The launch of the alumni affinity network program at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management came at a difficult time and yet is building the most important relationships we can have with our diverse alumni populations. During a time of virtual work and racial discourse centered in Minneapolis, the Carlson School’s alumni decided to come together to build the community they needed. The program includes unique networks for women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ individuals. Learn more about the importance of a volunteer-led program, successes and challenges, and next steps.

Your giving day just broke another record. Time to do it again. So, what’s next? How do you amplify engagement and excitement for something we’re all doing every year? Join us for this panel discussion of how to “level up” your giving day with things like social engagement, new giving methods, multi-tiered challenges, competitions, and elite level volunteers to keep excitement high. We will also share key pivots and changes institutions made during the pandemic- and what worked. And, we'll take a look at data on over $500M in results across higher education to see key benchmarks, metrics, and new tactics are as you take your giving day to the next level.

Movies have a way of bringing people together and broadening our perspectives which is why they can be an incredible tool to engage alumni, students, faculty and staff in important conversations. This presentation will outline how a movie club centered around DE&I and social justice topics can add value to any alumni strategy looking to reach disengaged alumni. By the end of the presentation, participants will learn how to implement an online social justice movie club with zero cost and only a few hours of staff time each month.

Alumni Volunteer is a cross-campus initiative connecting alumni with volunteer opportunities, hosted by University of Michigan affiliated groups, that honor alumni’s interdisciplinary expertise and general passion for volunteerism. Beginning with a vision to create a marketplace allowing campus partners and clubs to post opportunities, our business model has expanded to include community organizations that sometimes are run by U-M alumni. Since the launch of Alumni Volunteer in January 2021, we have received positive feedback and a growing number of alumni eager to support opportunities benefiting our University and the community.

This interactive workshop will guide you through the strategy, steps and storytelling to coach faculty, researchers and other partners through the development of their ideal "elevator speeches" so that they can bring their life's work to life for any audience.

Have you inherited an alumni program that needs resuscitation? Do you need to leverage volunteers to stop your program from circling the drain? Has your alumni board faded away, or was there no alumni board when you arrived? Let’s explore techniques to avoid leaving your alumni program and board on life support! Highlands University alumni board presidents and staff will share their work-in-progress best practices for building a thriving, engaging alumni outreach and a working alumni board, inspiring greater engagement and giving at all levels to the university.

Advancement organizations are increasingly seeking to unlock the potential of engaging underrepresented communities of their alumni bases (BIPOC, LGBTQ, First Generation, etc.). Sometimes, despite best efforts to be inclusive, messages can be interpreted as culturally insensitive and/or tone deaf. It is critical to our organizations to effectively communicate our intended messages, but also understand that words and images have different meanings to varying communities. Session participants will experience and assess examples of such communications, and will develop tools to making outreach strategies more relevant to the intended audiences.

When COVID hit, Miami University decided to help alumni with what it does best: education. The Alumni Association partnered to create an online professional development course free to all alumni: the miniMBA. Conceived and launched in just under two months, the program had more than 7,000 initial registrants with more than half going on to complete the course. The panel will lead you through the process, from conception to marketing to using data to drive future revenue-generating online degree programs.

In this session, we will discuss how best to build the capacity to secure transformational gifts at your institution using a framework that looks at the various elements: The relationship with the donor, academic leader(s), the vision, the business model, and extraordinary stewardship. The Grainger College of Engineering shall serve as a case study in how these elements work together in extraordinary ways.