The British Council has launched Alumni UK, a global alumni programme to attract and increase long-term engagement with international alumni of UK higher education institutions (HEIs). A digital platform to support networking and offer learning opportunities is a central element, along with activities in selected countries. There is also an opportunity to use this growing network to gain insights into the student experience in the UK from the alumni perspective. Join this breakfast roundtable to learn more about Alumni UK's offer to international alumni, how it complements the alumni engagement work of UK HEIs and upcoming research plans that will be of use to the sector. This will be an informal and interactive session. It is a chance for you to feed into the UK's global alumni programme while it it's still in the initiation stage to ensure that it reflects the needs of the UK's higher education sector and its international alumni.

As a mid-career professional in Advancement, Frieda Strachan (Data & Systems Manager, University of Aberdeen) is excited to share their experience in preparing the organisation for a successful institutional campaign with support from Chris Webber (Customer Success Manager, Blackbaud). We will share how we transformed office culture and gained confidence in interpreting our valuable data in order to build infrastructure that allows us to understand fundraising activity. Our preparation created a collaboration with our finance team - a key outcome metric for delivering our campaign, that positions our organisation for success over the next ten years of the campaign.

Join two fundraisers from Cambridge in America (Danielle Green, Director of Annual Giving & Marketing and Ashley Smith, Director of Development & Regional Strategy) for an engaging discussion on working with your US alumni population. What are the biggest differences you’ve noticed between your US vs. European alumni? What has surprised you? What challenges would you like to tackle? We will cover topics ranging from navigating cultural attitudes towards philanthropy to differences in communication strategies for your US audience to effective ways to engage alumni via volunteer opportunities and events.

Here’s an interesting statistic from a survey of 130+ higher-ed institutions in the UK. When asked how connected alumni felt with their university (on a scale of 1-10), the average rating was a mere 4.8. Furthermore, only about 9% of the alumni surveyed have made a donation to their university. How can our industry reverse this downward trend by building alumni communities and a healthy pipeline of loyal donors? That’s exactly what we’ll discuss during our roundtable session. Join us for a continuation of our previous session. This is your opportunity to exchange and brainstorm ideas with like-minded professionals working towards a common goal. Don’t miss out!

The University of Limerick had never implemented a large-scale marketing campaign solely focused on postgraduate study options. The launch of a new university strategy, increased focus on PG recruitment, and a new devolved marketing model changed everything. With small budgets but grand ambitions, we started by researching this core audience group, figuring out what they wanted from their uni and for themselves and brainstorming a campaign creative completely in-house that would inspire them to take action and follow their ambitions. Targeted peer-to-peer communication was the most authentic and impactful messaging we could offer, we knew had to ‘show, not tell’, bringing to life journeys students could identify with and imagine for themselves. We also had to bring all UL colleagues with us and stay true to the university brand. In this session we will bring you through the steps of the campaign strategy and implementation and how achieving buyin throughout the University helped it to gather momentum. We hope to also reaffirm that there is phenomenal experience and marketing expertise in universities and how small budgets should not stop our big ideas. We hope as a group roundtable we can discuss the obstacles we all face to deliver effective campaigns and help each other overcome them.

An opportunity to discuss practical actions and behaviours that can help shape an anti-racist culture across the institution, and influence the day-to-day practice of advancement professionals.

UCAS is the authority on university choices in the UK, and they want to make the decision-making process easier, by increasing transparency. And they have a wealth of data allowing them to do just that. But how do you visualise an insane amount of data succinctly? And when you present this to prospective students, do they react emotionally, or rationally?

You'll find out how UCAS communicated with the sector to traverse the sensitive nature of this proposal, see it take shape with user testing, and learn about UCAS cementing itself as the go-to destination for all higher education choices.

This session will explore the ingredients of an effective promotional (marketing and communications) campaign for universities. It will draw on examples from many universities around the world and include a particular focus on Monash University's #ChangeIt campaign - with the campaign leader providing the details of this campaign as a shining global example. We'll look at campaigns that build brand awareness, project certain brand values, and provide a compelling narrative. There's been a particular growth in how universities promote their (academic) research strengths and credentials - so we'll be providing examples of these campaigns and the benefits. This will be a case study session - with a senior speaker from Monash University providing details of the #ChangeIt campaign and an experienced global communications consultant providing a range of examples and drawing out the commonalities that make such campaigns impactful and successful.

The minute you walked through the university I could see you were a grateful individual A real big spender Good mannered, so inspired Say, wouldn't you like to know what's goin' on your alma matter? So let me get right to the point I want to show our stories to every alumni Hey big spender, Pay a little attention to me Wouldn't you like to feel good, good, good How's about a few stories, stories I could show what we've been up to Let me show you what we've been up to!

In this session, Professor Richard J Aldrich, an expert on intelligence and security studies, at the University of Warwick, and Matt Ferguson, Warwick’s Director of Development will make the case for what the world of philanthropy can learn from the world of security services and professional intelligence gathering. This session is less about dead letter drops and shaken martinis than about how we build relationships that provide us with crucial philanthropic information, how do we motivate prospects do make bigger gifts then they ever have before, how should we deploy influencers and surrogates, and how can we anticipate the pitfalls – classic major gifts conundrums re-explored through the lens of espionage and tradecraft. Professor Aldrich’s work is well known for his documentaries on the history of intelligence on Channel 4, ITV, and BBC 2.