AI adoption in advancement is accelerating, but most organizations are still structured as if all work is exclusively human. In this session we explore instead oc experimenting with isolated tools, we designed seven defined AI roles inside our advancement org chart. Each role has scope, accountability, and human oversight. These nee AI agents now support campaign coordination, research synthesis, analytics, compliance monitoring, stewardship tracking, and communications workflow.

This session presents a practical case study of how to move from experimentation to architecture and participants will explore:

• How to define AI roles with clear boundaries
• How to embed governance and audit into daily workflow
• How to prevent role diffusion and accountability gaps
• How to scale from a small set of AI agents to a broader structural model.

If AI is going to become a durable part of advancement, it must have a place in the org chart by exclusively amplifying the work of people in the process.

Alumni giving participation has declined for two decades, and in response we've deployed more technology, more outreach, and now AI-generated personalization. What looks like a communications failure might be a broken social contract: a generation of graduates who feel the promises made to them were only partially kept, now receiving manufactured outreach from institutions that have never honestly asked whether they earned the relationship they're trying to monetize.

This session examines what it means to lead through that reckoning - the role artificial relationships play in accelerating alumni estrangement, why the arrival of AI in advancement makes the underlying trust problem more urgent rather than more solvable, and what genuine reciprocity would actually require from senior leadership. This session examines the social contract between institutions and their graduates - what was promised, what was delivered, and what authentic reciprocity would require from leaders in advancement. It asks whether the philanthropic model that sustained higher education for the last half century is structurally viable for the next one, and what it would take to rebuild it on an honest foundation. What do we owe each other?

Advancement leaders are under increasing pressure to grow revenue, accelerate campaign performance, and demonstrate return on investment. Yet in many institutions, the marketing and communications function that supports advancement — whether called Advancement Marketing and Communications, Development Communications, Development Marketing, or another local variation — remains structured as a reactive service function, often measured by output rather than strategic impact. When positioned as an order-taker, it cannot consistently influence strategy, align institutional messaging, or support fundraising at scale. More often, the problem is not the talent on the team, but how the function has been positioned, empowered, and resourced.

In this focused provocation, Dan Giroux challenges leaders to reconsider how this function is positioned within the advancement enterprise. Drawing on experience across agency and in-house advancement leadership, he explores how reporting relationships, authority to shape priorities, integration into strategy, capacity, and shared measures influence revenue performance. Elevating this work is not a tactical enhancement. It is a strategic revenue imperative. When leaders get it right, they do not simply improve communications. They strengthen the advancement enterprise.

For years, higher education advancement has operated on a "broadcast" model, treating alumni as a monolithic block to be messaged rather than a community to be understood. Meanwhile, the for-profit sector has mastered the art of Hyper-Personalization, creating "rituals of belonging" through data-driven storytelling-exemplified by the global phenomenon of Spotify Wrapped. This 30-minute provocation challenges senior leaders to bridge the "Relevance Gap" by putting consumer behaviors at the center of their alumni strategy. We will explore how Rice University moved beyond the "30,000-foot view" of AI to build a dynamic ecosystem that mirrors the private sector's most successful engagement tactics.

Higher education institutions are operating in an increasingly complex advancement environment - expanding campaign goals, heightened donor expectations, greater reporting demands, and teams managing significant portfolio volume. In this context, donor relations can no longer function as a reactive or transactional effort. It must operate as a strategic lever for retention, upgrade behavior, and long-term institutional loyalty. This session explores the most critical trends shaping donor relations strategy in higher education today, including tiered stewardship frameworks, data-informed prioritization, scalable recognition models, integrated advancement structures, and impact reporting aligned with fundraising priorities. Participants will examine how leadership decisions around structure, ownership, and resource allocation directly influence whether donors feel consistently valued across the institution. The conversation moves beyond "more touches" toward intentional systems that scale effectively, protect relationships, and reduce the risk of donors quietly disengaging. Because in today's environment, sustainable growth depends less on volume - and more on disciplined relationship strategy.

Local communities are one of the most under-leveraged and misunderstood sources of support for universities. Drawing on hands-on experience from the University of Central Asia, this session explores how placing community at the centre of advancement can unlock new philanthropic potential while fundamentally reshaping institutional trust, legitimacy, and long-term sustainability.

In its pilot year, UCA raised USD 90,000 from 200 community members in Naryn (Kyrgyzstan) and Khorog (Tajikistan)-two remote towns located in the poorest regions of their respective countries. This result is striking not because of the amount alone, but because it was achieved in communities traditionally viewed as having little philanthropic capacity and historically positioned as beneficiaries rather than stakeholders. The amounts were leveraged and amplified with matching support being mobilised from the local mayoral office in Naryn.

The session will explore how the community, having offered financial support (however modest), started seeking greater accountability from the University on the quality of teaching for courses where the funds mobilised were used to provide scholarship support. It will also describe and facilitate discussion on how donor recognition could look like for supporters from extremely disadvantaged communities. Finally, the session will examine how UCA deliberately shifted the relationship between the University and its surrounding communities-from one characterized by distance, perceived privilege, and one-way dependency, to one grounded in participation, dignity, and shared ownership; unpacking how small, accessible contributions, transparent use of funds, and sustained engagement helped change community perceptions of the University from a "foreign" or elite institution into a locally anchored partner.

In an era of unprecedented turnover and evolving expectations, advancement leaders cannot afford to focus solely on metrics while neglecting the culture that drives those results. This in-conversation session brings together leaders at three distinct stages of their culture investment journey-year one, year three, and 10+ years-to share authentic insights and hard-won lessons. After panelists frame their experiences, participants will engage in facilitated dialogue, sharing their own challenges and strategies. You'll leave with practical approaches for wherever you are in your own journey-and the collective wisdom of your Summit peers.

Becoming an institutional chief advancement officer would be so much easier with an instructional manual. Beyond functional expertise in a CASE discipline, the best CAOs exhibit keen political instincts, thoughtful and sound judgment, and an ability to motivate their teams to surpass their own expectations of themselves. This interactive session will feature successful CAOs discussing the surprises and lessons that greeted them when they became CAOs - and may still linger even as they make their way through the long list of outcomes they assigned themselves when they arrived. Although the panelists are from various types of organizations, the lessons are often universal. Walking into these big roles without a clear understanding of expectations and a vision for how you will meet them, the road to success can be elusive. No one can be everything to everyone, so having a plan is the only way to avoid playing whack-a-mole for one's whole tenure. There are battles worth fighting and others that are just distractions. Join this discussion as you consider how to approach your next - or first - role as chief advancement officer.

Enrollment pressure isn’t theoretical— for many institutions it’s reshaping priorities, budgets, and expectations now. Based on CASE Insights research, in partnership Campbell & Company, this panel brings development and marketing/communications leaders together to confront what’s driving the squeeze (well beyond demographics) and how institutions are responding. Hear candid strategies on cross-campus alignment, messaging shifts, revenue planning, and resourcing—plus the hard tradeoffs teams are making as scope expands faster than capacity. This panel starts with what the data tells about what’s driving enrollment challenges and how institutions are reacting, then leaders from advancement and marketing will share how they are adjusting strategy, priorities, and partnerships to respond now.