TOPICS:

• Advancing Student Life Through Successful Fundraising During A Pandemic
• Creating a Culture of Philanthropy:  Opportunity, Urgency, Case or Just Because
• Creating A Successful Team Approach to Fundraising
• How MSU Implemented Game Based Learning as Part of Remote Training
• How to Invest in Internal Communications at your Institution
• Increasing Alumni Engagement with Community College Alumni Benefits Programs
• The Perfect Prospect Experience: Website Personalization in 5 Simple Steps
• The Principal Gift Digital Library - A Complete Picture of Miami U's. Top Prospects
• The Time is Now! Promoting Planned Giving through Strategic Marketing
• Using Slate to Optimize Business for Advancement and Engagement
• We Are! Stronger Together: DEI+ Recruitment and Retention at Penn State
• Harnessing the Power of Women’s Philanthropy
• CASE District V Venture Fund
• We’re All Doing our Best…Let’s Talk Resting and Recharging for 2023

CASE Competencies: Integrity and Professionalism; Relationship Building; Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking

Communication expectations continue to shift among our graduates – meeting those expectations can lead to higher engagement. In this session, we'll share results of our national survey of over 2,000 alumni on areas of interest, expectations, and opportunities to build engagement and support. We'll then share examples of how the University of Minnesota Alumni Association connects with alumni through segmented, targeted communications to further deepen their relationship with the Association and the university. Participants will leave this session with concrete ideas to inform communication strategies and next steps to broaden and deepen overall alumni engagement.

CASE Competencies: Business and Financial Acumen; Industry or Sector Expertise

Michigan State University Advancement will share how the business analytics team developed a comprehensive and adaptive summary report for fundraising units to understand their alumni, donors, and portfolio prospects. This one report functions for degree-granting, non-granting, and geographic-based units. Understanding a fundraising unit’s population helps fundraisers and leadership staff to develop data-driven strategies and identify areas for opportunity.

CASE Competencies: Global and Cultural Competence; Emotional Intelligence; Strategic Thinking

The University of Michigan's Office of University Development Marketing & Communications team has partnered with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team to incorporate the practice of diversity, equity, and inclusion into our collateral review and process. We want to ensure that our internal review processes include a diverse set of ears, eyes, and experiences so that we appropriately represent our diverse constituent base in our solicitations, event invitations, publications, and more. During this session, we will review how our process started, what it includes, how it has helped improve our work, and how our peers can incorporate a similar practice.

CASE Competencies: Global and Cultural Competence, Strategic Thinking, Integrity and Professionalism

As part of the CASE Opportunity and Inclusion Center (OIC)’s work, CASE is determined to identify and eliminate pervasive systemic barriers.  We’ll cover two components of the OIC’s DEIB capacity building services – the CASE Advancement Inclusion Index and CASE Executive Advisor Program. Participants will learn how both can be used to support professional development for leaders, enable a better understanding of a diverse workforce and diverse engaged alumni, and enhance retention of leaders with diverse lived experiences.

CASE Competencies: Relationship Building; Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking

Many institutions send out print magazines between two and four times a year. It can feel tough enough just to fill the pages with good stories, but it’s critical to think strategically about reaching the right audience at the right times — and using storytelling structures and strategies designed for impact. In this session, we’ll share some of the key changes you can make to your magazine that make a real difference, including the results that we’ve seen.

CASE Competencies: Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking; Leadership

Measuring Engagement. This is one of the biggest challenges facing alumni relations. Learn how Purdue is developing measurable engagement that is built on foundations of Philanthropy, Experiences, Volunteerism and Communication. Staff from the Purdue for Life Foundation will share their journey in creating their Engagement Score 2.0 with input of board leadership and a cross-functional team of advancement staff. This session will show participants a dashboard for individuals and cumulative populations to help alumni clubs and individual colleges grow their engagement. Learn about the evolution of Purdue's engagement score and participate in a facilitated discussion to help you advance engagement.

CASE Competencies: Global and Cultural Competence; Integrity and Professionalism; Relationship Building; Emotional Intelligence; Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking; Leadership

Join leaders from Penn States' Division of Development and Alumni Relations in a straightforward conversation about what has aided and hindered their success when engaging overlooked constituent populations within this DEI+ forward landscape. This session details the collaborative, demanding, and rewarding parts of identifying diverse philanthropic visions amongst a homogenous philanthropic landscape - sharing sources of true allyship and surprising challenges while creating a platform for connection for our Advancement peers working tirelessly in this space.

CASE Competencies: Global and Cultural Competence; Integrity and Professionalism; Relationship Building; Emotional Intelligence; Industry or Sector Expertise; Leadership

This panel discussion of diverse fundraisers and leadership will focus on the often difficult intersection of authenticity and frontline fundraising. We will host a frank and vulnerable discussion regarding both the difficulties and advantages of "showing up" with our donors. Authenticity can create uncomfortable donor situations regarding gender, race, age, sexual orientation, religion/spirituality, and many other aspects of one's core identity; ethical situations will be discussed, including how authenticity might derail or support a gift discussion, for example. We will not have all the answers, but we will seek to provide an honest and--we believe--much-needed conversation.

