Today’s ever-changing landscape in Advancement can affect team success—especially when your teams are small. Balancing increased expectations and limited resources requires skillful juggling to keep programs on an upward trajectory. Join Lipscomb University’s Stephanie Carroll, assistant vice president for annual giving, alumni and parent engagement, and Rhonda Minton, director of strategic communications for advancement, to learn how they have revamped their work and maximized productivity to better position their teams for success. Flying solo or have fewer than five staff members? Join us for a discussion and leave with some ideas to help your small shop reach big potential.

Learn how to break away from the routine and reshape the way you think about work. With the simple implementation of some proven strategies and techniques, you can increase your productivity, elevate your impact and promote self-accountability while building trust and confidence within your team, division, and the broader community. Organize yourself and your team to be the best versions of yourselves.

Culture can be an afterthought in advancement. We hire mission-driven, self-motivated fundraisers for autonomous, competitive jobs and expect them to buy into our existing culture. Yet, in a post-pandemic workforce, culture matters more than ever. To attract, grow and retain top performers, we must build and rebuild a powerful, sticky culture. In this session, you'll learn how and why to foster trust, belonging and celebration to create a magnetic culture where top performers want to stay.

Do you find yourself looking at the same prospect names and wondering why they haven't made a gift or haven't been engaged in recent years? Capacity and affinity may exist with these prospects but a relationship that would lead to a major gift is lacking. "The Philanthropist Left Behind" addresses the critical importance of donor experience and shares examples of recent gifts that fostered a culture of philanthropy and launched transformational programs at an independent private school. The session will also highlight successful research, passion/project alignment, selecting the appropriate relationship manager, and stewardship.

In this session, attendees will learn why it is important to take an aggressive approach to developing and maintaining a coherent brand as it applies to enrollment marketing, social and digital media, and on-campus communications. Presenters will explain how Carson-Newman University tackled a murky identity and unveiled not only a new campaign, but new brand look and supporting elements in 8 months in an interactive session with Q+A opportunities.

Focusing your fundraising has never been more important, or more challenging, The number and channels of distraction are growing. The attention spans of our constituents are actually shrinking (just a little!). Our ability to assess and take action is at risk. Leading your team to success means knowing what to ignore and what to tackle. Focused direction--actively choosing where you place your attention, rather than letting distractions choose for you--is critical to addressing the important no matter the urgent. Leaders in this session will learn a framework to gain mastery over the 4 M's--media, messages, meetings, and management.

Nothing about Annual Giving is simple in the modern area. Do you have an idea for a campaign or a strategy? Are you struggling with an aspect of Annual Giving? Or just looking to steal good ideas from peers?

Join the experts that have grown and built Annual Giving programs to engage in fun conversations around your topics! You bring the ideas we will brainstorm approaches as a group to tackle those ideas. What's that crazy idea you have been thinking about that you want to dig into with your peers?

Driving cultural transformation is not for the faint of heart. Developing a workforce that is committed to a set of core values who embrace vulnerability, open feedback, and accountability takes perseverance and passion to achieve your long-term goals. Join this lively conversation to learn how you too can create a paradigm shift in your organization to get back to the basics of a supportive and empowered team who achieve remarkable results

Data Governance - Why is it so difficult? Learn about the processes, teams, and structures you can leverage to build a culture and organization that enhances and protects the currency of advancement operations - data. If you're trying to: build data literacy, enhance data management, or learn how others have addressed these challenges - this session is for you!

In this interactive event, two teams of experienced fundraisers will tackle a surprise fundraising challenge, live, in a cooking-show inspired competition! They'll accept your feedback as they "cook," and you'll determine their fate over three rounds of surprises. See it unfold live as the teams respond and share their perspectives on today's biggest advancement challenges. You’ll decide what happens each round and who will be crowned the Throwdown! champions. Be ready to offer your take on key topics, including organizing campaigns, balancing revenue and participation, and engaging an inclusive donor base. It's a CASE session like nothing you've seen before!