As advancement functions and fundraising campaigns become increasingly sophisticated and focused on leadership gifts, intentionally and regularly engaging volunteers and new community members can fall by the wayside. Volunteer engagement can be difficult to measure, and independent schools often struggle to find reliable, concrete ways to evaluate and leverage connectedness. Yet, volunteers have proven over and over again to be invaluable resources, providing their time, talent, ideas, and social ties to help advance a school’s mission and vision, in and out of campaign environments. Importantly, not only does strong volunteer engagement yield more philanthropic support, but they also allow schools to invite more voices in—particularly those from communities served—and work towards a more inclusive philanthropy. A unique opportunity exists to involve our larger school communities more meaningfully in our work by investing in relationships early, moving from transactional requests to transformational collaborations, and bringing more perspectives into decisions around how we effect change.

Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas’ Ad Majorem campaign went public in 2023 with over $100 million raised – and is not done yet. Meaningfully engaging volunteers and the broader community in Jesuit’s largest, most ambitious campaign was and is no small undertaking. Hear directly from Jesuit’s Vice President of Advancement and Executive Director of the Jesuit Dallas Foundation on how the team engaged across constituencies – Board, Campaign Committee, students, alumni, faculty, parents – to develop a comprehensive case for support and phased campaign plan that created a posture for Jesuit to continually innovate and invite new voices in.

Through a conversation between CCS Fundraising and Jesuit Dallas, this session will explore the importance of high-level volunteer engagement, the lifecycle of cultivating volunteers into lead donors and organizational champions, and how to return to your school with new ways to engage volunteers in philanthropy as part of your overall fundraising plan – while applying inclusive principles to volunteerism in meaningful ways. Presenters will feature candid learnings and case studies from CCS’s experience and Jesuit’s extraordinary success in cultivating new voices throughout a multi-year campaign – to bring the community into the school. Attendees can expect to leave this session with the tools and knowledge to adapt their own volunteer engagement strategies to the uniquely evolving independent school landscape.