All of us have moments at work where we have to have a difficult conversation. These are the moments when the stakes are high, opinions clash, emotions run deep or power dynamics come into play. While some may shy away from these dialogues to avoid conflict, mastering them can lead to significant benefits for individuals and boost organisational productivity. Join us in this engaging plenary session, where Tess will dive into the art of handling these conversations with skill and authenticity. She'll explore the topic with the audience, offering valuable advice on how to navigate these critical interactions effectively.

The work of Advancement teams is ever-changing to meet the needs of those we seek to engage with our institutions – and the needs of our institutions themselves. How can you diagnose when a change to a process, a role or a function is needed and collaborate across your team and institution to deliver it? Fran Sponsler, Executive Director of Proposition Development and Campaign at London Business School will share a case study on how to approach change management based on the lessons learned from setting up a new proposition development function over the last year.

One thing we all have in common is how easy it is to make a mistake. So, rather than shy away from it, we'll be celebrating our failures and reflecting on how much we can learn from them. In this panel discussion senior professionals in the Advancement services sector will reflect how they've navigated a mistake or something that simply didn't work out as they expected in their professional (and sometimes personal) lives. As part of the wider CASE webinar series, this ‘Trials and Errors’ discussion will be chaired by Hannah Fox, Director of Alumni & Careers at Regent’s University London and Marie-Rose Delauzun, Head of Alumni Engagement at The Sutton Trust. They’ll be speaking to Kate Lawton (University of Oxford), Rob Spencer (University of Leeds) and Timon Fermin (Herriot Watt). Expect candid discussion on decisions they regret or unavoidable errors - and plenty of reassurance that you're not alone!

Join this workshop to explore and try design thinking tools for solving real challenges. A theme coming out of the last conference, was a shared struggle with helping internal clients to ask better questions and engage effectively with your data. We'll tackle this together, using design thinking to generate fresh solutions. Interactive, practical, and designed for real impact!

This is the first of two sessions on scholarships and will focus on the 'what', 'why' and ‘how’. We’ll start by outlining the building blocks for success followed by a panel discussion with practitioners who will share success stories and answer your questions. We’ll cover: what constitutes a scholarship (vs bursary or prize); benefits for institutions/recipients; effective internal communications, governance and efficient processes to enable success.

Participants will explore how to ensure your culture and processes are optimised for campaign. Through the University of Warwick examples attendees will be guided through critical process's that ensure readiness and alignment with goals. You will gain insight and tools to bring your teams on a journey to Campaign readiness. Intermediate Level CASE Career level: 3 - 4

We recently launched our first philanthropic campaign. In this session we will share how we prepared for a successful campaign launch event. We will cover what worked, what didn’t work and how we will do it differently next time. We will discuss data segmentation, data quality, sourcing a diverse range of known and new invitees, planning for and producing the event briefing, and working with teams across the office in a high pressure situation.

Join us for this interactive session where we’ll hear from experts Dr Marta Herrero (University of York) and Jonathan May (Hubbub). Marta is leading an academic research project focusing on developing our understanding of how fundraisers, philanthropists, and the nonprofit sector view the introduction and adoption of AI technologies for the purpose of fundraising and of incentivising philanthropy. Marta will give us an insight into her research findings ahead of the launch of the new Centre for Digital Innovation in Philanthropy and Fundraising. Jonathan is the founder of Hubbub Fundraising and an advisory board member for the new Centre. He will share his expertise in how AI is already supporting advancement activity, the opportunity it provides and some of the pitfalls we should avoid. We’ll seek feedback from the audience to share experiences of how we are using AI to enable the success of our advancement objectives, and we’ll leave you with practical tips on how you can use AI to support your role.

We are delighted to present a panel session of (relatively) new managers who will share their experiences of stepping up into roles with management responsibility. What have they learnt? What did they wish they’d known beforehand? What advice would they give to others who are looking to progress in their career? This session will give those who are new to management or who would like move into a management role an insight in to what it’s really like!