The demands and expectations placed on institutional leaders continue to increase and change. If we are to see fundraising playing an increased and more impactful role in our universities, it needs to be more strategically positioned.

We will share thoughts and trends on the evolution of leadership both institutional and philanthropic across UK HE and will look at the differences between mission groups. If more of our institutions are to make significant progress in fundraising, how important is it that we crack the leadership thing?

Vice-Chancellors and development professionals will share their thoughts and address some tough questions: what does the profession need to look like to face future challenges? Are leaders willing to make sustained investments to see the returns?

This session will look at the changing face of the student experience as we move from in-person to more blended approaches and its effect on affinity, pride, and connection for those students when they become alumni. As alumni were somewhat disconnected from institutions physical environments – how do we strengthen their connection with this in mind?

How does London’s global university facilitate meaningful connections with prospective students worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic? Can virtual initiatives bridge the location gap and what’s next as the world opens up?

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has changed the way in which universities engage with their global audiences. During this showcase, UCL’s Alumni Relations team will demonstrate their innovative virtual event series. Responding to an institutional challenge, UCL looked to their alumni community for support - facilitating connections between alumni and prospective student offer holders, inspiring the next generation.

Through this case study, UCL will disclose how and why they developed a worldwide virtual event series - exploring the student recruitment journey, looking at where alumni can influence and discussing what’s next in their plans.

The UK and the EU are now living in the post-Brexit world. And for UK universities seeking to recruit and enrol international students from across Europe, this new status quo brings fresh challenges. With EU students no longer granted the same home fee status as their UK counterparts, UK admissions teams must rediscover the EU anew as a potential recruitment market. What’s more, the UK faces renewed competition from international destinations such as Germany and the Netherlands. Join Matt Criddle, Universities Partnerships Manager for BridgeU, as he explores some of the challenges and opportunities arising for post-Brexit international higher ed. Learn more about how EU students’ UK preferences have changed in the most recent application cycle. And hear from BridgeU’s expert customer success team on how and why universities must now take a hyper-localised approach to international school outreach.

Let’s talk Students! They’re at the heart of every university and are central to every marketing strategy, but how well do we really know the students of today?
At Unicom, we pulled together over 250,000 data points, from over 20 hours of focus groups, on a national scale to find out exactly who the students of today are. This means we know the students of today better than anyone else. In our personalisation session we will introduce you to the UK’s student personas, give you data-led insights into students’ attitudes and beliefs, and provide you with a clear roadmap to make your marketing bigger, better and more personalised than ever before.

The key takeaways you’ll get from this session are:

• An introduction to the 5 key students of today: Studious Sophie, All Rounder Amy, Pragmatic Pam, Easy Going Eric and Reluctant Ryan.
• Data-led insight into the attitudes, beliefs, and university decision making processes for each persona and what this means for your marketing activity.
• A practical guide into how you can identify and understand your university’s personas and develop a roadmap towards marketing personalisation. 

Alumni relations and fundraising are universal. It may take different forms and it will be constantly evolving, but they are common to all cultures.

Culture is real. Navigating your way through different cultures is complex and challenging. Yet, cultural literacy is a must-have not a nice-to-have. You will be a better person – as an individual, as a member of your community and as a professional, if you develop your cultural literacy.

This session will focus on cultural competence with the emphasis on cultural intelligence and understanding bias, looking at these through the lens of advancement. Flo and Maarten will address questions such as: how to be an active, attentive and authentic listener; starting with curiosity and humility, understand and be comfortable with your own culture; use it as the platform to understand others. The session will be a presentation liberally interspersed with a mix of video and real-life examples from the speakers and an invitation to all participants to share theirs.

Join Blackbaud’s customer success managers, David Upcraft and Rebecca Williams, for a session packed with insights and best practices to help your institution better leverage technology and data to achieve core business outcomes. They’ll share advancement trends and innovations for identifying and stewarding key influencers, embedding integrated supporter journeys, harnessing rich data from across the institution, engaging new audiences and networks, and ultimately growing your philanthropic income – backed by practical examples from other universities.

Have you been trying to imagine a new-normal, or just impatient to get back to the old-normal? Maybe you’ve taken some time to interrogate what normal was, and wonder whether Advancement in 2019 was really serving our institutions and our communities - or were we just going through the motions? While the public asks fundamental questions about the value and quality of Higher Education and our institutions are shaken by repeated financial, social, and health crises, can we really keep doing what we’ve always done?

Joshua R. Newton serves as Senior Vice-President, Advancement and Alumni Engagement at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Josh is known for his disruptive approach to fundraising and engagement practices, often challenging long-held beliefs and truisms in pursuit of a better experience for Emory alumni and better results for the university. A champion of people, relationships, and insightful strategy over the traditional Advancement playbook, Josh will share his thoughts and vision for our sector in a post-pandemic world and try to help us imagine: what happens now?   

Taking a collaborative approach can add tremendous value to alumni relations and development - whether that collaboration is between the two functions, or with the wider institution. This session will explore collaboration ‘best practice’ from MTU Munster Technological University and from the University of Oxford.

Developing capacity across the University is key to delivering an alumni engagement programme.  Whether you have a one, two or 10-person alumni function, you are eventually going to run out of capacity to support the tens of thousands of alumni, unless you collaborate. 

Glynis Gardiner from MTU Munster Technological University will share how she developed alumni engagement programmes by collaborating with colleagues and units across the university. The initiatives and programmes that were developed will be discussed and the impact of these programmes will be shared. 

From an advancement perspective, the move to online events and engagement over the past 18 months has brought many challenges, but has also created unprecedented opportunities to connect with our alumni audiences. How can we ensure we are making the most of these?

Reflecting on her experience of joining Oxford's Department of Physics six days before the start of lockdown, Lisa Willmot will share how she leveraged its alumni relations programme to create space to talk about development - across major gifts, legacies and individual giving. She will explore how, by connecting different teams and activities across the department and wider University, an alumni relations programme which traditionally has never had advancement as part of its remit can be adapted to create opportunities for philanthropic gifts.

Being a fundraiser is surprisingly similar to being a parent or carer: from helping a donor to take their first steps in philanthropy to celebrating their graduation and creating special memories along the way. Join new mum Hannah Langford as she reflects on lessons learned from her first year as a mum including how to manage difficult personalities, expectations, and boundaries, treating everyone equally, explaining differences and doing your share of the chores...and all without tears before bedtime!