#BumpItForward was created during the second COVID-19 wave - asking donors to pay forward the cost of their vaccine to protect healthcare workers in African countries until the vaccine reached them. Created and launched in less than 72 hours, the campaign far exceeded its funding goal, but also challenged institutional preconceptions about public understanding and engagement with our cause and raised our ambitions about what might be possible for future campaigns.

The European Commission has launched the European Universities Initiative: "The aim of this initiative is to bring together a new generation of creative Europeans able to cooperate across languages, borders and disciplines to address societal challenges and skills shortages faced in Europe." Universities are developing consortiums with the ultimate goal to merge and become large multinational European universities. RTU is part of European University of Technology (EUt) and one of the tasks is creating a Foundation that will support EUt and ensure the involvement of private investors.  How alumni relations and development will be shaped there? There are more questions than answers for now but we all must prepare for this future as European Commission is decisively investing in this idea.

Do you run a small shop? Have challenging targets, a tiny team, and no idea where to start? JOIN US. Part workshop/part support group, in this practical session, we tackle the real problems we all face and take pen to paper to sketch out the year ahead.

From not enough hours in a day, how to manage expectations, how to find fundraising projects, how to do the stuff that matters, how to deal with people constantly talking about low hanging fruit, or how to build a culture of philanthropy outside of your office doors, no issue is too big or small. Tweet your challenges to @brownrach and we will cover as many as possible.

We can’t promise to solve them all, but we aim to send you on your way with somewhere to start.

In 2018, the Universities of Glasgow, The University of Edinburgh, and IntoUniversity launched a collaborative fundraising campaign to bring to Scotland IntoUniversity’s proven model of raising aspiration amongst disadvantaged communities, driven by a commitment to serve Scotland’s young people. Donors increasingly expect organisations they support to collaborate rather than address societal issues in silos. Come learn about building a truly collaborative programme that calls on the strengths and insights of different teams (including fundraising, widening participation, and communications), inspires donors, motivates staff, and achieves the desired impact, in this case the opening of IntoUniversity's first community-based learning centres in Scotland. The session will cover both the key strategic and operational factors that were integral to success and recent recognition with a CASE Circle of Excellence Gold Award.

GG+A’s SurveyLab team analyses responses from more than 100,000 people every year – through surveys for specific client purposes, and also through our Donor Experience Dashboard (DX) which allows donors to feedback on their experiences of giving. We almost invariably ask alumni, donors, and friends is to tell us how connected they feel to their institutions, and we always see a gap between the pride they feel in these institutions and the level of connectedness they report. What determines who will have a high or low level of connectedness? And most importantly, what action can you take to change it? Join GG+A as they unpack the findings of surveying for institutions large and small, all over the world.

Let’s get personal! Three different perspectives on three different aspects of what makes corporate fundraising successful: How to get to business leaders, how to build capacity inside your organisation and how to engage volunteers, boards and campaign committees. Be prepared to see your way of doing things be challenged, gain practical insights into the ‘how it works’ in Europe and beyond and learn which strategies from abroad might help you.

Your student fundraising team carries the lion’s share of the responsibility when it comes to converting and engaging your alumni and donors. It is largely up to them to deliver a positive experience for potential donors and, ultimately, inspire them to make a financial contribution. Despite this, oftentimes insufficient investment is made in recruiting and developing the best team for the task. This session will look at topics such as student recruitment, training, development, motivation, incentives, retention, and team-building. Your students are taking on what is arguably the toughest job in the development team and placing themselves on the very front line of your institution’s fundraising efforts. With this in mind, this entirely student-focused session will ensure that you and your team are set up for maximum success

During this session, we will present and discuss insights from the Advancement Services Survey, created by Salesforce.org and CASE, aimed at understanding how Higher Education professionals across Europe approach digital transformation, the immediate impact of COVID-19 on their plans and strategies. We will also discuss what the future for Advancement Services could look like.

Listen to the hottest debate at the conference! A panel of higher education leaders will debate the motion: “This house believes that fundraising is disconnected from the core mission of universities, ceasing fundraising would have little or no impact on most universities.”

In July 2010, Lisa and Josh Greer went from 'living paycheck to paycheck to the 1% literally overnight'. They set about acting philanthropically but found themselves met with obstacles, 'formulaic chuminess', and dinners that amounted to 'being [publicly] strong-armed' to give. In short, Lisa felt like she and Josh were being treated like walking ATMs.

With her time dedicated to philanthropy, Lisa set to investigate and change big philanthropy so that other new donors wouldn't be put off giving in the way that she could have been. In this conversation, Lisa will share her findings and give us fundraisers a chance to listen to a donor's views - without also thinking about how we're going to ask them for money.