11:15–11:30

Welcome, Introductions and Setting the Stage

11:30 AM–12:30 PM

Inside the data nerd's studio

What are the best ways to benchmark your fundraising and engagement results versus peers, that lead you to actually improve strategy? And what about all this new “engagement” data? What does it actually mean for our relationship with alumni and supporters? We now have a mountain of information, both at our own institutions and from great sources like CASE, to see trends and how we compare to peers. But few of us are using it in a practical way to impact results. Let’s unpack what’s available and what it means to benchmark in a meaningful way with sources like the VSE and Alumni Engagement Metrics. Then, let’s talk about how we can use predictive and prescriptive cue in our own data to drive a better donor experience. Join Jenny Cooke Smith, Senior Strategic Consultant with AMAtlas at CASE and Brian Gawor, Vice President for Research at RNL for this lively discussion – with real examples, of how you can start using the data available to you right now to drive greater results from your donor engagement and create a better donor experience.

12:30–12:45 

Stretch Break / Exhibit Hall 

Use this time to view resources and take time to stretch.  

12:45–1:30 

Elective Sessions (Select One): 

• Giving Day for the People
  
  Giving Days have become an anchor point in many annual giving calendars but where does it go? How big is too big? What is your purpose in having a Giving Day? What does the future hold for these days? In this interactive session, Howard Heevner and Christina Sebastian will share their perspectives on what happens next. At the conclusion of this conversation you will have a list of questions to think about as you consider the future of your own Giving Day activities.
• Pipeline for Progress: Building a Collaborative Team of Frontline and Direct Marketing
  
  A new trend in Annual Giving connects both sides of the traditional fundraising shop - direct outreach and frontline. Many teams find themselves looking for ways to integrate their mass communication learnings in support of their leadership annual gift officer team. But how do you do this in a data driven way that drives results for success, outcomes, and partnership, over time? Moreover, how do you create deliverables in your program that help moves key prospects and donors through a meaningful journey toward major gift conversations. This program proposes some simple implementations you can try today in creating this connectivity.

1:30–1:45

Stretch Break / Exhibit Hall 

Use this time to view resources and take time to stretch.  

1:45–2:30 

Elective Sessions (Select One):

• Sustainers. Make it Simple
  
  We all know that sustaining gifts will increase revenue, boost retention rates, and decrease fundraising costs for our programs. So why is higher ed not knocking it out of the park? What is holding us back? During this session we discuss the challenges we face in growing our sustainer programs and how we can overcome them. We will hear from Deb Ashmore, a Principal Analytics Consultant at Blackbaud, who has extensive experience with sustainer programs outside of higher ed along with Maggie Utsch from the College of Saint Benedict who leads their program with 17% of their annual giving donors as sustainers. Deb works closely with public radio and television and will share key strategies they implemented to launch their programs. This session will give you a better understanding of what you need to do to bring your sustaining program to the next level. If you haven’t started a sustaining gift program, you will have the confidence to move forward. 
• Fully Digital Fundraisers: Oregon State DXOs deliver 1-to-1 outreach to 1,000
  
  Digital gift officers. Donor experience officers. Digital development officers. No matter the title, these completely digital, tech-enabled fundraisers are changing advancement and by building meaningful relationships with thousands of alumni and friends. Step into a day in the life of Donor Experience Officers at Oregon State University as they manage 1,000-person leadership-level portfolios and find creative ways to delight donors, steward gifts, and identify major gift prospects. Learn their tools and strategies for creating personal relationships and engaging “cold” prospects, the benefits of fully remote fundraisers, and how to create personal donor experiences at scale. Attendees will identify overlooked prospects and engage them in creative ways that are highly personalized, yet repeatable. They'll learn how for-profit sales teams engage hundreds of buyers each week and apply those tactics directly to stewardship and fundraising. And participants will dramatically expand the number of donors who receive 1:1 outreach, creating better donor relationships that lead to

2:30–3:00

Stretch Break / Exhibit Hall 

Use this time to view resources and take time to stretch.  

3:00–4:00 

In An Hour, We'll Solve All of Annual Giving's Top Challenges.

Let's combat the biggest annual giving challenges head on!  In this interactive session, you'll have an opportunity to connect with peers to discuss, problem solve, and air grievances in a safe and judgement-free space.  Moderators will facilitate discussions across eight breakout sessions. Each attendee can choose two topics for small group conversations: My campus is returning to work and no one wants to (how do we keep teams motivated?); My campus has diversity issues and its impacting my fundraising; Poaching my people (other people are always hiring away my best staff); Leadership has set unrealistic expectations and I can't get there; My budget has been slashed but my expectations and goals are the same or higher; I'm dealing with whiplash (expectations are constantly changing); I don't know who I should compare my institution to; My senior leadership is afraid of technology. We're guessing two (or all eight) of these resonate!

