We’ve all had the experience – a donor who is willing to make a generous gift but wants to designate it to something that is completely misaligned with your institution’s priorities or values. In this session we’ll take several steps back from this circumstance and discuss the methods you can utilize to engage your institutional partners – from gift officers to academic leadership – in the process of educating your donors about your institutions strategic vision and philanthropic needs. Donors care about the institutions they support, and they want their funding to have the maximum impact. We will share tools about how you can remain donor-centric while ensuring that your campus’s needs are addressed and donor funds are effectively utilized for their intended purpose.

This session will be designed to cover a smorgasbord of event topics. Join this session to learn top tips from event pros and how using a creative brief and audience strategist helped us enhance our events. We’ll even discuss how retiring giving societies allowed our event team to expand their audience while saving money!

The magnitude of a $1,000,000+ gift has an incredible impact on the organization that receives it. When a donor makes the decision to give a gift at this level, it is often the result of many (many) years of cultivation and relationship building. At the University of Arizona, the Principal Giving and Stewardship teams have developed a collaborative, thoughtful approach to the announcement, acknowledgment, and recognition of principal level gifts. This session will provide an overview of how a strategic stewardship plan is developed, executed and examples of customized touchpoints. It will include a discussion of best practices as well as ways to collaborate with the Principal Giving team and development officers across campus to ensure the most generous supporters of the university see the impact of their giving.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, but we’ll end on a high-note with both faculty and attendees sharing our key takeaways from our time together. There will be an opportunity to discuss programs or plans that you learned about and can’t wait to get home to adopt, adapt, or simply admire. This is also an opportunity to get any final burning questions answered or quandaries addressed via the wisdom of the faculty and your fellow attendees.