Connecting alumni with students has driven new donor acquisition, via the telephone, for decades. The trouble is, the traditional “phone” as we know it, no longer exists. But the alumni to student connection is still important and can still drive significant fundraising activity. In fact, schools that have shifted from traditional phone to multichannel, video-driven, student-led engagement are seeing increases in alumni participation.

In this session, learn how “Student Engagement Teams” are revitalizing annual funds by rethinking the traditional “phone” model and meeting alumni and donors where they are – on their smart phones.

Growth. It's what's on every fundraising leader's mind. We're already pretty good at securing the gifts we already have asked for, but how do we fill major gift pipelines with proposals? In this session, Taylor Buxbaum will present how he used personal donor engagement to turn a cold portfolio into a high-producing portfolio while completing discovery work on 800+ more donors by learning new tools that increased his capacity as a giving officer.

Special events are fundamental to advancement work. Also foundational to advancement is data, both quantitative and qualitative. How can we envision, plan, execute and extract maximum value from our events by using data better? From lunch with a prospective donor to a black tie donor gala, events of all shapes and sizes need to be informed by data. While we are usually good at counting data (quantitative), there is often the most room for improvement in listening to data (qualitative) and the story it tells. We have to effectively engage data both before and after events to maximize advancement outcomes.

Generating and maintaining corporate and foundation partnerships, while coordinating outreach efforts with many motivated players on campus, is a challenge. Corporate and Foundation Relations (CFR) Officers negotiate the varied goals of their university, corporate, and foundation partners, while serving as a master coordinator to develop comprehensive and mutually beneficial strategies for engagement, support, and partnership. Led by two Executive Directors of CFR, this session focuses on both internal and external best practices: (1) building and supporting campus CFR champions and (2) corporate and foundation outreach strategies.