Deans and Dollars: Maximizing Dean Partnerships for Fundraising Success In an academic setting, often times, the alignment between the dean and the fundraising team will often dictate its success or failure. Deans can thoughtfully articulate fundraising priorities, work to establish a culture of collaboration and inspire generosity ….BUT they can’t do it alone. In this session, we will share best practices for effectively partnering with your dean to achieve fundraising success.

The communication function across university campuses is generally classified as centralized or decentralized with both having their share of pros and cons. Does the communication function need to be described as one of the other? What if we dissolved these terms in favor of a more collaborative model? The advancement communications team in the Development and Alumni Relations division at Howard University was created less than three years ago as a model to extend and expand the communication function, not replace the university communications role. Learn how the new team was built, overcame challenges and addressed concerns to become a top partner of the university communications office while also fulfilling primary needs of the development division.

In a year when Barbie is breaking major records at the box office, more women are holding the highest political positions globally, the female labor force rate is historically high, and entertainers like Taylor Swift and Beyonce have boosted economies worldwide, the collective power of women should not be underestimated. As the fastest-growing charitable group globally, women are earning more educational degrees than men, holding many leadership positions in the workplace, and making the majority of consumer decisions in the home. Yet, most universities have not revised their antiquated fundraising practices to reflect this new certainty. This presentation inclusive of facilitated discussion will focus on the different motivations and patterns for giving between genders. By not embracing these differences, advancement shops are leaving money on the table and losing out on valuable insights, passion, and power with those who identify as women, a critical market segment that all we should all be talking about. Schools large and small can learn valuable information, discuss strategy, and hear compelling case studies about women’s philanthropy while learning how to implement a new philanthropic paradigm that embraces women's authenticity, empowerment, leading to impressive increases in philanthropic investment.

There’s nothing more exciting than receiving a big check from a donor. Or is there? Only 7 percent of household wealth is held as cash, yet 85 percent of charitable gifts are made in that form. Research shows that encouraging donors to make gifts of wealth (using non-cash assets) results in larger gifts to charities with greater benefits for the donor. In this session, we’ll look at three methods that leverage the power of shifting from disposable income: gifts of appreciated securities, qualified charitable distributions, and donor advised funds. Even small shops can benefit from incorporating these approaches into their work.

Come and learn from Ava Wills-Barksdale (VP University Advancement, Oakwood University) and Darrell Bell (VP Advancement-Nazareth University) as to how they partnered with Scott Lange (President) and Michael Shippam (Principal) of Visionary Philanthropic Consulting to best utilize advancement data analytics for enhanced prospect identification, portfolio balancing, campaign goal setting, gift officer work flow, budgeting rationales for new gift officers, and Board communication on Advancement objectives and Advancement ROI.

Join us for an insightful session as we delve into the transformative journey of The Hopkins Fund and learn directly from the leadership annual gift officer team who successfully developed and launched a midlevel giving circle program in support of our undergraduate annual fund.

Our presentation will offer a roadmap for institutions seeking to embark on a similar path and will emphasize how we championed The Hopkins Fund Leadership Giving Circles as a solicitation strategy framework and catalyst for expanding our undergraduate alumni donor pipeline.

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.

In University Advancement, some of your most underutilized fundraising partners are the students who pound the pavement each semester to raise money from companies to fund their organizations. They likely have a roster of donors they return to annually and an already-established stewardship plan to enrich the relationship, but how can you tap into this ecosystem to create major gift partners? In this session, you will hear stories of companies that went from making sporadic, one-off gifts to multi-year, $100K+ commitments, strategies for positioning yourself as the liaison between companies and student organizations, and proven methods for building your corporate fundraising collateral.

JHU recently completed a major CRM Project - a complete digital transformation of several data systems into one main fundraising CRM. How did they do it? How did their team and project thrive? Join the session to learn how the JHU team engaged with several partners to lead their team, their data and JHU through this change. Learn about the opportunities they took for business process improvement, staff development and overall operational efficiency.