4:00

Conference Adjourns for the Day

11:30-12:30 PM

How Alumni Engagement Benchmarks can Transform Annual Giving Strategies

The alternate title to this session might be “what happens when an annual giving junkie gets to manage a survey on alumni engagement.”  Jenny Cooke Smith spent fifteen years analyzing annual giving trends prior to joining the team at CASE and brings that lens into this conversation of engagement metrics.  In 2019, CASE launched the global Alumni Engagement Metrics (AEM) survey, the culmination of a more than decade-long journey to establish a framework and standard for measuring ways alumni interact with their alma mater.  In this session, learn why annual giving professionals can and should play a pivotal role in the adoption of engagement metrics and more importantly, in guiding how they are used for greater good.  We will share results from the second year of analysis, in which 372 respondents from 16 different countries provided key inputs on engagement in four modes: philanthropy, volunteerism, experiential, and communication.  We will also discuss why engagement rate is merely the start of more complex conversations, and what other measures should be layered in for charting success.   

12:30–1:00

Stretch Break / Exhibit Hall 

Use this time to view resources and take time to stretch.  

1:00-2:00 PM

Elective Sessions (Select One):

• Transforming Phonathon
  
  It worked for decades, and then the world changed. Reaching donors through phone calls became harder, and the way many of us were doing it just annoyed donors. Enter integrated, mobile technology that lets you contact donors across calling, texting, and video messages, all driven by powerful analytics. The phonathon has transformed, students can work remotely, and we can maximize ROI and the donor experience with this new technology. And advancement leaders are realizing that this engagement is about way more than the annual fund: supporting events, major/planned giving, surveying and alumni engagement are now common. We’ll share key data on impact of this transformation, and you’ll hear from leaders that transformed their programs, then engage in a discussion about how you can take the next step beyond “dialing for dollars.”

• Reimagining your Faculty and Staff Campaign During COVID-19
  
  In 2020, COVID-19 presented many challenges to fundraising and to fundraisers. Our industry had to shift and re-think how many of our fundraising strategies needed to change. Events and face-to-face donor interactions ended and shifted to virtual engagements. In this session, learn some of the strategies Texas Southern University used to reimagine their Faculty and Staff Campaign and turn it into a three-week 100% virtual campaign generating a 45% increase in giving. By attending this session, attendees will learn: Ways to keep your zoom participants engaged; Creative games and interactive activities; Digital strategies that inspire giving; Ways to engage your leadership donors; and Ways to get your Deans invested in success

• Increase ROI by Becoming Besties with Research & Prospect Management
  
  Traditionally associated with major gift fundraising, Research & Prospect Management (RPM) has untapped potential in supporting annual giving fundraising efforts. By attending this session, attendees will understand how building a better working relationship between the two departments can result in opportunities not only to increase annual dollars, but also to: 1. Reverse engineer data for predictive modeling; 2. Identify future affinity-based fundraising segments; and 3. Develop reports and metrics to create and enhance leadership annual giving.

2:00–2:30

Stretch Break / Exhibit Hall 

Use this time to view resources and take time to stretch.  

2:30–3:15

Roundtable Discussions

3:15-3:30 PM

Stretch Break / Exhibit Hall 

Use this time to view resources and take time to stretch.  

3:30–4:45

Closing Session and Thoughts with All Faculty



4:15

Conference Adjourns

11:15–NOON

Succession Planning - refilling positions or visionary transitions
In this current environment most of us are facing budget constraints, limited resources and we are asked to do more of everything. On top of all the pressures we are facing as leaders, what do you do when a staff member leaves? Are you prepared? Do you panic and quickly rehire for the exact same position?
In this session, we are going to challenge you to think about this in a new way and that you leave understanding that succession planning is an intentional and visionary opportunity that you can plan for. We hope you will be inspired to invest in your vision and plan for the success of the people you hire and grow their strengths.

NOON–12:15 PM

Stretch Break / Exhibit Hall 

Use this time to view resources and take time to stretch.  

12:15–1:00 

Elective Sessions (Select One):

• We live in a digital world, now what?
  
