For early-career professionals! Attendees will become immersed in the industry through engaging sessions, self-reflection, and peer learning. The format includes an overview of CASE, networking, and mentor pairing. Participants will learn crucial CASE competencies such as relationship building and leadership, as well as explore how their strengths can help them thrive in their current jobs and throughout their careers. Attendees will walk away with valuable skills to successfully navigate the early phases of their professional journeys in advancement.

Invisible to Invaluable: Get Seen, Get Heard, Get Ahead - AKA Own it While You Hone it - How to Cultivate Your Organization’s Hidden Potential
How much stronger would your organization be if all your people felt comfortable and safe to contribute their best? Today’s workforce craves to be able to contribute. However, whether because of their own past experiences or because of something within the company culture, they don’t bring their whole selves to work. Just like the story of the Golden Buddha hidden under clay for centuries, there is untapped brilliance within your organization. It’s often hidden under fears, biases, and resentments which hinder productivity, collaboration, and morale. In this interactive keynote, we examine what commonly blocks people from feeling safe to contribute; initiate a journey of self-discovery and give tools and techniques to unleash and share the valuable potential that lies untapped. Using her SUPER8 Formula, Robyn takes you on an empowering journey to:

• Investig8te what may be covering the talent within
• Excav8te untapped or undervalued capabilities and skills
• Communic8te your unique value with unwavering confidence
• Radi8te charismatic presence when communicating
• Advoc8te for yourself and others, fostering a culture of empowerment and support

This session is specifically designed for frontline gift officers in major gifts and gift planning who seek a fresh perspective to move beyond transactional outcomes. Whether just starting out or looking to take your fundraising efforts to the next level, this session offers valuable insights and strategies to “Own the Conversation’ with your donors. During this session, we will explore the tenets of High Probability Fundraising to address the key questions every donor makes on their journey to a meaningful gift. You will learn how to avoid the ‘Transactional Trap’ by inviting donors to engage in a permission-based conversation that sets a transparent agenda, builds deep trust, uncovers true capacity, and secures bigger, more impactful gifts than they ever thought possible.

In this lightning-fast session, we'll condense 25 years of on-staff and client print magazine and higher ed communications experience into 60 ideas that you can use TODAY to make your print publications more read, more loved, and more valuable. We'll discuss how to develop coffee table–worthy publications, we'll share what the research says about the four most valuable pages of your publication, and we'll offer key “engagement engineering” techniques to make your storytelling feedback-friendly. We'll also discuss ways to collaborate effectively with partners across campus to increase the impact of your print publications. Participants will come away with concrete ideas that they can implement immediately and make a real difference for their publications and communications.

As budgets tighten and teams are stretched, finding resources and support can be tricky. During this session, obtain strategies for helping students become an extension of your front-line fundraising team. Learn how annual giving and communications teams can partner to educate students and leverage the power of a digital/social fundraising platform to achieve success. New donors are out there – work with students to identify and mobilize their networks to grow giving and your donor database.

How the University of North Dakota and the University of North Dakota Alumni Association and Foundation created alignment between brands and messaging, strengthening overall brand messaging for the success of the University and Foundation's Campaign. It's all about communication, leadership support, and working smarter together. We'll tell you how we did it.

Hybrid and remote work policies, and opinions, continue to evolve as we head further into post-pandemic work life. Join us as we explore the nuances of various work modalities, addressing the unique demands and expectations faced by advancement teams. We will apply data trends and insights from multiple organizations as a jumping off point for a robust discussion on lessons learned and ideas for the future, from the perspectives of both those managing and those being managed.

This creative and high energy interactive session will address key leadership strategies that are critical in positioning your team for success!
Barbara and Joy's unique blend of leadership styles incorporate relationship strategies, ethics and storytelling techniques that have helped position fundraisers for success in closing major and principal gifts.

We were a disjointed team, faced with everyday barriers: emails, meetings, and missed connections. Morale was plummeting fast. So, in true Dakota State fashion, we decided to UNITE together and RISE above our situation. We embarked on an upward journey into uncharted territory with an everything-in-one project management solution. We didn't map the whole climb at once - we continued to orient towards a common peak, a subsequent point, and course-correcting to higher sights. The journey continues, but it’s elevated visibility across fundraising, marketing, operations, and finance, all while strengthening collaboration campus-wide. In this lively session, we’ll: 1) Share field notes from lessons learned integrating a project management system (like Asana) into everything we do; 2)Spot familiar challenges other crews face; 3) See how the proper framework, patience, and humor help to seamlessly navigate complexity. *We will suggest variations for big and small shops; and options from budget to enterprise systems. The takeaways are moldable to anyone, anywhere, ready to set sail!

I don't even have to cite the statistics around the difficult hiring market, we all are feeling the pain every time we go to hire. Everyone is struggling to find talent and the candidate pools just seem to get smaller and smaller. With almost 10 years of experience in Higher Education and Talent Acquisition, I'm here to offer you some industry best practices and tested examples of how we're tackling the hiring problems at Ohio State University.