Since 2018, the Universidad del Norte's Alumni Office has measured alumni engagement through the Connection Indicator, tracking thirteen variables across categories like involvement, volunteering, and donations, based on CASE insights. In 2023, data analytics and multivariate analysis were introduced, identifying behavior patterns and helping better understand the 40% of alumni (60% in 2024) who engage most with institutional services. This has led to the creation of six alumni clusters, enabling more targeted communication and relationship strategies across key areas like career placement, tracking, and engagement management.

In the competitive field of fundraising, maximizing donor engagement and optimizing portfolio management are key to success. Power BI, a leading business intelligence tool, enables development professionals to transform raw fundraising data into dynamic dashboards that provide real-time insights into donor behavior, pipeline health, and key performance indicators (KPIs). This presentation will focus on how to use Power BI to build effective dashboards that track essential fundraising metrics, helping fundraisers and development officers make data-driven decisions to enhance portfolio management. The goal of this presentation is to demonstrate how Power BI can be utilized to create and customize dashboards specifically designed for fundraising and portfolio management. Attendees will learn how to track donor movement, visualize portfolio performance, and monitor key metrics such as gift officer activity, prospect pipeline, and donor retention. This session will highlight best practices in dashboard design to support strategic fundraising decisions.

This panel features thought leaders in AI from Ohio State (Jenn Keyes, Associate Vice President), Cornell University (Andrew Gossen, Executive Director of Communications, Marketing and Participation) and University of Calgary (Scott Zimmer, Director of Advancement Data). They will share real-world use cases from their institutions, showcasing how AI is being leveraged to drive fundraising, improve alumni outreach, personalize engagement, and boost operational efficiency. While the importance of leveraging AI is increasingly clear, the panel will also explore the critical issue of responsible AI usage. From data privacy to ethical considerations, they will discuss how their institutions are balancing innovation with the need for transparent, ethical, and responsible AI practices. Attendees will gain valuable insights into how to implement AI in advancement efforts, while safeguarding against potential risks.

The presenter will share three specific examples of how he identified a problem with fundraiser behavior, developed and implemented a solution, and succeeded in changing fundraising behavior. As an individual major gifts fundraiser, the leader of a lead annual gift officer team, and the Interim Vice President of Advancement, each example addresses how reporting and assessment tools were incorrectly configured to encourage exactly the wrong behaviors. By partnering with advancement services team members to develop more effective management tools and aligning reports and metrics to the true definition of success, the presenter effectively reshaped fundraising behavior and improved bottomline outcomes.

While the definition of a “major” gift varies according to institution size, mission, and community, the quest to identify and rank the best prospects is as old as Advancement itself. We have all faced the challenge of building a top donor model when only a tiny fraction of donors make gifts at or above their threshold for a substantial gift. In this session, we’ll talk about how we overcame the challenges of small sample sizes, incomplete and sparse data, and administrative data that imperfectly captures business practice to develop an approach to major gift prospect prioritization. We’ll describe how our methods have evolved over the years to the solutions that underlie our current reporting tools. Arriving at actionable insights is only half the battle. Our largest challenge has been marketing the math to fundraising professionals that go by gut. We will close out with a demonstration of a Tableau tool that brings this research to life. We hope this presentation serves as Part 1 of our story, and intend on pitching deployment and lessons learned at CASE DRIVE 2026.

Are you ready to take your data strategy to the next level? Join the CMU Analytics team to learn how to leverage Snowflake, Salesforce, and Tableau to achieve better outcomes. Discover best practices and real-world examples of how these platforms can streamline workflows, improve data accuracy, and provide deep insights through interactive dashboards. This session is ideal for professionals in advancement teams at universities who want to stay ahead in today's data-driven world. Attendees are encouraged to bring their laptops to follow along.

Explore how Affinaquest’s AI-driven insights and automation power help advancement professionals to work smarter.

In this session, we will examine observed trends and anticipated challenges that fundraising organizations will face in the coming years. Much of the sector is seeing stagnant donor counts and difficulty keeping supporters engaged, but significant opportunities exist to capitalize on technological advancements and meet these challenges head-on. Topics covered will include: The evolution of large language models (LLMs) and why recent breakthroughs present new opportunities for relationship-based fundraising. The impact of the “great wealth transfer,” expected to continue through 2045, and opportunities for growth in planned giving and donor-advised funds (DAFs) The concept of donor lifetime value and how to quantify it Blackbaud's vision for the future emphasizes data as the lifeblood of fundraising organizations, with predictions embedded in every fundraising motion. This begins with data integrity and the democratization of data across the organization. We’ll discuss some exciting recent developments in this space as well as our ongoing work to build more versatile, actionable and adaptive predictions into every experience.

The purpose of a Data Governance Plan is to define the framework for the management and use of data within an organization. A plan will ensure that data is accurate, consistent, and accessible for all authorized users. Join Caroline Chang, VP Advancement and Cristina Zambrano, Solutions Engineer from Kindsight and Robyn Doughty, Senior Director of Data and Business Solutions, UC Berkeley as they walk through the importance of developing and utilizing a Data Governance Plan. They will speak to the opportunity to create, enhance and enforce one during a digital transformation project, and what the outcome will be on your organization’s fundraising and alumni relations efforts from the successful implementation of that plan.

Learn how to utilize data analytics to help nonprofits better understand their donors and increase long-term support. With a focus on Donor Lifetime Value, discover the formula to help organizations: identify donors who are most likely to stay engaged and make large gifts; refine fundraising strategies to focus on the areas with the most significant impact; personalize outreach and stewardship to strengthen donor relationships, and make more intelligent acquisition and retention decisions based on accurate data.