Telling the story of the women who helped build your community is a crucial part of a comprehensive giving strategy. Whether you’re honoring family, staff, or alumnae, centering women in your campaigns means giving a historically ignored group a chance to guide the present and future of your institution.

In this session, you'll learn how, in honor of the 50th anniversary of their school embracing co-education, Western Reserve Academy blew past their initial goal of $1 million with their 50 Brilliant Years of Women campaign. Western Reserve Academy achieved this by centering their fundraising strategy around continuously recognizing and honoring the inspiring women of their community, past, present, and future. You'll also learn specific strategies you can use to do the same no matter the group you want to spotlight. From hosting strategic events to utilizing alumni awards, and using data to guide your fundraising decisions, you’ll have all the tools you need to tell the whole story of your institution.

Are you ready to engage your next generation of major donors?

When was the last time a supervisor, colleague, or client asked for something that sent you down a big, complicated rabbit hole? 10 minutes ago? 5 minutes ago? We can spend ridiculous amounts of time researching, understanding, drafting, revising -- and wondering what we're missing. Artificial Intelligence can help take the pressure off by taking on some of your most mind-numbing tasks. Need a content strategy? ChatGPT can whip one up in seconds. Need to optimize a web page for search? Bard can crunch your Google Analytics and Search Console data and give you meaningful suggestions. Need to edit an image? Tools like Adobe Firefly make it easy. Find out how AI can be used to debug code, create reports, write proposals, generate web copy and so much more.

How often have you been faced with the following questions: 1) Who are the top employers of our alumni? 2) Are there alumni working in XYZ who are available to meet with students? 3) What’s the value of a [insert area of study] college degree? In this session, we will share how the Advancement team at the University of Northern Colorado built a public-facing Power BI dashboard reflecting real-time alumni employment outcomes. We will cover topics including: 1) Data acquisition and standardization; 2) Dashboard creation and iteration; 3) Change management and community/alumni partnerships.

The alumni and donor lifecycles show how to engage populations at various stages to create institutional affinity, support and giving. An essential preliminary step is to bridge the gap from student to engaged alum. In this session, we'll share our results-driven "Alumni 101" strategy and multichannel marcomms tactics for capturing new graduates while they're still listening.

During the COVID pandemic, a group of alumni created a nostalgic environment via Facebook to stay connected to their alma mater. Excitement was apparent, and the CMU Alumni Engagement team worked with a dedicated group of volunteers to produce a fun-filled reunion weekend. We listened to their hopes and dreams, and partnered with the campus and Mt. Pleasant community to implement the three-day long event, all while empowering our volunteers to lead. Our commitment to this dedicated group of volunteers has ultimately led to increased alumni engagement via first-time attendees, donors, and contributed to overall economic growth during a “slow” weekend in Mt. Pleasant. The biggest hit of the weekend was the chance to truly relive their time at CMU and move BACK into the residence halls on campus. This was so successful that our Residence Life department has since opened up a recently retired hall to alumni for special events and occasions to accommodate steadily increasing demand. This new tradition continues to evolve as new ideas for alumni programming converge with growing interest from campus partners.

The higher education landscape has continued to change in recent years, including the need for bold messaging everywhere that our audiences are. Screen usage has increased dramatically over the past decade, with all demographics reading information online, engaging with social media networks, streaming shows, video conferencing, and even attending classes virtually more and more.

Needless to say, Luther has chosen to prioritize sharing our story and brand more loudly and intentionally. After the completion of market research, brand research, campaign concept development, attaining internal buy-in, and external market tests, Luther has implemented a bolder look and feel across multiple channels reaching many different audiences.

Luther College’s new website was launched in August 2022 with this new campaign, after just over a year of dedicated work with mStoner, a Carnegie Company. Our focus in this session will be a review of this process: our new brand strategy, approach to information architecture, and the conceptualization of a new governance policy. Now with two website awards and high marks in user experience, we will share what we have learned, what we would have done differently, and what we’re still tackling as we continue to build on this new foundation for Luther’s marketing and communication efforts.

Are you questioning the future of phonathon, rethinking the role of alumni participation rates, moving away from membership models, assessing campaign readiness, or "simply" realizing that you have data gaps in your donor pipeline? Evolve your annual giving and alumni engagement operation and build capacity through technology by launching constituent portfolios to strategically target and scale personalized outreach and outcomes. Using Gravyty’s Raise platform, learn how the University of Northern Colorado deepened its pipeline of donors and volunteers to achieve current and future campaign goals.

Are you struggling with how to fundraise for research? As the competition for philanthropic dollars intensifies, schools and universities face new hurdles in securing vital funding for science and innovation. Benefit from lessons learned in successful fundraising campaigns by a variety of organizations, from large universities to community colleges to other nonprofits. Learn fresh strategies to stand out from the crowd that will captivate and cultivate ultra-high-net-worth philanthropists, foundations, and DAFs toward making transformational gifts to your institution for research.

For most of us, the road to fundraising was accidental. We arrive from completely different careers and wildly unique backgrounds. The path to leadership is just as diverse and, honestly, a little mysterious. Join this panel of Advancement leaders to pull back the curtain on what the top jobs really take. If you’re a new leader, get advice on how to think big, focus on your biggest value, and inspire a culture shift not a culture shock. If you’re an aspiring leader, learn what skills, experiences, and opportunities to seek out that will prepare you for your next step.

Navigating the intricacies of advancement can often be a daunting task for campus partners, leaving them uncertain about who to contact for collaboration and engagement. Such lack of clarity leads to missed opportunities, with events and initiatives unfolding without the valuable input and participation of the advancement office. Miami University’s Division of University Advancement confronted these issues head-on, cultivating a solution that is changing campus partnerships - the Certified Advancement Partner Program (CAPP).

In this session, explore the strategies and structures of CAPP, a pioneering credential program designed to demystify advancement processes and form a cohesive network of true campus partners across diverse campus sectors. Drawing from the practical experiences and challenges encountered at Miami University, this session will offer actionable insights to initiate and sustain a similar partnership-building program within your organization.