  Fundraising professionals devote time to perfecting their craft. Multi-channel, omni-channel, and more—are we evolving fast enough with so many new digital tools and trends to pick from? If we don’t adapt to the digital age, are we at risk of getting left behind? In this session, we will share digital strategies to increase engagement and fundraising results. At the end of this session, you will walk away with actionable ideas to test and try at your own institution.
• Leverage the Division: Boosting Collaboration to Achieve Alumni Giving Goals
  
  At many institutions there is a goal to grow the number of alumni donors in order to increase the overall alumni participation rate, however, this is a challenge beyond what any annual giving team can tackle alone. Instead, developing a new framework and ecosystem for solving the alumni giving math problem while building a more collaborative approach with both fundraisers and engagement teams on critical efforts, such as Giving Day, is the key. During this session we’ll explore new ways to approach alumni giving rooted in collaboration and multi-year planning.

1:00–1:15 

Stretch Break / Exhibit Hall 

Use this time to view resources and take time to stretch.  

1:15–2:00

Elective Sessions (Select One):

• Auditing your Program - make your work, work for you!
  
  Whether starting a new program or optimizing existing work, evaluating your program and setting baselines for success is a critical exercise. There a number of ways to accomplish this, the important thing is consistency. Where do you start? What do you audit? How do you identify areas of opportunity and set a timeline for implementing new ideas? What stays? What stops? What gets "sunset"? Join this interactive conversation where we'll look at one audit model and discuss best practices amongst the group.
• Leading the Change 2021
  
  Annual Giving teams are often put in the position to sit in a push and pull place of change in advancement organizations. Sitting at the nexus of service to campus and fundraising outcomes these teams have the unique opportunity to inspire and drive change both within advancement operations and throughout institutions. Christina Sebastian and Howard Heevner will look at strategies they have incorporated at their respective institutions to navigate change and moving change forward. You will leave this session with a list of strategies that you might deploy at your own institution.
• Engagement Officers to Annual Giving Outcomes at the University of Oregon

  Three years ago, the University of Oregon identified room for growth at the entry point of our pipeline and realized that future campaigns will suffer if we do not ramp up efforts to identify the next generation of donors. As a result, Development created Engagement Officer positions for the vital purpose of increasing pipeline activity. From conception to trial and error, to momentum moving forward, learn how our Engagement Team has identified strategies that are starting to produce donors at the annual giving level and beyond. We will discuss how our tactics differ from teams outside of Development, and how we navigate internal relationships with schools and units, development officers and our colleagues around campus who are also doing engagement work. Michelle Joyce, UO’s Director of Regional Engagement, will share insights about how emerging trends in alumni engagement can be integrated into your annual giving program and why the current climate makes it the perfect time to start. 

2:00–2:15

Stretch Break / Exhibit Hall 

Use this time to view resources and take time to stretch.  

2:15–3:00

Elective Sessions (Select One):

• Parents: Do You Know Who Your Best Parent Donors are Today? 
  
  Parents fundraising has represented a key revenue opportunity for institutions for many years. However, frequently, we have thought of these donors as transitory. We have often functioned with the assumption that after 4 to 5 years of the students experience the Parents would disappear from our giving landscape but is that true. In this session we will look at data that suggests some of your best parent donors give for many years past their students time on campus. At the end of this session you will walk away with new understanding of parent behaviors and insights how to grow your parents giving program.
• Using Personas to Drive Donor Engagement
  
  The commercial world has used them for years: actionable "personas" that integrate the backgrounds, viewpoints and history of our supporters to drive personalized outreach. How do they actually work in donor engagement? We'll cover what personas, are, what they look like, and using predictive models to craft them. We'll share the experience of kicking them off, how to engage across your institution with key stakeholders, and how to get started with tight resources. If you've heard the word "persona" and wondered, 'what does that really mean?,' this session will give you actionable steps to get started or improve your use of this key engagement tool.

3:00–3:15

Stretch Break / Exhibit Hall 

Use this time to view resources and take time to stretch.  

3:15–4:15

Let's Get Real: The tough annual giving questions

It's time to get real about the big questions with annual giving. Are giving days a gimmick? Should we give away "stuff" to get people to give? Is donor acquisition worth it? Is AI really useful? How do we talk 'up' to leadership about the value of annual giving, when our gifts are small in comparison to gift officer output? Join us at the faculty answer (and argue) about these hot topics and give you key information to guide your choices as you consider your donor engagement plan.

4:15–4:30

Closing Remarks

4:30

Conference Adjourns