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.

The session will outline how The Universities of Leeds and Bath are using data insights to align the work of our engagement and fundraising teams. At the core is measuring levels of engagement over time. We then combine that with prospect interests and capacity to target the work of engagement/communications to enhance our donor interactions and develop a pipeline of future prospects. Insights from the data also bring focus the work of fundraisers to show how effectively we are using our time and resources to maximise fundraising performance. Intermediate Level CASE Career level: 3 - 4

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!

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

How we moved away from responsive ad hoc queries/reporting requirements from across the team (and beyond) to develop a suite of dashboards that provide real-time data enabling real-time data driven decisions at a strategic level and a programme delivery level.

A great report isn’t just about data - it’s about clarity, impact, and action. In this session, we’ll cover practical tips on structuring, visualising, and communicating data effectively so your reports inform decisions, not just fill inboxes. Build reports people actually read - and use!

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!