NOON–1:00 PM Conference Check-In
Welcome to Denver! Please stop by the registration desk beginning at 12:00 p.m. to check in and pick up your conference materials.
1:00–2:15 Welcome and Opening Conversations
Join conference chair Rebecca Weitz and the conference faculty to kick off the program, meet your fellow workshop attendees, and set the stage to make the most of our time together.
2:30–3:45 CASE Reporting Standard & Management Guidelines Update
Come fall, there will be a new CASE Global Reporting Standards and Management Guidelines available. Come hear about what is changing, what isn’t, and what is new. We will talk about the blue book and the upcoming edition and what it all means for your institution. Bring the questions that bedevil you at your institution!
4:00–5:15 Elective Sessions (choose one)
Doing More (and Less) with Tax Receipts and Pledge Reminders Pledge reminders and tax receipts have specific and necessary purposes. They can also be attractive and helpful communication tools! Let’s start by reviewing what needs to go on every tax receipt and exploring how you can take it to the next level with simple customizations. Then we’ll move on to pledge reminders. So many shops run reminders once or twice a month, sometimes even less frequently. At the University of Colorado Foundation, we do them every single day, and we love it. Learn about our process, including our integrated methods for past-due reminders and delinquent pledge audits.
Records Track: Diversity and Inclusion in Data Management Respectful and accurate data management is critical to building strong relationships with our constituents. As widespread cultural awareness of diverse identities increases, sometimes our biographical data management practices lag behind. Learn how to improve your data processes to ensure they are respectful and inclusive of all people, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, racial/ethnic background, and nationality. We will examine some real life examples, including how UC Davis incorporated diversity and equity in their data management practices.
5:15–6:15 Networking Reception
Join conference faculty and your colleagues to network and unwind after the first day of the conference. Complimentary hors d'oeuvres and drink tickets will be provided. Don't forget your business cards!
6:15 Conference Adjourns for the Day
Dinner on your own or optional small group dinners; sign-up required
8:00–9:00 AM Continental Breakfast and Roundtable Conversations
Join your peers for optional small-group discussions during breakfast. Share your biggest challenges, review hot topics, and discuss solutions with your peers.
9:00–10:15 Elective Sessions (choose one)
21st Century Gift Management Tools It’s the year 2020. We may not have flying cars (yet!), but we have an incredible amount of increasingly cost-effective technologies to make our lives easier. So why are we still using antiquated processes for gift processing? Learn about the tools and workflows that the University of Colorado Foundation has developed for gift transmittals, adjustments, and fund creation, and identify easy wins and creative ideas to take back to your shop.
Small Shops: General Elective Track: Small (But Mighty) Shops Workshop Discuss the most exciting solutions you've learned here at the conference...which you are pretty sure will never work in your shop because of your size. We will use our collective brainpower to solve problems and share ideas that will work in small shops. Bring questions, current challenges, and creative solutions that have worked for you. This will be an interactive discussion.
10:30–11:45 Elective Sessions (choose one)
Image Is Everything: Re-branding Gift Administration for the Board Room Perceptions and beliefs can be our biggest challenges when we seek to redefine the value and importance of how and what gift administration brings to the table. Changing the perceptions of internal and external customers from seeing gift administration as a back office function to a board room level adviser and strategic planner takes good old fashioned hard-work. Learn first-hand how the gift administration team at UT Southwestern went from robots to data specialists, trusted advisers, and achievement focused professionals in just a few short months. The session will provide real world examples of how change became the new normal; how productivity, accuracy and engagement grew; and how gift administration became the go-to team in the Office of Development and Alumni Relations.
How to Deal with the Dreaded Dupe Duplicate records lead to confusion, data entry errors, and a lack of confidence in database analytics. Dealing with dupes is a process that requires time, energy and consistency. We will explore three variations of duplicates. Duplicate individual records, corporations with multiple locations and duplicated data points in both. Please join this session to discuss the challenges and strategies to combat these complex duplicate data issues.
11:45 AM–1:00 PM Lunch on Your Own
1:00–2:15 Breakout Group Discussions
Faculty members will facilitate small group, in-depth conversations on topics of the attendees’ choosing.
2:30–3:45 Elective Sessions (choose one)
Gifts & Records as Agents of Stewardship Communication and collaboration between G&R and Stewardship/Donor Relations are keys to building a marvelous donor relations program. From donor friendly instructions about how to make a gift to the accurate designation of gifts, managing details of gift entry through a donor lens sets an important foundation for the overall stewardship effort. At Boston University, the two departments work together to create a donor-centric pledge reminders and custom endowment financial reports. A systematic review and management of the advancement fund has helped to ensure gifts are designated in a timely way. Join us for an interactive conversation of how our teams have collaborated on projects and enhanced the accuracy and efficiency of our work. Share your ideas and take new ones back to your shop.
Keep It Clean: Take an Active Approach to Data Hygiene Dirty, outdated, or missing data keeping you awake at night? There's a lot you can do. Learn how to set, prioritize, and achieve data hygiene goals. We'll talk about solutions like data entry standards and documentation, user permissions, audits, and appends (data purchases). Find out how to use your data hygiene metrics to promote your advancement services team within your advancement team.
4:00–5:15 Elective Sessions (choose one)
Surviving an Internal Audit In today's ever evolving tax landscape it is important to understand how to properly answer questions regarding tax implications of gift acceptance and gift processing standards. We will discuss how to survive audits from your internal finance colleagues while maintaining ethical and common sense practices that ensure you are following all of the rules from the finance and IRS perspectives.
Data Governance & Compliance Obligations As the stewards of highly sensitive information we are obligated to follow many complex standards for privacy, data access and receipting. This session will discuss some of the basic requirements of PCI/PII, GDPR, FERPA, and even Canadian tax receipts. If you work with constituent data and these requirements are not familiar to you, then this session is a must.
5:15 Conference Adjourns for the Day
Dinner on your own or optional small group dinners; sign-up required
8:00–9:00 AM Continental Breakfast and Roundtable Conversations Join your peers for optional small-group discussions during breakfast. Attendees who previously signed up for faculty one-on-one sessions will meet during their assigned appointment time.
9:00–10:15 Elective Sessions (choose one)
The Matrix: Gift Acceptance Process for Weird and Bizarre Gifts We will discuss how to establish processes to sift through the acceptance review matrix of weird and bizarre gifts. We will discuss standard and nonstandard gifts and the process to accept, process and receipt challenging gifts like conditional pledges, gifts from donor-advised funds, in-kind donations, gifts with premiums/quid pro quo, tribute gifts, anonymous gifts, stock gifts, and planned gifts. We will help you sift through your individual weird gift questions and weird gift stories, and compete in the “weirdest in-kind gift” contest. So bring your stories as we move through the matrix together.
It All Starts with Information Security and Data Integrity Successful frontline fundraising starts with Alumni Records. How do we balance the requirements of privacy policies, constant threats of data breaches, expectations of concierge service and efforts to append information gaps? This session will look at the relationship each of these and strategies to ensure that your policies, procedures and training support each other.
10:30–11:30 Get on Board: End User Engagement Strategies that Work No matter how amazing your data management projects and plans are, if your end users aren't on board, you won't get far. Deliberately engaging your end users means better systems and processes, easier change management, more accurate data and a more pleasant working environment. We'll talk about strategies you can use with your leadership, frontline fundraisers and other colleagues to improve your consensus building, training and feedback mechanisms.
11:30 AM–12:00 PM Conference Wrap-up and Final Q&A