Attendees will meet daily with curated advisory small groups led by expert faculty members to debrief from the day’s learning and problem solve in real time.

• William Pierce: Multicultural Greek Council Room (4th floor), Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.
• Joycelyn Blizzard: National Panhellenic Council (2nd floor), Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.
• Reggie Bustinza: Tripp Commons (2nd floor), Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.
• Josh Harraman: Park View (4th floor), Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.
• Erika Jordan: Beefeater (3rd floor), Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.
• Caryn Schultz Korman: Great Hall (4th floor), Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.
• Terrance Smith: Langdon (4th floor), Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.
• Katie Young: Capitol View (4th floor), Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.

In today's ever-evolving workplace, it is crucial to develop effective strategies for managing up to your supervisors and navigating your organization's structure. We will explore the art of managing from your seat, providing you with insights and practical techniques to cultivate strong relationships with supervisors and peers while influencing the decision-making process. We will explore how to effectively communicate your ideas, and results to supervisors, ensuring your contributions are acknowledged and appreciated. Additionally, we will delve into techniques for growing your reputation and credibility and positioning you for success in today’s rapidly changing work environment.

Join us for an engaging presentation that explores the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) in the realm of educational fundraising. Uncover the potential of AI to revolutionize how institutions connect with alumni, build relationships, and secure vital financial resources. Come learn how AI can empower your institution to achieve new levels of fundraising success while fostering lifelong relationships with donors.

Do people read emails anymore? Yes—they do. But not the way you think. This talk will show you exactly how to write subject lines, optimize your links, and lay out your email copy so your message gets across. In this session, you’ll learn: How to write good subject lines that increase open rates. Typical email reading patterns and how to use them to your advantage. How to appropriately use formatting and white space. Recommendations on sentence structure and reading level. How to use links and buttons to guarantee click-through. A quick way to test if your email will get read. This session is useful for everyone, whether you send mass emails or just internal ones.

Regardless of how an advancement shop chooses to structure alumni relations and development, there are often natural opportunities for alumni teams to collaborate with development teams to engage prospective and current donors in meaningful ways. In this session, you will hear relevant examples of alumni professionals partnering with development officers to cultivate donors in the major gift cycle, while also providing alumni audiences with unique and special experiences. You will gain insight into the win-win opportunities that you can create in your advancement shop that lead to major gifts while also engaging alumni with impactful, alumni-centered programming.

Effective multimedia experiences leverage technology to “show” stories in new and interesting ways. Whether it be audio, video, animation, augmented reality, virtual reality or [insert technology not invented yet], none of these will resonate with your audience unless they have an authentic emotional story at their core. Ravi invites all around the proverbial campfire to unpack the primordial hooks and motivations of enduring storytelling. Collectively, we will examine how new and existing technologies can be integrated to serve content to emotionally engage both new and old audiences. In this session, you will:

• Learn how to identify core story forms within their brand and institutional messaging.
• Consider how time-based media can offer a new perspective on an existing story.
• Get inspired by how new media vehicles can be leveraged to support and extend an established advancement strategy.

One of the joys of fundraising is cultivating relationships with volunteers who care deeply about your institution. This session explores the complete volunteer lifecycle, including identifying potential leaders, effective recruitment strategies, training methods to maximize effectiveness, and management techniques to drive results while keeping volunteers engaged. We'll also address how to properly celebrate volunteer contributions and maintain meaningful relationships even after formal service concludes.

The future is here, but are we ready for it? Digital transformation is all the buzz within the higher ed Advancement industry, but very few organizations are successful in implementing comprehensive digital strategies. Applying a digital lens over traditional development work can help organizations reach further, faster and make donors feel well taken care of. Come discuss some of the industry trends around digital transformation and how this approach can fit into relationship-based work.

Strengthen your development strategy through intentional, collaborative goal setting. This session offers practical approaches for working with fundraisers to set data-informed, realistic, and aspirational goals that align with organizational priorities. Explore strategies for driving shared ownership, building accountability, and using goal conversations as a tool for motivation, coaching, and continuous improvement. Whether you're refining an established process or building a new framework, this session focuses on aligning people, data, and purpose to maximize impact.

From “annual fund in a campaign”: All of our institutions are either preparing for, in the midst of, or transitioning out of a campaign. There is no absolute truth about whether to integrate your annual fund and alumni engagement goals into the campaign, but there are some important considerations to address before you make your decision. And you may even discover mid-way that you want to go in a different direction. This discussion will explore some of the pros, cons, and factors to consider in deciding how, when or if to use your campaign to promote annual giving and alumni engagement.