Join conference leadership to meet the faculty, review conference highlights and learn how to make the most out of our time together. Then we’ll dive right into a session gleaning insight on the education landscape, trends in philanthropy, and topics of interest to all attendees via an interactive faculty panel. Topics will be sourced from the faculty and from your answers in the preconference survey. Come ready to share what you are experiencing at your institution.

In any philanthropic fundraising campaign approximately 75%-85% of your goal will be made up of leadership gifts. At the University of South Carolina, we have refined the leadership gift moves process and created a new position focused entirely on engagement with the top tier of donors capable of making a campaign leadership gift; tracking of their moves; effectively utilizing the President, Vice President of Development, Cabinet Members, and Deans to move these donors through the pipeline; and add new high wealth capacity donors to the mix. With this model, we have found an increase in ROI not only through fundraising numbers, but also in collaboration between units and central offices, and well-cultivated donors enthusiastic about the future of our university.

How do you prioritize your time as a major gift officer? Who do you plan to contact today, this week, and this month to maximize the potential of your assigned prospects? As frontline fundraisers, we are pulled in many different directions. Each day we need to decide how to focus our time on the cultivation steps that will result in the highest impact for our prospects. In this session, we will discuss ways to use your portfolio list to help you manage your time and efforts in the relationship management of your assigned prospects.

The most important factor in success (or lack thereof) as major gift officer is YOU. With the right attitude, hard work and by forming the right habits you can dramatically increase your chances for success. How you approach, plan, execute and track your work matters. This session will help you identify the characteristics, competencies, and habits of highly successful gift officers - but it all starts with having the right mindset, outlook and approach.