Designed for those with fewer than two years of advancement experience, this interactive workshop explores the fundamentals of advancement across all disciplines (advancement services, alumni relations, fundraising, marketing and communications). Featured speaker and CASE DIII Cabinet member, Amanda Trabue, will share her career journey in advancement, how she set herself up for success, and the significant role that the CASE community played. Participants will have an opportunity to meet other newcomers and ask questions.

This workshop will address the needs of new and existing managers to grow their skillsets and support their teams. Join us in tackling topics including effective management, performance management, and managing up, down, and across.

In higher education today, professionals are navigating challenges like donor fatigue, shifting demographics, and increased scrutiny; all while being asked to do more with less. During this uncertainty, one factor remains constant: the extraordinary power of human connection. In this energizing keynote, Cindy Rowe shows how small, intentional acts of kindness, empathy, and emotional intelligence create ripple effects that extend far beyond the moment, strengthen donor loyalty, inspiring alumni engagement, and building resilient campus relationships. Through compelling stories, practical strategies, and a spark of motivation, Cindy provides attendees with the tools to connect more authentically with the people who matter most. Attendees will leave not just inspired, but empowered to create meaningful connections that fuel trust, collaboration, and long-term success no matter the challenges ahead.

As advancement evolves, so does our understanding of alumni and constituent engagement. With six years of CASE data, institutions are redefining how they measure engagement and connect it to strategic goals. Join Jenny Cooke Smith (CASE) along with Heather Ashley (University of Florida) and Kim Bowden (Georgia Tech) to explore shifts in engagement strategy—from leveraging data to measuring engagement across key constituencies beyond alumni. Heather and Kim will share how their institutions are applying the CASE framework, showcasing real-world examples and insights. The session will feature an interactive discussion to uncover practical approaches for planning an outcomes-focused future.

In an era of increasing expectations and limited bandwidth, what if the key to fundraising success isn't doing more - but doing it better? At the University of South Florida, Development leaders have reimagined their approach by prioritizing focus: aligning team goals with institutional priorities, and fostering deep collaboration between frontline fundraisers, prospect management, and leadership.

In this session, the Vice President of Development and the Senior Director of Prospect Management will share how they partnered to streamline portfolios, clarify priorities, and foster collaboration across teams and leadership.

Attendees will gain practical insights into portfolio optimization, cross functional collaboration, and leadership engagement - offering a replicable framework for transforming development operations through focus.

No matter whether you love it, hate it, fear it, or embrace it, the AI genie is out of the bottle—and it’s never going back inside. Somewhere between the breathless praise of the AI enthusiast and the crossed-arms reluctance of the AI refusenik lies the truth of the current higher ed landscape: people are using AI all over campus for all kinds of purposes, if not always wisely. How can you use AI to benefit your institution without letting it delete an entire database or populate your institution’s social media channels with six-fingered, face-melted people? In this session, an admitted AI skeptic will use real-world examples to present and discuss proven strategies and tested principles for getting the best out of AI so it doesn’t get the best of you.

After a financial crisis 5 years ago, Guilford College was on the brink of losing its accreditation. Needing to balance the budget, College leadership set a goal of raising $5M unrestricted cash in 6 months. With a targeted and strategic approach for a small Advancement team, the College was successful in surpassing the $5M goal. This session will focus on the success of the second crisis campaign on which Guilford College embarked in 5 years.

Across higher education, more than 95% of every institution’s donors sit outside of managed portfolios, receiving only direct mail and mass marketing, leading to increasing lapsed donors, weaker major gift pipelines, and a mounting challenge of earning attention annually. In this panel, institutions of different sizes, College of Charleston and Western Carolina University share how they embraced Autonomous Fundraising to expand one-to-one donor engagement at scale. From under-engaged alumni to mid-level donors and high-affinity community supporters, each school saw an opportunity to deepen relationships by deploying Virtual Engagement Officers (VEOs), AI-powered teammates trained in strategic moves management that Hear how these uniquely different teams and institutions, each at various stages in their journey of reimagined engagement with AI, are measuring ROI, activating new segments of donors, and building stronger pipelines, without adding staffing resources.

Learn how to turn your alumni volunteers into digital ambassadors who amplify your message and drive real results. This session showcases WKU Alumni Association’s strategy that leveraged peer-to-peer outreach, monthly social media toolkits, and affinity engagement to exceed connection goals by over 90%. With limited budget and high impact, this model demonstrates how volunteer influencers can be your most powerful engagement and marketing asset. Walk away with actionable tools, real-world examples, and a roadmap to elevate your outreach through the voices alumni trust most—their peers.

What happens when admissions and advancement stop operating in parallel and start working in partnership? This session explores how independent schools can break down silos and align strategy, processes, and outreach to drive gains in both enrollment and philanthropy. We’ll look at how AI-enabled tools are helping schools surface high-capacity, philanthropic families earlier in the admissions process, and how those insights can be transferred seamlessly across teams to build lasting relationships. We’ll also examine how advancement and admissions can co-design outreach efforts that expand the admissions pipeline with mission-aligned families while simultaneously leveraging those touchpoints to nurture the existing donor pool. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies for enabling low-friction knowledge transfer between teams, building repeatable collaborative workflows, and developing a strategic understanding of how and why advancement and admissions roles are evolving in tandem to support institutional growth.