Mentoring is happening everywhere. It is a proven initiative that delivers results across employability and volunteering engagement. The challenge is that such programmes are often labour intensive and typically only benefit a tiny fraction of your community. The very best programmes are run by dedicated professionals, carefully hand-picking matches and personally stewarding relationships. Attempts to scale-up often compromise the special human ingredient that makes these programmes succeed. Join Daniel as he comprehensively sets out the various models you have for a mentoring programme and how to choose the right path for your institution. Daniel will also share the results of Aluminati’s large-scale research paper on the effect of mentoring on employability and introduce an innovative new 'best of both' solution developed by Aluminati that combines high-tech AND high-touch

The campaign for the University and Colleges of Cambridge, the largest in Cambridge’s history, has recently closed after surpassing its target, raising more than £2.2bn. Over 80,000 alumni donated to the University and Colleges throughout the campaign, and committed thousands of volunteer hours to Cambridge. More than 400 academic-related posts received philanthropic support in subjects ranging from crop science to climate law, and Cambridge's world-leading research in areas like the early detection of cancer, public policy and rethinking the measures of economic progress, and understanding the causes of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinsons have all been advanced as a result. During the campaign, Cambridge secured the largest single gift ever given to a UK organisation by a UK national - the extraordinary £100 million gift from the Claudia and David Harding Foundation. Hear from Alison as she discusses with John Glier, CEO of GG+A, some of the key highlights, challenges, and learnings from leading such a pivotal campaign.

Join us for a riveting panel discussion on building a strong alumni community with a bold value proposition. This must-attend event brings together a lineup of esteemed leaders in the field, including Laetitia Fatio of Alumni HEC Lausanne; Rachel Bray of CERN Alumni Relations; and Sandra Rincón, a renowned author, researcher, and trainer specializing in Global Alumni Engagement. The panel will be moderated by Chelsea Choppy, community expert with Hivebrite. Centred around the crucial concept of defining your community's value proposition, this discussion will guide you through the process of crafting a strong value proposition that resonates with your membership and explore how it sets you and your community up for success. We’ll also explore strategies for growing and expanding alumni communities while maintaining engagement with existing members, plus the secrets to creating a harmonious and supportive team structure, including with stakeholders. Finally, the panellists will speak to data analysis and decision-making, exploring how data-driven strategies can revolutionize your community-building efforts and elevate your alumni engagement. Join us for this exciting discussion and level-up your community-building efforts.

Quietly in the background, we’ve been working on something rather exciting - a new platform that will help teams to increase online engagement. In this session, you’ll hear from the Hubbub team about how our new platform can be used for a variety of activities related to increasing engagement and conversion - from alumni engagement to regular giving and from major gifts to student recruitment.

This is a practical session that will cover how to find out useful information about the USA foundation sector generally, as well as how to find information about specific foundations. It will also cover "what to do" and "what not to do" when cultivating and soliciting a USA foundation.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that the Covid-19 pandemic (2019-2022) significantly changed our lives. The performing arts faced the most significant crisis in living memory, profoundly affecting professionals in the field. Thus, philanthropy is needed more than ever if the performing arts and higher education institutions can continue to deliver outstanding education, outreach, and research. A deeper understanding of our donors’ beliefs, thoughts and feelings can help. This session will explore this further, presenting new research on the relationship between well-being and giving to others in music education in the conservatoire setting – can giving be good for you?

Alumni programmes can feel 'off-the-shelf', rather than bespoke to an institution. How do you create something unique to your organisation, which reflects the reasons your alumni chose you in the first place? In 'What's under the Kilt?' Kerrie and Abby will share how their team refocused the Alumni & Development strategy in line with Aston's emphasis on professional development and career success. It will include a sneak peek under Aston’s kilt at their brand-new personalised alumni offer. The session will be highly interactive and engaging, with takeaways for those new to the sector, mid-career, senior or just curious!

If you’ve ever been affected by twisted algorithms, angry customers, restricted budgets or any of the hundreds of other things stacked against Team Social, this is the session for you. You’re Never Going To Win is based on over 10 years of work in social media for the education sector, bringing you real-life tales from the front line of social. A cathartic group therapy for the stressed and tired social media teams (probably of one), accepting the realities of a life in social and what you can do to feel better about it.

Unlock the potential of your alumni community to support your EDI efforts! Join our session to discover how the University of Nottingham is collecting the data needed to drive meaningful strategic change and working collaboratively with alumni and supporters to address the university's EDI challenges. Learn practical strategies, hear case studies and best practices for leveraging the passion and expertise of your volunteer network.

In 2020 Warwick merged two very separate Development and Alumni Engagement teams, each at very different stages of evolution. A new strategy was needed, along with a new team culture, built on collaboration and trust. During this session, Deputy Directors for Alumni & Supporter Engagement, and Philanthropy, will share how they approached building an integrated team with a collaborative vision and strategy that now - almost three years on - is in the process of planning for a major institutional campaign, giving insight into the use of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Behaviours projects delivered along the way.