It’s been a highly political year, and we all have opinions. What should you share personally, and what should you encourage your campus to share internally and externally? Understanding the interconnected nature of higher education and politics and thinking through your institution’s mission and personal values will empower you to be more effective in your role. This session will provide data and national trends to frame how to help your leaders look around corners and return to strategically communicating with internal and external audiences. Teresa will share how to stay true to yourself while staying safe, and what works for institutions in a polarized environment to shape a narrative.

Strategic and generative conversations are at the heart of our work. Questioning and listening are powerful life skills. First, they will help you create productive donor relationships. What organizations do you support with your philanthropy? Where are we on your list of philanthropies? How do you make your philanthropic decisions? What has been your most meaningful gift? Quality questions elicit amazing information that will guide you in the solicitation process and help you build relationships on campus with your supervisor, peers and faculty members. Learn how to develop questions instead of talking points that will inform your gift strategy, advance relationships, and result in a joyful, generous "Yes" to your request for increased engagement with your institution, a significant gift to one of your priorities or for whatever you were hoping that volunteer or colleague would do to help you achieve your goals.

Join CASE Senior Data Strategist, Emma Sonduck as she explores trends from CASE's philanthropy surveys and breaks down some of the driving factors and ways you can respond. 

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.

Leadership has many dimensions and can be defined in a range of ways, but what does it mean to be a leader? Many books have been written about how to turn yourself into a leader: stand taller, be more confident, be decisive, be collaborative, talk more, talk less. But at some point, can’t you just be yourself and also be an effective leader? This session will be a dynamic conversation about how you develop your own personal brand of leadership, adapt it to your team and environment, and remain authentic to who you are and your life experiences.

The concept of a data-driven program can feel overwhelming or like you need a background in statistics. Not very many of us bring that to the table, and yet data is the lifeblood of any annual giving program. We use it to report on results, evaluate our success, build our plans, and improve performance. In this session, we’ll talk about how to effectively track your key performance indicators for each channel, segment, and project. Learn how to use data to help manage your decision-making and planning processes. Discover how to report results internally and externally effectively. And, because it’s fun, we’ll get nerdy with some equations (no math degree necessary).

Strategic and generative conversations are at the heart of our work. Questioning and listening are powerful life skills. First, they will help you create productive donor relationships. What organizations do you support with your philanthropy? Where are we on your list of philanthropies? How do you make your philanthropic decisions? What has been your most meaningful gift? Quality questions elicit amazing information that will guide you in the solicitation process and help you build relationships on campus with your supervisor, peers and faculty members. Learn how to develop questions instead of talking points that will inform your gift strategy, advance relationships, and result in a joyful, generous "Yes" to your request for increased engagement with your institution, a significant gift to one of your priorities or for whatever you were hoping that volunteer or colleague would do to help you achieve your goals.

Parent engagement and fundraising efforts pose unique challenges to a traditional development program. With parents, there tends to be a narrow window of opportunity for engaging, cultivating, soliciting and stewarding parents, so we must thoughtfully plan the critical fundraising touches along the way - from the admissions cycle through graduation. If we do this well we can achieve our goals and provide rewarding experiences for our parents and families. Let's explore the journey of parents/families and discuss ways to optimize fundraising opportunities along the way.

Whether you work in the department or not, understanding annual giving is foundational in successful development programs. This presentation will touch on common strategies, efforts and emerging trends; giving you a strong start for an annual giving specialist career or providing insight on how best to leverage the power of annual gifts.

Fundraising campaigns can feel overwhelming, but they don’t have to be. In this session, we’ll demystify the anatomy of a campaign and explore how to translate big ambitions into actionable steps. You’ll learn how campaigns work, why they matter, and how to assess your school’s readiness for one. We’ll examine how to build a compelling case for support, engage your top donors and volunteers, and align goals with institutional strategy. Whether you're in the earliest planning stages or simply want to understand how campaigns come together, you’ll leave with practical tools, a readiness checklist, and a renewed sense of confidence in your role.