All schools want to know what their alumni think and how to better engage with them. But what does deep listening mean and how does that translate into tangible engagement? In this informative session, learn how one independent school embarked on a year-long process of pause, reflection and assessment in order to hear – truly hear – what alumni and donors think and feel. Discover the building blocks that any school can employ to engage with its community, such as surveys and interactive sessions, and how to share your results in meaningful ways with your stakeholders, engaging them in your strategic direction moving forward.

Are you the leader of a small shop, where employees are stretched t--h--I--n? Have you inherited an internal reorganization, or are trying to blend disparate groups? Maybe staff meetings feel more like a burden than a joy? This is the workshop for you!

In this interactive session, team leaders will learn strategies to reinvigorate tired teams, elevate performance, and foster interpersonal cohesion through intentional, consistent practices. Participants will learn activities, formats, and approaches to build a dynamic team, including how to develop an effective annual retreat, align team objectives with the strategic plan, lead weekly meetings that energize and inspire, and foster authentic friendships among colleagues on your team.

Are you a head that is new to advancement or an advancement leader relatively new to your position or school? Are you wanting to plan for a future leadership opportunity in the field? Jon Bridge, who has led two $100 million campaigns, will review 10 priorities to consider in the early stages of gaining a new position at a school. Managing a comprehensive advancement program requires sorting out multiple priorities. Advancement leaders are both managers of colleagues and volunteers and managers of systems. In this session, we will introduce themes that advancement leaders should consider as they sort out what should take priority. We will review a framework for where to devote time, understand the importance of “what not to do," and discuss a mindset for staying above the fray.

In this interview format session, Dr. Darryl Ford of the William Penn Charter School will offer advice to heads of school and those who support or partner with them about how to succeed in every phase of a campaign from leading strategic planning and a strategic vision conference, to conducting a readiness assessment and feasibility study, to overseeing campus master planning to working with advancement staff, to developing critical relationships with the very top donors, to managing the time required by increased activity in fundraising while meeting the other demands on his time, to serving as the campaign spokesperson during the public phase of the campaign, to providing stewardship to campaign donors. Chief Advancement Officer John T. Rogers will provide perspective on developing an effective partnership with the head of school. In his final year leading Penn Charter and at the close of its successful $125 million comprehensive campaign, Ford and Rogers will reflect on both areas of success and challenges along the journey. They will also address how the current campaign has built a strong foundation for a future head of school and campaign.

As Xavier High School approached its 175th anniversary, school leaders decided to engage in a brand study to evaluate the school’s position in the marketplace and help ensure its continued strength. Learn how the communications team leading the effort managed relationships with trustees, colleagues, and external consultants; gathered and used data to drive decisions; leveraged low-cost SEO and analytics tools to boost brand awareness; and worked to keep the school’s mission at the center of the work.

In 2022, Calvert began its official 125th anniversary celebration. To honor our history, the planning for this momentous occasion started in 2017 and culminated with a two-year, $16 million capital campaign and various special events and creative programs and digital assets. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, we were able to stay on track through our strategic planning, supportive leadership, and committed community of donors and volunteers. This session will share our how-to planning and research as well as the timeline and a detailed account of the activities. We will also cover lessons learned, and a 20/20 debrief looking back on our ambitious initiative.

Successful, donor-centered development programs depend on many factors. One of the most valuable is a focused and well-coordinated Leadership Team that understands the values of your donors and prospects and the strategic needs of the school.

The Development Quartet (consisting of the Board Chair, the Development Committee Chair, the School Head, and the Development Director) creates a climate within the school that focuses on matching a donor’s interests with institutional values and needs. This team is the backbone of your school’s development and fundraising efforts, providing direction, accountability, authority, and the technical know-how to successfully execute your donor-centered programs.

This session will explore how a Development Quartet functions, how one school used the power of the Quartet to navigate change during the pandemic and set up the school for success going forward, and provide Case Studies for participants to model effective use of the Quartet.

In this strategic planning session, you will learn how to build projects that lead to big picture deliverables. The session will include facilitated activities that walk you through how to:
-think outside the box to increase alumni engagement
-develop a wide range of projects to deliver on these visions
-prioritize these projects to make manageable yet meaningful advancements towards your long term goals
-identify valuable talking points and partnerships outside of your advancement and development teams to enhance your project values and alumni experiences.
Some of these activities include identifying your stakeholder's key emotional and rational decision making needs, project sequencing: what needs to come first for there to be the most success, and ruthless prioritization: with limited resources, what is realistic to accomplish?
By the end of the session, you will have strategic activities and worksheets to bring back to your school to review as well as a variety of starter ideas from collaboration during the session itself.

Running a comprehensive campaign of any size requires both creativity and course correction. Even with the best impact goals and campaign design materials, a campaign can quickly derail or wander from its path if it is not supported by accessible and digestible reporting, a plan for regularly revisiting and adjusting prospect pipeline and engagement strategies, and stewarding donors both during and post-campaign through meaningful recognition and follow up. This session will examine these three foundations of a successful campaign--reporting, prospect engagement, and stewardship--using insight from the Lawrenceville School's historic $400MM+ campaign.

For school communicators, one of the greatest lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic is that we must maintain strong relationships with teachers, administrators, parents, and alumni to produce impactful storytelling. We can do this by employing journalism-inspired tactics - learning about our school beat, making connections with our sources, and nurturing relationships that will help us get the scoop. In this session, participants will see how these tactics are applied at an independent school and come away with next-day strategies for their institutions.