You can be a hero to your end users, your colleagues and community through the power of a virtual tour! Learn how to put together an engaging self-directed virtual tour using in-house resources. Uncover how to best utilize your school's assets to create a sustainable production that will make users feel like they are on a campus tour with you. A new way to introduce the end user to your community, a virtual tour is a great way to both acquaint and reacquaint target audiences with your institution. The tour also builds your admissions funnel and engages alumni. In this session, we will share how we put together a cost-effective award-winning virtual tour with minimal resources—you can even make one using just your cell phone—and provide tips and tricks to provide your constituencies with a high-quality interactive experience for a low cost while mining the data provided by the platforms.

Times are changing at a whirlwind pace. The way we engage with prospective donors, alumni and families is rapidly shifting. For too long, advancement teams have focused almost exclusively on the giving funnel—nurturing prospect relationships from engagement through gift. Keeping constituents engaged through this journey is critical, but it’s no longer enough to sustain our catholic schools. To meet our advancement and fundraising goals nowadays, we have to nurture donors for the entirety of their education journey digitally and face to face.

Established in 2021, the CASE Opportunity and Inclusion Center (OIC) exists to provide a body of work and services to assist advancement professionals enhance their proficiencies in serving more diverse university communities. In this session, schools will learn about the DEIB tools and resources that CASE and the OIC can offer in addition to DEIB strategies for advancement professional growth and organizational change.

How do we authentically honor and commit to our equity goals while raising the most money for our institutions possible? What questions do we need to ask to get us there? In this session, we will explore the relationship between Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Development work in our school, recognizing the benefits of the strong partnership. As the Development Director and DEIB Director from The Spence School, a NYC K-12 girl’s school, we will share our approaches and some of the ways the partnership has benefited our school. We will then offer an approach and an equity framework that we can use as tools to examine how we approach fundraising, volunteering, parent and alumnae programming, office culture, hiring and talent development and so much more. Join us if you are interested in deepening your practices, and bring your ideas. We will have time to plan concrete steps to make your advancement program more inclusive!

This session will discuss how the Lycée Français de New York relaunched it's Senior Class gift as a collaboration between the development office, students, and parents.

Robert Cottle, VP of Advancement at Fairfield College Preparatory School, knew that his team could improve donor participation and build relationships in pursuit of a more sustainable future for the institution. Teaming up with EverTrue, Fairfield Prep created a new position in their Advancement organization: the Donor Experience Officer (DXO).

Powered by data insights and a clear strategy, a Donor Experience Officer has begun working to deliver high-volume, personalized outreach to more donors. By using a cadence-based approach, their Donor Experience program is strategically targeting donors with giving and affinity indicators to book meetings and have continued, intentional conversations throughout the year. The goal is to reinforce relationships through multiple touchpoints that are scalable, rather than relying on an annual solicitation or reactive stewardship.

Tune in to learn the ins-and-outs of this exciting program and what’s next for Fairfield Prep!

Are you looking for a meaningful and authentic way to engage your community's leaders and closest friends to unearth new major gifts? This session on the strategic planning interview will allow you to experience for yourself the value of asking and being asked the right questions. Participants will partner with another attendee and participate in a questioning process that helps to engage donors and future donors in a productive way. We will experience the process together by taking on both the role of questioner and listener and sharing the experience of being in those roles. We will also discuss the details of how to get an appointment for the interview, questions to ask, and next steps. This is ideal for major gifts officers and heads of school and is also useful for those just starting out at a school and want to get to know the community better.

Join Cara Giacomini, VP of Data, Research, and Technology (CASE) and Hilary LaMonte, SVP, Data and Analysis for School Leadership (NAIS) to discuss the future of advancement data and benchmarking. Bring your questions, your ideas, and your curiosity as we talk about the next big step in measuring and analyzing our progress toward our goals. This session will be a mix of formal and informal discussion and is designed as a follow up to this morning’s Key Session. 

The Ellis School’s social media campaign, which makes students the marketing voice of the school, drove up website sessions 133%. And it’s finding more right-fit families, the most elusive catch in the admissions world.

So what’s holding your school back from making a true leap into social? Maybe you’re thinking: Is it worth my time? Do we have enough social followers to make a noticeable impact? Will our investment even pay off?

This session highlights the key elements you need to launch and track an effective social media marketing campaign.

Learn how to:

• Build a brand that attracts the students you want most
• Let your students be the marketing voice of your school
• Include your curriculum in your storytelling
• Use video to target prospective students — not just parents
• Deploy stories across channels and audiences strategically
• Leverage both paid and organic social media

The lessons learned from the Ellis School team — which created nearly 40 profiles to share across channels and increased social media clicks 238% shortly after campaign launch — could apply to your school.
 

Every non-profit organization, school or institution put forth a monumental effort during an extremely difficult year and a half. To successfully connect with our constituents and inspire support, we have had to be nimble, courageous, creative, collaborative, gracious, and grateful. What will the new reality hold? How can we meaningfully engage our communities, virtually and in-person, locally and beyond? Join this session to hear a few innovative hybrid approaches that have been working for communications, events, and raising support, and to brainstorm what might be possible for your team to accomplish in the year to come.