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?

Hear from two universities that implemented a new strategy for increasing leadership annual gifts and major gifts. Donor Experience Officers manage portfolios of 1,000 prospects they primarily engage with digitally. They are responsibly for highly personal outreach to 50+ prospects every day. Western Kentucky University and the University of Memphis launched their DXO programs a couple of years apart and have implemented in ways both similar and different. Hear from staff at every level of the program - VPs, a program manager, and a practicing DXO about the program and the results.

The Ask should be a creative experience and journey. We, as fundraisers, are representatives, advocates, researchers, storytellers, guides and connectors who navigate and help shape, mold a sandbox of options for a donor. Preparation and practice as a listener and creative partner, with your organization's priorities in mind, will allow you to a provide be a compass for a conversation about support. This also helps with an approachable and enjoyable solicitation experience. Participants will review the elements of an ask and explore an approach to acknowledge and build as a portion of fundraising through discussions and exercises.

We created an aggregation of different dashboards that get delivered to the development officers by email with analytics, reminders and highlights of areas needing attention related to their assigned prospects. This dashboard provides the DO with key information so they can be proactive and take actions based on the items displayed. For example, birthdays, pledges due soon, pledges past due, recent write offs, gift from their prospects coming from any source online, an event, etc.), actions entered to someone in their portfolio by another development officer, prospects attendance or registration to an event. Details on prospects in the solicitation stage.

To ensure successful branding of an institution, capital campaign, recruitment initiative or athletics program, a strategic message, followed by relevant positioning, must be developed first. This vital step is called brand development. It’s the deep, strategic pre-work and planning often missed by educators and leadership—an inside-out process of discovering who you are, what’s different and why stakeholders should care. Such work should begin with the President or Head of School, not with communications and marketing, which is an outside-in approach. Brand development also considers the hidden aspects to make any initiative wildly effective—virtually eliminating the costliest pain points.