Faculty
Meet Your Chair
Rebecca Weitz
Rebecca Weitz has served as Senior Managing Director of Gift Services for the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association since May 2021. Prior to WFAA, Rebecca spent fifteen years with the University of Colorado Foundation. During her tenure at the CU Foundation, Rebecca managed gift and records management, reporting, prospect and proposal management, and data analysis. She worked to develop and implement extensive process improvements and efficiencies for the CU Foundation and the Office of Advancement at CU.
Rebecca has served as conference speaker and presenter at multiple Ellucian conferences, CASE conferences, and the AASP Summit. She holds a bachelor's degree from Franklin & Marshall College and a certificate in professional management from Employers Council.
Faculty
Robyn Doughty
With almost 20 years of experience in public higher education, Robyn possesses a deep understanding of the issues and challenges unique to the filed. The past 19 years she has focused her career in Advancement, making her well-versed in the business needs of university stakeholders and the data, systems, and processes that are critical to a successful fundraising enterprise. Using a “Start-up” approach to solving business, organizational, and technical issues, Robyn is adept at developing strong, cross-functional teams, strategies, and services. Past successes include database conversions, business process improvements, and training programs that encompass the entirety of the Advancement organization.
Robyn has served as conference speaker and presenter at multiple CASE conferences and AASP Summit. She holds a bachelor's degree from California State University, Chico and a certificate in digital transformation from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.
Amanda Jarman
As the president of Fundraising Nerd and a consulting partner at BWF, Amanda Jarman has helped dozens of nonprofit organizations make smart use of their donor data and data management systems. Her expertise has been honed during two decades of experience in the nonprofit sector, largely in data management. Before launching Fundraising Nerd in 2013, Jarman served in various fundraising data-related positions at Portland State University, most recently as assistant vice president for advancement services. Before that she served as associate director of advancement services at Lewis & Clark College. She started her career at smaller nonprofits. This experience ignited her passion for scaling big shop tools and techniques to fit shops of all sizes.
Jarman is a repeat CASE faculty member, who has served as faculty member for the Gifts and Records Workshop seven times, and the Summer Institute in Advancement Services three times. She also served as an instructor in Portland State University's Fundraising Certificate Program. She previously served on the Association of Advancement Services Professionals (AASP) strategic planning advisory council and its nominations committee, and was honored with the AASP's Emerging Leader Award in 2014.
Karen A. Sims-Harrell
Karen A. Sims-Harrell currently serves as director gifts and records management at NC State University. Sims-Harrell brings over 20 years of experience within gift processing and donor records management. She is an experienced advancement professional with proven skills in fundraising and financial management, gift administration, policy creation, leadership and staff development. She is skilled in the use of consultative approaches to increase efficiency in integration of industry best practices for gift acceptance and data standards.
Sims-Harrell has served as a board member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals-Eastern PA Chapter for seven years and served as the Ethics and Accountability chair for two years. She has also served as a conference presenter and volunteer with CASE in varying capacities during her membership over the last 15 years. Sims has received the distinction as being a CASE district faculty stellar speaker for multiple years and was awarded the CASE 2021 District III Opportunity and Inclusion Award for her work in promoting diversity and inclusion industry best practices.
She holds a bachelor's degree from DeSales University in management and marketing and a master's degree in educational leadership from Lehigh University.
Speaker
Ann Kaplan
Ann Kaplan is senior director of the Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. In this role, she oversees the national online survey which includes survey administration, working with respondents of the survey, cleaning and analyzing the data, data validation, and more. Ann has been the director of the VSE since 2002 when it was administered by the Council for Aid to Education. She also helped develop Data Miner, the longitudinal and comparative metrics on-line reporting solution that is available to CASE members.