Immersive 360-degree experiences have moved beyond the theme park and science museum to be considered as another media format for institutions. But how do you conceive of a story with nothing “out of frame”? What are the best strategies to create compelling experiences that embrace authenticity over gimmick? And finally, what are the technical challenges of deploying these stories within a limited budget? Ravi will share his experiences creating panoramic tours, 360-degree video stories, and full-fledged virtual tours for Boston College–and will offer his take on where this is all going.

To create a campaign that really lands, it’s important to know your audience. In this session, we’ll look at simple, effective ways to gather information—from talking directly to people in interviews and focus groups to looking at the numbers in your surveys and web stats. By tapping into these different methods together, you’ll learn how to identify what your audience actually cares about and turn those insights into a solid plan.

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.

Effective fundraising goals can serve as a planning exercise that illuminates the path to success - clarifying priorities, strengthening portfolio strategy, and improving follow-through across the year. This session offers practical approaches for strengthening goal setting with fundraisers through clarity, collaboration, and structure. We establish shared language around key concepts - metrics, targets, and goals - to support consistent understanding and reduce misalignment in practice. We then explore common approaches to individual fundraising goal setting and the organizational supports that make them effective, including structure, technology, portfolio management practices, historical context, and institutional priorities. When designed well, goal setting becomes both a system for organizational alignment and a tool for fundraisers to gain clarity, focus their efforts, and engage more meaningfully in planning their success.

Great stories aren’t just nice to have, they’re a strategic advantage to better connect with your audiences. This session explores how you can move beyond feel-good narratives to craft purposeful stories that directly support institutional priorities like recruitment, retention, and advancement. Attendees will learn how to identify the stories that matter most, align them with key goals, and deploy them across channels for measurable impact. This presentation will equip you with a framework to turn storytelling into one of your most powerful tools for driving results.

Strong fundraising pipelines are built long before a proposal is written. This session explores how advancement services, alumni engagement, communications, fundraising, and related teams can work together to build a healthier long-term donor pipeline across the institution. Using examples grounded in behavioral science and prospect development, attendees will examine how engagement signals help identify future donors, how organizations move constituents from engagement to philanthropy over time, and how advancement services professionals can support sustainable donor growth beyond short-term fundraising outcomes. Participants will leave with practical ideas for thinking more collaboratively, strategically, and institutionally about pipeline development.

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.

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.

Your head is full of everything you've learned about advancement. Now what? Where do you start? How do you pull together all the pieces for a successful program? How do you get the greenlight for a great new idea? We'll discuss ways to plan for success, whether you're managing an office, a program, a staff-or just yourself. We will cover the why, approaches for ensuring ROI, managing outcomes, aligning resources, and lead an interactive exercise to support the development of meaningful roadmaps.

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.