The Orchard School had not pursued a campaign in 20 years. Learn how a small development office organized a group of volunteers into a powerhouse campaign cabinet and achieved their campaign goal 18 months ahead of schedule. We will discuss successful campaign goals, improving annual fund challenges, reinvigorating a dormant planned giving program, and how to recruit, train, motivate and retain a top-notch campaign cabinet.

What does making a pisco sour, reviewing scholarships scholarship, and writing postcards have in common? They’re all ways that alumni and friends were successfully engaged virtually that can be easily transitioned into a plan to engage constituent both virtually and in-person. Attend this session to learn how to create a flexible engagement plan that will cater to both in-person and virtual attendees. Participants will also be invited share their successes and failures via virtual engagement.

 

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.

At Ohio State, engagement professionals and Business Intelligence/Data Science partners have developed a new tool to analyze engagement data that we believe will benefit the engagement industry. Successes from this work include: an inclusive, stakeholder-centered definition of “meaningful engagement” that reflects our diverse and digital world; improved data measurement consistency among engagement professionals across the organization; a key performance indicator process that can be applied to other projects (to ask “Why?” and not “What?”); and a dashboard that provides real-time engagement data to analyze impact. Attendees will learn how to apply a Key Performance Indicator method to determine measures of success at their home institutions, plus gain ideas into tools they might want to build or refine at home to help provide real-time data and insights related to measuring the impact of engagement efforts.

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.

Discover the latest trends that impact advancement within your district, across the country, and around the globe. The CASE AMAtlas team will share recent findings from our benchmarking surveys, including the Voluntary Support of Education and Alumni Engagement Metrics. You will also get a sneak peek at data from our Core Metrics pilot (focusing on creating global metrics) and new Campaign Survey.

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 session will highlight how advancement leaders can use the power of data analytics to understand trends, changes, and areas of growth. Through data analytics, the Sinclair Foundation was able to harness hundreds of thousands of diverse data points, and organize them into a structure for trustees, leadership, and donors.

Traditional mentoring programs come with their fair share of challenges. Despite good intentions and best efforts, the matching process can be time-consuming and some pairs simply don’t connect. When COVID-19 forced The Ohio State University Alumni Association to reimagine the Young Alumni Academy experience, we embraced the idea of micro-mentorship, or short-term mentoring relationships. Using this model, alumni now make new connections each month based on industry, identity, and shared life experiences. Join us to learn about the research behind micro-mentorship and how to make it work for your organization!