CASE Competencies: Global and Cultural Competence: Integrity and Professionalism; Relationship Building; Emotional Intelligence; Strategic Thinking; Leadership

Hear from women leaders who have transitioned into a new role as university president as they share lessons learned and strategies to ensure success for future University and Advancement leaders.

About 15 percent of the world's population lives with a disability - including many of your alumni. The choices you make in engaging them can be the difference between inclusion and exclusion. In this session, we will explore major topics around accessibility, including breaking down why accessibility is so important in alumni programming. Participants will walk away from this presentation with a set of actionable tools and strategies to promote accessibility within event and engagement planning, on websites, and in digital communication. This presentation will be appropriate for both new and seasoned alumni engagement professionals.

CASE Competencies: Relationship Building; Strategic Thinking; Leadership

The Advancement teams at Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association have been working together on a coordinated effort to collect and utilize interest information with an eye toward improving prospect identification, increasing participation rates and enhancing constituent engagement opportunities. This session will discuss the journey leading up to the formation of our cross-functional Interest Tagging Workgroup, projects undertaken to collect interests along with plans for on-going data collection and usage.

CASE Competencies: Global and Cultural Competence; Integrity and Professionalism; Relationship Building; Emotional Intelligence; Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking; Leadership

Workplaces often say, "be yourself" but the reality is everyone isn't afforded the opportunity of true authenticity. So, how do we create spaces for people to feel comfortable with their race, ethnicity, culture, dialect, and more? This session explores the ways to tackle unconscious bias, create spaces of belonging, and discovering moments to thrive in the diversity, equity, and inclusion policies our institutions have. This is an interactive session, providing participants opportunities to create space for authenticity.

CASE Competencies: Business and Financial Acumen; Relationship Building; Emotional Intelligence; Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking; Leadership

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!

CASE Competencies: Relationship Building; Emotional Intelligence; Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking; Leadership

Special Events are well-camouflaged marketing tools which effectively builds relationships. A magical special event lives in the guests' memories and provides a shared experience. Strategic donor events create momentum and conversations. This session will help you avoid the predictability of rinse and repeat events that bore you and your benefactors. With a flick of the magic wand, you will learn the science and art of creating WOW events, from high-end excursions to board meetings without dogs and ponies.

CASE Competencies: Business and Financial Acumen; Relationship Building; Emotional Intelligence; Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking; Leadership

Can increased understanding across roles improve your organization’s advancement performance? Upon completing Plus Delta Fundraiser Training, this seasoned advancement services professional had the enormously valuable opportunity to take on frontline major gift fundraising and it transformed the way I work. Gaining a true understanding of the reality of the lead funnel (and what it means for building portfolios), the autonomy required to successfully raise major gifts (and the importance of supporting freedom within structure), and technology gaps (including the resulting impact on productivity) are just a few of the insights from this experience. Example resulting process/policy changes will be shared.

In preparation for an upcoming campaign, the prospect development team at the University of St. Thomas recognized significant gaps in how to both track and measure the overall health of the prospect pipeline. To address these gaps, prospect development, in close collaboration with development and systems teams, implemented a comprehensive moves management, stage aging, proposal pipeline and revenue forecasting system. Learn from both prospect development and advancement leadership about the implementation process and resulting positive outcomes, including pipeline clarity and transparency, streamlined, efficient, and realistic annual goal setting, increased collaboration across advancement teams, and next steps for continuous process improvement.

CASE Competencies: Industry or Sector Expertise; Strategic Thinking

By embracing a data-driven approach, today’s educational fundraisers better understand what motivates donors to give and their capacity to give. In this session, we extract actionable insights and how-to’s from an anonymous, aggregate study across 1,000+ schools to showcase how to optimize conversion in online fundraising. This session will show you how a current GiveCampus partner, Otterbein University, is adapting their online fundraising strategy based on data. Hear from Otterbein leadership on how to approach change in solicitation strategies with your own leadership. Leave with an understanding of current giving trends and actionable next steps for updating and upgrading your fundraising toolbox.

Change is inevitable, and in Higher Education, it happens often.  Whether it’s a new Dean, Vice Chancellor for Advancement, or a new Chancellor/President, you’ll likely have to contend with bold new visions, data-driven expectations, and aspirational goals. How do you make development a priority during what could be a time of turmoil? How do you as the advancement professional transition to a new leader while keeping the momentum going of the past leadership? As people who have recently been through such leadership change, we hope to facilitate a discussion that highlights successful approaches to keep donors and staff happy.