Are they your alumni, or ours? Is their gift in support of athletics or the university as a whole? Is that an athletic event or an alumni event? Managing partnerships across campus that impact the alumni experience are tricky at best. Understanding the relationships that student athletes have with their coaches, teammates, and through their affinities are the foundation to their future relationship with the institution and with the institution's teams. We will explore the different approaches to managing these relationships while they are students and will help to identify how to steward them as volunteers, donors, and engage them as alumni. As potentially your most engaged alumni population, this session will highlight the wins and losses when both advancement and athletics don't have a clear playbook for athletic alumni in their portfolio.

This session will look at how to apply in house engagement scoring, wealth screening data and other internal information to help create projections that identify gaps in fundraising opportunities. It will also examine how this data can be applied to assess current fundraising staff against projections.

The #1 way to ensure your institution's success & your future success as a fundraiser is ambitious, consistent discovery now. But discovery is one of the hardest parts of fundraising! When you're getting in the door with amazing new potential donors, discovery can feel like an adventure. When you're slogging through names in your database and getting zero responses, discovery can feel overwhelming and oppressive. Join this session for tactical discovery tips from sending better emails to cold calling to turning the conversation to money in that first visit.

Campaigns continue to drive philanthropic growth throughout higher education, but the traditional campaign model is changing. Institutions are using the lessons learned from traditional campaigns to innovate, with creative new approaches and responses to donors’ demand for institutional vision, transformative goals, and institution-wide engagement. This session will introduce emerging trends in contemporary campaigns and discuss the implications of “principal gifts.” We will explore how expectations for sources of campaign revenue are evolving and the inclusion of goals that are not measured in dollars. How has the role of volunteers adapted to our 24/7/365 world, and do they help or hinder? Whether your institution is in campaign, planning a campaign, or recovering from a campaign, this session seeks to challenge your thinking and inspire your work.

The number one way alumni wish to reconnect with their alma mater is through career ready programing, yet most campuses have a difficult time getting alumni affairs and career services to work together and support each other’s missions. The University of Hartford made a bold decision to merge the office of career services with the offices of alumni engagement and fundraising…. The result: hundreds of alumni volunteering annually and interacting with students while being cultivated towards giving. We also saw improved experiences for students, and enhanced levels of partnership with industry thanks to alumni employees.



Join this session to learn more about how career services, alumni engagement teams, and development officers can work together and achieve multiple goals. Learn about events and programs we have successfully brought to fruition at the University of Hartford and hear about lessons learned along the way.

Transform your approach to donor pipelines by using qualification protocols and data to identify and cultivate emerging major donors, especially those in the middle of the giving pyramid. We will discuss how leveraging innovative engagement strategies to build meaningful connections lead to significant and lasting philanthropic support for your institution. Participants will come away with tangible tips on how to implement qualification protocols to yield the most impact and how to create tailored and meaningful engagement opportunities to bring prospects closer to your organization, ultimately stewarding them to become top donors. To see this topic in action, we will leverage the example of Northeastern University’s recent development of a successful Leadership Giving Program aimed at cultivating, stewarding, and upgrading the university’s mid-level donors.

The road of philanthropy is not always straight. We have all left donor conversations feeling confused and unsure of the next steps needed to advance the relationship and gift discussion. In this interactive session, we will share examples of how internal and external partnerships can be instrumental in designing multi-step donor strategies and learn from one another how best to navigate the conversations that leave you saying “ok, now what?”

Case statements remain vital to set the impetus of your campaign. Yet, with the number of stakeholders involved, a case statement may become generic, bloated or fragmented. This session offers insights on how to avoid common pitfalls, break with formulas and
produce genuine statements that resonate. Participants may return to their institutions better prepared to undertake, lead or support the production of a case for support that empowers fundraisers and generates results.

Clark University is embarking on a bold new campaign that integrates cutting-edge technology with a deep commitment to its philanthropic mission. Joe Manok will share how the university’s strategic plan, which includes a fourfold increase in campaign goals, is not just a response to the changing landscape but a proactive effort to redefine what’s possible in higher education fundraising. Central to this strategy is the development of the Clark-EverTrue Advancement Lab, an innovative initiative focused on harnessing artificial intelligence to revolutionize donor engagement and campaign execution. This session will detail how the lab is driving advancements in data analytics, personalizing donor outreach, and optimizing campaign outcomes. Attendees will leave with practical strategies for designing ambitious campaigns that resonate with modern donors while staying true to institutional values, and insights on how to leverage AI to future-proof their advancement efforts.