Time is precious! School needs are at all-time high. Join us for an interactive and engaging session to confirm how our institutions should be thinking about bringing out the best in every board member. This is a time to not only be reminded of best practices, but to also share stories of what works to ignite the energy and sustain the motivation of our board members.

The world has changed. Independent schools are facing an uncertain future. The political, social media, environmental, and macroeconomic environments are increasingly turbulent. What we’re encountering is best described as a Polycrisis: Multiple crises happening simultaneously in which “the whole is even more dangerous than the sum of the parts” (Professor Adam Tooze, Ipsos Global Trends 2023). This evolving landscape creates new and increasingly problematic risks that schools must address. Through this session, we will inspire and empower educational leaders to convert the challenges of a Polycrisis into a strategic advantage for their institutions.

We will discuss three critical challenges currently creating a Polycrisis at independent schools: The workforce, constituent engagement, and how best to implement diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives. You will gain tools to build your leadership capacity and insights to better navigate this Polycrisis. You will learn about creative fundraising and communications strategies to tackle these challenges. You will also walk away with a plan to turn this Polycrisis into a strategic advantage by drawing on the full range of advancement expertise at your institutions, including communications, marketing, alumni relations, fundraising, and data services.

By addressing a Polycrisis head-on, school leaders and advancement teams can create a new strategic advantage for their schools that allows them to drive institutional goals, manage change, and be successful in an uncertain future.

Many schools believe that consultants are just for big capital campaigns. While they can be important contributors in those high-stakes moments, a small shop can get big value by properly engaging with a consultant. Having a trusted thought partner is especially helpful to the one-person shops. Consider the variety of projects a consultant might help you with – from coordinating messaging and outreach efforts for new parents to an annual giving and major gifts refresh to board education. Hear how one school’s Director of Development and Director of Enrollment and Communication made the best use of that relationship, creating a better and more rewarding experience for everyone.

Creating and sustaining a culture of philanthropy within independent schools is essential for financial stability and fostering a strong sense of community and shared purpose. This session aims to explore strategies, best practices, and real-world examples of how independent schools can use AI to cultivate a culture of philanthropy that engages all stakeholders and contributes to the school's long-term success.

Strategic design applies some traditional design principles to "big picture" systemic challenges; it redefines how problems are approached, identifies opportunities for action, and helps deliver more complete and resilient solutions. With a transdisciplinary cross-departmental approach, Marin Academy deconstructed and redesigned the onboarding experience to create highly engaged brand evangelists who are eager to give back to the school.

In this interactive session, we will cover strategic design principles and share exercises designed to inspire and gather buy-in from other school administrators. This session will also cover ways to gather data and feedback to inform strategy and assess results. Join us as we explore how strategic onboarding infused with value-proposition can transform parent-school relationships.

It has been said that the strategic planning and implementation of enrolling and retaining a student and family must never intersect or overlap with the strategic goals, objectives, and implementation of a school's philanthropic endeavors. Perhaps this is, in fact, a missed moment for more tremendous success. Join AISAP Executive Director Janice Crampton, Scott Bohan, Chief Advancement Officer - St. Paul's School, NH, and Matt Proto, Vice President and Chief Institutional Advancement Officer at Colby College Waterville, Maine, for a facilitated discussion with ideas, notions, and takeaways that will demonstrate best practice and next practice strategies that will assist you, your offices and in the end your school to be intentional in achieving your overall institutional goals and all the while seek greater alignment and messaging not only in process but in understanding the larger goals that need to be achieved by your school.

Philanthropy can play a crucial role in advancing a school’s ambition. However, in a small shop, we face challenges of limited bandwidth in both human and financial resources. In this session, we will examine tactics to convince your faculty to become advancement advocates and lead to a cultural change to become a truly philanthropic institution. We will discuss key issues we all face and hear examples of leadership and faculty that have played a key role in securing major gifts, including our CFO who has become integral to the major gift fundraising programme.
In this session, we will examine strategies and tactics to clarify a compelling narrative, develop the audience, empower leadership, and establish the internal infrastructure necessary for success.

This session is designed for new and aspiring Heads of School and veteran Heads planning their first campaign. You’re faced with seemingly impossible tasks: balancing the pressures and demands of running a school, creating and communicating a long-term vision, and responding to the board’s request for a campaign. How to do it all? Topics to be covered include: • The day-to-day pressures/time demands of leading a school while framing the school’s longer-term vision and tying it to major funding opportunities • Building and preparing a campaign-ready board • How to strengthen philanthropy and mount a campaign to fulfill the school’s future aspirations • How much time to spend on fundraising, and what to do during that time • Building the advancement team and culture of philanthropy • Communicating the “why” of the school • Knowing when you are ready for a campaign, and defining your role in it

Welcoming a new Head of School can be an exciting opportunity for any community! Nicole Girvan and Heather Pool will give you behind-the-scenes tips and share their map to help you leverage the leadership change to re-engage with donors. The search process and onboarding season felt treacherous and scary, especially for a “small shop” like The Logan School for Creative Learning, but once they knew where they were heading, the journey was positive and productive. As they built trust, there was room to create places for belonging for those who hadn’t been engaged or seen.
Nicole Girvan will share her experience building trust, leading with vulnerability, and setting the stage for success. As a transracially adopted woman of color in a predominantly white community---Nicole found ways to initiate spaces for others to feel a sense of belonging instead of waiting for the "welcome wagon.” Nicole and Heather opened the doors for others to share vulnerability and cultivate relationships. Heather Pool will share a scaffold and ideal timeline for connecting and reconnecting with your school’s donors. They found ways, with limited resources, to provide opportunities for authentic connection and help the community grow through transition.

To fully flex your fundraising muscle, you need buy-in from both the annual giving and advancement services sides of the house. How do you achieve the alignment necessary to drive meaningful results? The devil is in the data.
GiveCampus analyzed aggregate data from 4,532 campaigns and 4,973 giving forms to identify what’s moving the proverbial needle in fundraising and what’s not. Find out from fellow K-12 fundraisers how they’re leveraging that data to drive decisions at key stages of the philanthropic lifecycle, and how they got everybody—including advancement services—to back their biggest bets.