While women hold the majority of professional staff roles in higher education advancement, their voices are largely absent from the literature describing talent management practices and individual career journeys of professionals in the field. This presentation will describe the findings of a research study that explored the lived experiences of women in fundraising and alumni engagement roles. By centering women’s stories, this research highlights the relationship between gender and advancement work, the factors influencing job-related decisions, and challenges to gender equality in the field. Following a discussion of this study’s findings, participants will have the opportunity to engage in a dialogue about actionable strategies to create a more inclusive and supportive work environment in the field.

Are you struggling with how to fundraise for research? Join this interactive session to explore strategies and tools to increase philanthropy for science, innovation, and experimentation. Learn how to inspire both individual and institutional donors with the excitement of investing in discoveries and transformation that advance the mission of your institution. You will learn at least three strategies for fundraising for research that you can immediately implement in your institution's efforts!

Mentorship programming is one of the most sought-after and rewarding volunteer opportunities an alma mater can offer to its alumni. The problem, though, is that it is also an initiative that takes a tremendous amount of time, effort, and resources to run successfully, all while balancing your other duties. However, with proper coordination and open communication (a LOT of communication), it is possible to do it at scale, regardless of the size of your shop. You just have to get everyone on campus involved. Easy, right? Hear how Saint Francis University’s Offices of Alumni Engagement and Career Services partnered together to bring Mentorship Week to campus and expanded its yearly Homecoming tradition. Learn how to pool resources with your colleagues, leverage your relationships to get buy-in from faculty and staff, and implement the timeline and logistics necessary to create your own marquee mentorship program that benefits everyone: current students, alumni, fundraisers, student enrollment, specialized student services, and more.

The Temple University Alumni Association in collaboration with its Alumni Engagement team, developed a new standard for volunteer leaders, which creates consistency and transparency across its many alumni organizations and groups. The plan establishes clear volunteer codes of conduct and expectations as well as bylaws requirements, and processes for handling governance challenges, with volunteer acknowledgement of expectations. By embracing these universal practices across boards, Temple aims to cultivate a more engaged, informed, and professional alumni volunteer community.

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, people have already decided whether or not it's worth their time to open your university's email newsletter. With the average American receiving about 120 emails per day, we have only a few seconds to entice someone to click, read, and engage. In summer 2023, the community and internal communications team at American University redesigned their weekly newsletter—mailed to 19,000 students, faculty, and staff. The new and improved publication, AU Now, increased engagement by 204 percent over the previous academic year to over 26,000 unique clicks. The team also doubled their click-to-open rate to more than 10 percent. During this session, you’ll learn what different audiences want from your newsletter, how to track reader engagement using a data dashboard, and how to create a valuable publication with a big impact—even with a small staff and an even smaller budget.

Do you have an institution almost 300 years old but lacking a formal principal gifts program? Have you relied on your major gift donors' support to continue fueling your pipeline and perhaps even be the cornerstones of a campaign? Do you have a committed, albeit philanthropically hesitant Board of Trustees willing to dig their feet in and raise the bar for your institution? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this session is for you! Join us as we discuss the state of giving at Moravian University and how one particular donor served as the catalyst for our Principal Gift Program. We will also discuss how our newly formed Principal Gift Program has allowed us to surpass our campaign goal of $75M two years early.

Can a company’s DEI goals move past checking a box and lead to more meaningful partnerships with diversity programs at your institution? These programs can have an immeasurable impact on students when donors and partners are truly invested in taking these initiatives to the next level. This session will show you how to highlight the powerful work of student diversity programs during important conversations with corporate donors and help them invest in student success beyond their dollars. Additionally, the session will cover strategies for using these initiatives as a starting point for meaningful engagement with individual alumni. Learn about organizations that went beyond the checkbox and discover how to engage diverse alumni both philanthropically and through purposeful volunteer opportunities.

Have you ever received a snail mail, two-sided, front and back, end-of-year appeal from your alma mater? Most likely it is written by a student receiving financial aid demonstrating the impact of how your gift makes a difference. The tone of the ask, coupled with the feel-good nature of the holiday season, is a win-win. Or is it? Explore how your team can model Calvert Hall's A/B testing model to find the perfect sized email appeal campaign to convert more gifts every fiscal/calendar year end.

Magic happens when silos are broken down and the different parts of advancement are strategically woven together, from business planning to program execution and even during everyday chat around the watercooler. Genuine engagement brings together all of these pieces and keeps your organization's mission at its core.
But what does it take to make it work and make it stick?

Princeton University has launched several new programs within their current campaign to cultivate and maximize the philanthropic intentions of generous alumni, with a particular focus on identifying future leaders. During this session, members of the frontline capital giving team as well as the donor relations team will present examples of these initiatives, including giving societies, innovative gift opportunities, targeted volunteer engagement opportunities, and approaches to leverage the influence and expertise of current alumni leaders and University professionals. Donor success stories will reveal how they are changing the landscape of giving for their younger cohort of alumni, transitioning them to leadership roles and increased support during subsequent campaigns.