Join a distinguished panel of advancement leaders for a conversation dedicated to the memory of Harold Brown—a beloved CASE volunteer, mentor, and champion of the CASE/NAIS community. Harold’s enduring legacy was rooted in his commitment to guiding and uplifting others, particularly those new to the profession. This session honors that legacy by creating space for learning, connection, and reflection.

Panelists will share pivotal insights—their "golden nuggets"—from their own journeys in advancement. Designed especially for newcomers, this gathering offers both professional guidance and an opportunity to build meaningful relationships within the advancement community that Harold so dearly cherished.

Ready to harness the power of advocacy and volunteer participation to elevate your school’s fundraising efforts? In this session, Jill Kelly, Director of Advancement at Francis Parker School and Felicity Meu, Senior Director of Partner Success at GiveCampus, will explore how peer-to-peer advocacy can drive new donor acquisition, increase retention, and build lasting engagement. You’ll learn best practices for recruiting, activating, and stewarding volunteers—plus get access to tactical templates, campaign timelines, and messaging resources. Walk away with data-backed insights and real examples from an independent school that’s built a thriving, sustainable volunteer program.

Teamwork that Transforms: How Marketing & Development Partnered to Make Day of Giving a Success When marketing and development operate separately, even the best efforts can fall short; messaging gets fragmented, opportunities are missed, and outcomes plateau. But when these teams unite with shared goals and a collaborative mindset, the results can be transformative. In this session, we’ll dive into how a strategic, integrated partnership between our marketing and development teams elevated Day of Giving from a routine initiative to a standout, record-setting success. We’ll begin by exploring why cross-department alignment is essential; how unified messaging, coordinated planning, and complementary strengths can dramatically increase engagement and effectiveness. You’ll also gain practical strategies to nurture this kind of partnership within your own school or organization. Through real examples and year-over-year insights, we’ll show how strengthening our teamwork directly fueled major growth in both participation and dollars raised. Whether you’re in advancement, communications, or overseeing both, you’ll leave with actionable ideas to dissolve silos, maximize collaboration, and inspire your community to rally together for greater impact.

It’s no secret that independent school tuition continues to climb as demands on resources are ever-expanding. Join Mark Mitchell (VP, Access and Affordability) and Ann Snyder (VP, Strategic Initiatives) to explore how endowment can and should play a significant role in your school’s long-term growth. Leveraging NAIS data, research, and endowment insights, we will look at why and how the affordability landscape continues to shift and discuss major gift strategies to ensure your school’s fiscal health.

Many independent schools have impressive visions that call for aggressive campaigns but lack the human resources to see them through. How does a school with a mid-sized staff and other limited resources pull together a succesful capital campaign?

Discover the unmatched potential of quick-hitting videos in today’s fast-paced world of independent schools. In this session, you'll learn how to create impactful "sizzle reels" that will captivate prospective and current families alike, in 60 seconds(ish). With families consuming numerous videos daily from just about everywhere, now is the perfect time to leverage this trend to showcase your school. Best of all, you can easily produce these videos yourself, making them ideal for social media, digital newsletters, your website, and beyond. These quick-hitting branding boosts? Priceless.

Before my child started at my school, I thought I understood parent engagement. I knew the strategies, the timelines, the talking points. Then came the first preschool drop-off — and the chaos that followed — and everything I thought I knew about parents changed.

In this session, I’ll share how becoming a school parent reshaped the way I approach fundraising. From communication and timing to empathy and trust, I’ll reflect on what shifted when I began seeing school life through a parent’s eyes. You’ll hear a few honest stories and take away practical ways to build stronger relationships and a deeper culture of generosity in your own school community.

When COVID disrupted alumnae engagement at Castilleja School - a 118-year-old, girls high school in Northern California with approximately 3,000 alums, it sparked a complete reimagining of what meaningful alumni connection could look like in a digital-first world.
The result was Casti Connect - a tech-enabled, community network built on a powerful idea: engagement should be as valuable to the alum as it is to the institution. Castilleja redefined alumnae engagement through career-driven networking tools, monthly digital digests, and an inclusive shift to a virtual alumnae board model. Along the way, they found that empowering alumnae to drive their own interactions didn’t just lighten the Alum Director’s load - it made the entire community stronger.
This session explores how Castilleja transformed its approach by valuing virtual engagement, creating flexible peer-led spaces, and enabling alum-led initiatives. It’s a practical roadmap for Advancement teams looking to scale impact, deepen relationships, and meet the expectations of a new generation of alumni.

Reimagine how your Advancement team communicates with one of its most important audiences: the Board of Trustees. This session shows you how to turn traditional Board reporting into clear, visually-driven communication that Trustees can actually understand and use. Learn how to move beyond transactional charts and gift tables by presenting trends, outcomes, and donor behavior in ways that are easier to grasp and more likely to prompt thoughtful questions and strategic discussion. Using real examples from schools across the country, we’ll compare typical Board reports with redesigned, more intuitive alternatives that help Trustees focus on what matters. We’ll approach this from two angles: the Advancement team seeking meaningful buy-in, and the Trustees who want to help but don’t always know what they’re looking at. Designed for Advancement leaders, Heads of School, MarCom professionals, and anyone who collaborates with Boards.

Nine-figure campaigns are becoming common, but the requirements for success include courage, and a steady hand— and they remain critical even when your institution is also navigating significant change. In this session, we will share some philanthropic trends from the independent school landscape, and seasoned advancement leaders will share candid insights from campaigns launched or sustained during leadership transitions and ambitious strategic plans (and fundraising goals!) Together, we’ll explore how to build authentic trust and strong systems that unite leaders, boards, staff, and donors; develop compelling cases for support aligned to long-term strategy; balance continuity with fresh vision; and avoid common pitfalls. Whether you have a new Head of School or CDO stepping into transformational goals or are a veteran launching a campaign of unprecedented scale, this discussion will offer practical strategies and lessons learned to help your school plan, adapt, and succeed.