Quality communications work resonates with a broad swath of constituents and brings everyone into the conversation - it makes everyone feel included. How often, though, have you crafted a social media campaign, a print magazine, an admission or marketing piece, a video, only to hear from your Diversity, Equity, and Belonging team that you shouldn't use it? Or even worse, you didn't ask them for feedback and ended up hearing from a segment of your community that you missed the mark and possibly alienated a group of families or alumni? In this session, we will discuss not only the importance of fully integrating a DEB/DEI lens into your communications work, but best practices for creating a culture that allows both programs to thrive.

Learn how the Pitt Alumni Association utilizes student engagement opportunities to emulate the alumni experience for a student audience, strengthening the student-to-alumni pipeline and providing opportunities for alumni to give back. During this presentation, you will learn how the Associate Director of Young Alumni & Student Programs rebranded the student programs under the association’s umbrella and created new opportunities for students to get involved with the Pitt Alumni Association by collaborating with PAA and Student Affairs colleagues.

When launching your social media presence, you likely started by outlining a comprehensive strategy. But like any good strategy, you can’t just set it and forget it! Continued engagement and reach require that you regularly review and reevaluate your approach to meet the changing demands of your stakeholders, constituents and platform algorithms. Join this session to learn how the @VillanovaAlumni Social Media Working Group capitalized on the launch of their Instagram account to revisit overall goals for social media, enhance cross-departmental collaboration, create brand-aligned content themes, update workflows, define measurements for success and achieve results. Regardless of your experience level with social media or the size of your team, there are takeaways for everyone!

What are you called to be? For Georgetown’s Advancement Communications team, they were called to be nimble and strategic amid a shifting landscape to launch the university’s new $3b campaign. With a digital-first rolling launch that spanned six months and culminated in an in-person celebration, the Georgetown team will share how they changed the traditional approach to campaigns for a post-pandemic world.

Whether you're steering a large university through a comprehensive brand overhaul or guiding an independent school with limited resources, this session promises to equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to initiate a successful brand transformation journey. Presenters from Temple University and The Philadelphia School, both leading educational institutions in the city of Philadelphia, will join together alongside their creative partners from 160over90 and J2 to deliver an interactive discussion to help audience members explore how their school’s rebrand can be a welcome reset to help them move them move their institutions forward. This is serious business, but we’re going to have fun. In this engaging presentation, we'll explore innovative and cost-effective strategies that can be implemented by schools of all sizes. From creating a compelling brand narrative to leveraging digital platforms for maximum impact, our expert speakers will share real-world examples and success stories that demonstrate the transformative power of strategic branding. We’ll dig into identifying the right timing, understanding the commitment needed from your leadership, how to build inclusion, consensus, and joy in every step of the process. You’ll hear firsthand what it takes to find your school’s authentic identity and then clearly and impactfully articulate it to the world.

Go big or go home! That was how Syracuse University's team approached how they'd bring attention to the annual “Boost the ’Cuse” Day of Giving in 2023. The best way to do it? A full-day LIVE broadcast featuring a big-name host, live hits from across campus and the country, and more than 75 featured SU guests.
In a post-pandemic world, SU saw a need to make folks feel engaged and part of the action. Using a live broadcast, including guests in the studio, in the student center, all over campus, and remotely, SU used the “Boost” broadcast as a way to ensure its Day of Giving didn’t exist in an advancement vacuum, but instead included a celebratory vibe from all over campus and beyond.
In this session, the Syracuse staff responsible for the Boost the ’Cuse Broadcast will walk attendees through the process - from concept to completion - of how this ambitious project came to be. The session will include tips and tricks about tactical planning for a live broadcast, ideas on leveraging existing relationships to help build out an interesting show, ways to use a live broadcast as a vessel to showcase great content from across your institution, and lessons learned to save you time in your own efforts.
Whether you work at a large university or a small independent school, you’ll leave this session with concrete next steps to integrate rich media and an element of live engagement into your institution’s next fundraising drive.