We all know that being aligned around a common goal and working in unison is how you achieve success but what does it look like in a complex university environment undergoing a campaign? In this session, we will explore how the University of San Diego structured its advancement staffing, aligned each department within Advancement around campaign goals and processes, built custom strategies for specific schools and projects within the comprehensive campaign, established a campaign budget, and more. Lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid will also be shared.

More than 40% of Boise State graduates have graduated in the last ten years, making the near-majority of our alumni either Millennials or Gen Z. And yet, this demographic is most often the least engaged when it comes to philanthropy towards higher education. By flipping the script and taking a strategic cause-based approach to giving day, Boise State more effectively aligned itself, and higher education in general, with the societal causes that resonate most with these demographics. This approach resulted in a record-breaking giving day with $566,388 gifted, a 74% increase in digital impressions, and a 59% increase in alumni giving with the greatest giving amongst alumni, in both dollars and numbers, coming from our Broncos Of the Last Decade. Join Boise State professionals as they provide a step-by-step guide and take-away toolkit to instituting a cause-based giving day.

Explore the exciting resurgence of Parent Engagement on college campuses. Discover the art of providing tailored engagement opportunities for parents and families while effectively showcasing the wealth of resources your institution has to offer. You'll learn the strategic steps to cultivate these partnerships, harnessing their power to engage your parental audience and benefit your campus partners. We'll also dive into how to create boundaries for parent engagement and best practices for online involvement with parent advocates.

Many of us have been there (or are about to be there). You have worked so hard to reach this point, after the comprehensive fundraising campaign has publicly launched -- but now what? How do you keep it fresh and top of mind for your alumni and friends? This session will cover how the University of California, Irvine used earned (PR), owned (our websites/videos/newsletters) and marketing (paid) efforts during the campaign lifecycle. We will share what has worked for us: processes, programs, collaborations, and more.

As a higher education professional, you know the importance of engaging alumni and creating meaningful connections goes well beyond graduation day. In this session, we'll explore how to leverage the existing activities at your university to gather alumni and make an impact on local communities. This session will showcase how to enhance your various events to foster alumni engagement, and create positive change; and will show how you can get the media to tell these stories along the way. Attendees will leave with specific ideas to strengthen their events and create meaningful connections that benefit both the university and the community.

Ready, Set, Go - Pomona College’s Technology Transformation

Get ready to hear all about the working plan that will transform and ascend Pomona College’s Advancement Operations into the future. Shalonda Martin and Rodger Devine join Caroline Chang and Karen Latora in an open discussion about their plan and pathway to their new CRM Digital Transformation Project.

Learn all about what it took to get to that Go Moment. The moment they began this journey. The team will talk about:

Budget
Communications
Staffing
System Selection
Implementation

Hear the real scoop, to help you in your planning and journey towards your own Technology Transformation.

At the intersection of UBC’s vision to inspire people, ideas and actions for a better world and its institutional mission to foster discourse, knowledge exchange and engagement, UBC mobilizes EDI-related research and expert knowledge to spotlight and encourage discourse around JEDI issues/topics. This session highlights the journey the Brand and Marketing team is on to build inclusive marketing capacities and diversify its content and storytelling to uplift under-represented, marginalized and equity-deserving voices at UBC and beyond. Marketing communications professionals will hear how a holistic inclusive marketing approach has helped UBC live its commitment to anti-racism and inclusive excellence.

Legacy gifts generally are the largest and most personal gifts individuals will make during their lifetimes so why do some fundraisers fear or avoid having these conversations with their donors? Legacy gifts are too complex, it’s uncomfortable to discuss death, a person’s estate is private…we’ve heard it all before. But the key to having a successful legacy gift program is to reframe your perspective on what legacy giving is and how you approach the conversation with the donor…you’re just planting the seed and providing helpful information!

In this session, we’ll discuss how you can incorporate legacy giving into your current fundraising strategy, identify good legacy giving prospects, and talk about legacy giving with every donor – whether they’re 25 or 105!

For too long, college and university alumni and donor engagement strategies have relied on the programs of old - reunions, committees, gift societies, boards, and events - that are open to everyone but not always welcoming to all. In the digital age of virtual activities and social media - and as my 101 grandma from Georgia would have said - "ain't nobody got time for that!" Join us as we take engagement apart piece by piece through a series of exercises that will reveal new directions for your alumni and donor initiatives centered around the identities they create with their alma mater. Our core questions will include:
(1) What are the unwritten promises on a college diploma?,
(2) How do we address our constituents' library of needs?, and
(3) What do we want alumni and donors to be saying about the value of engagement with us?
Set your expectations high for a challenging workshop and discussion. To participate, you will need:
*A blank piece of 8.5"x11" paper
*A pen
*Six notecards
*An openness for first-draft thinking and
*sharing not-yet-fully-formed thoughts with you peers.

Are you curious about emerging leadership trends? Do you want to create a thriving team culture? During this session we will explore key leadership trends and share how they can be leveraged to create an inclusive and prosperous team environment. We will engage in conversations about proactively navigating our ever-changing work landscape. The panelists will share their diverse experience creating a thriving culture that fosters professional growth. This session is designed for the informal and formal leader who wants to be an intentional and effective player-coach.