experiences at their current schools, and discuss why a compelling case for support, defined giving priorities, and clear goals (along with systems to track progress and report outcomes) are essential elements to success. Whether you're a new advancement leader or head of school, this session offers practical strategies to build a major gifts program to deliver sustained fundraising results.

From Idea to Iconic: Building an Alumni Event That Transforms Your School Community

How do you turn a bold idea into the most successful alumni event in your school’s history? In this session, we’ll take you behind the scenes of MKA’s inaugural Alumni Innovation Summit—a two‑day, campus‑wide celebration that brought back 25 accomplished alumni (many returning for the first time since graduation) to inspire students, spark faculty innovation, and reconnect with each other in transformative ways.

You’ll learn exactly how we did it: from crafting highly personalized invitations that turned even the most disengaged alumni into eager participants, to building a program structure that fostered authentic connection and excitement. We’ll share the complete playbook—panel topics, moderator briefs, faculty think tanks, student interest groups, itineraries, and even the questions that fueled unforgettable conversations.

Walk away with practical strategies, concrete resources, and the confidence to create an alumni event at your school that not only inspires your community but becomes a defining chapter in its history.