For many independent schools, old brand perceptions can be difficult to shake. Learn how New York City’s Xavier High School (a 179-year-old Jesuit, Catholic school) worked to modernize its brand through creative, emotional communications, ongoing data analysis, and strong partnerships between the communications, admissions, and advancement teams. Whatever the age of your school, this session will help you clarify your brand and maintain that clarity during turbulent times.

No matter the size of the team, there are always donors who deserve personal, meaningful engagement — but too often, they’re out of reach. Recognizing the opportunity to deepen connection at scale, DeLaSalle High School was one of the first to tap into Autonomous Fundraising. They’re using trusted digital labor to expand their small team’s reach like never before.
After a strong onboarding experience with the Version2 team, DeLaSalle realized that a different constituency — one with both the capacity and the inclination to give — was being underserved by their Development Office. With support from Version2, they confidently shifted to a new portfolio approach, focusing their VEO on engaging current and past parents. The VEO now helps deliver timely, personalized outreach and surfaces giving potential that might otherwise be missed.
Seeing early success with alumni, and now with parents, DeLaSalle is strengthening its donor pipeline with consistent, meaningful engagement throughout the year.
This session will explore how DeLaSalle strategized around the VEO’s portfolio assignments, showcase actual results and examples of their VEO’s engagements with constituents, and explain why they see Autonomous Fundraising as a strategic way to grow capacity. Attendees will leave with practical ideas for how independent schools can pair human strategy with a VEO to reach more donors, build stronger connections, and advance their mission.

To ensure Board members understand both your role and theirs in fundraising success, be the conductor of the trustee train. You need to educate trustees in fundraising and philanthropy; use your advancement committee well; sit on the buildings and grounds, finance, and governance committees; and employ your head of school’s help when appropriate. This session will offer directors of advancement pointers for forging a [more] productive partnership with the Board of Trustees.

Alumni giving at Thacher isn’t just alive; it’s thriving. At a time when schools are rethinking what alumni engagement really means, we’ve reimagined it as a full-spectrum experience that blends highly personalized outreach with broad-scale initiatives to spark pride, momentum, and connection across generations. With 48% overall alumni giving and 71% participation among young alumni, we’ve seen how reunion giving, young alumni campaigns, virtual giving days, career and networking support, and data-informed outreach can foster a true culture of engagement, one that drives both community and philanthropy. This session will share our most effective tools, lessons learned from both big wins and messy pivots, and practical, scalable strategies to make alumni giving feel personal, meaningful, and successful; whether you’re a team of two or twenty.

What if students weren’t just the recipients of philanthropy—but its leaders? At The Whitfield School, the Student Philanthropy Board empowers students to manage real budgets, evaluate grant proposals, and lead giving initiatives that make an immediate and lasting impact. This session will explore the full structure of the program, including student selection, budgeting, grantmaking, and fundraising strategies. Special focus will be given to Spring It Forward, a weeklong internal campaign that encourages students to give back through time, talent, and treasure, and its companion Giving Day, which engages alumni, families, and friends in a community-wide celebration of generosity.

Participants will leave with practical tools—including templates, timelines, and campaign strategies—as well as a deeper understanding of how student philanthropy fosters leadership, ownership, and a strong foundation for long-term alumni engagement. Whether you're starting from scratch or looking to grow an existing program, this session offers an actionable roadmap to inspire future changemakers and lifelong givers—starting now.

Learn how Polytechnic School built an Annual Fund framework rooted in segmentation, clearly defined ask tiers, ROI-driven projections, and donor-behavior tiers. We’ll walk through how these elements informed our annual fund strategy, shaped donor-behavior insights, and strengthened our overall forecasting approach. This session concludes with a look at our data model; how we projected a $4.1M outcome, stayed on course through a natural disaster, exceeded our goal and increased giving by 10% in one year, and ultimately landed within <1% of our projected target. Expect practical takeaways you can immediately implement as you plan for your next fiscal year.

Discover how you can authentically involve students in donor engagement. This interactive session explores the dual benefits of student participation: while students develop public speaking, leadership, and storytelling skills you can deepen donor connections through genuine narratives. Participants will hear firsthand student testimonials, engage in a story-mapping exercise, and receive practical tools for implementation. Leave equipped to launch or strengthen student-centered fundraising strategies!

Say goodbye to the 100 days of giving that seem to drag on forever! It can be taxing on your fundraising team AND on your donors. It’s time to say hello to having a successful Annual Fund program in 30 days or less! Come learn more about how The Wesley School went from running year long Annual Fund campaigns to 100 days, and now successfully achieving 100% parent participation in 30 days or less.

Endowment is a permanently invested fund that provides long‑term financial stability by generating annual income to support core priorities such as excellence in teaching and learning, financial aid, program innovation, and campus stewardship. In this session, the presenter will highlight national benchmarks, share historical endowment growth through simple visuals, and explain spending policies that balance sustainability with impact. They will also illustrate how endowed funds transform lives through stories of students, faculty, and programs. The presenter will outline future endowment goals aligned with institutional priorities, describe opportunities for donors to create named funds, and walk through examples of endowed fund agreements and how they are established.

Advancement Services is often viewed as a behind-the-scenes data hub position, but during a campaign, this role can greatly expand to become the key command center, critical to the success of the campaign from start to finish. In this session, three advancement services directors will explain how their roles grew from data managers into campaign managers. They will share how Advancement Services can effectively manage more traditional tasks like database management, research, policies and procedures, and working with consultants, fundraisers, gift records, and the business office to additional campaign-related tasks like volunteer management, front-line fundraising, donor stewardship, and coordinating with architects, signage consultants, marketing agencies, and communications teams. Attendees will leave with tangible strategies and practical tips on how to staff and prepare their teams and enable Advancement Services to confidently step into a more prominent, mission-critical leadership role.