Annual Giving Workshop
This conference is designed for newcomers to the advancement profession and professionals with mid-level responsibility.
Benefits of Attending
Participation in this conference will prepare attendees to:
- Integrate proven and emerging practices to maximize results in direct mail, phone and online giving programs.
- Improve integrity and effectiveness of existing data resources.
- Inform and educate colleagues across campus about the value of annual giving.
- Assess effectiveness of appeals and apply lessons for more powerful solicitations.
- Build a philanthropic pipeline.
- Integrate personal solicitation into annual giving operations.
- Build a professional network through interactive online discussions with colleagues at peer institutions.
Who Should Attend
- Long-time development professionals with new responsibilities in annual giving who would benefit from fresh ideas and the opportunity to network with others in the field.
- Newcomers and intermediate-level professionals in annual giving.
Meet Your Chair
Colin Hennessy
Colin Hennessy serves as the executive director of alumni engagement and annual giving and head of the University of Chicago Alumni Association. In this role, he leads the overall strategy and direction for University-wide engagement and annual giving activities and spearheads the University’s ambitious alumni participation efforts. From 2018 to 2019, Hennessy served as Associate Dean of Alumni Relations and Development for the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. As a member of the Dean’s senior leadership team, he provided advice and counsel on all matters related to alumni relations and philanthropy and was a core member of the team charged with the grand opening of the Keller Center, the new home of Harris Public Policy.
Previously, he served as executive director of The Penn Fund at the University of Pennsylvania. At the Penn Fund, he oversaw the global undergraduate annual giving program and the largest of the university's annual funds. Under his direction, The Penn Fund won national awards from CASE, for partnership with Wharton School faculty on fundraising experimental design and testing, and steadily increased annual alumni donor participation and both unrestricted and endowed scholarship revenue to the university. Prior to joining Penn, Hennessy held positions at the University of Iowa Foundation, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and as a global training and implementation manager specializing in the implementation of complex information technology solutions for local government, healthcare, and direct store delivery vendors.
He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa and a doctorate in higher education management from the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.