Join Ann Snyder to take a fresh look at participation rates, their impact on predictive goal setting, and whether they truly tell us anything about our fundraising or engagement programs. Think critically about what other measures might be useful indicators of strong fundraising potential and retrain your board and stakeholders to ask different questions about the philanthropic culture at your school.

Engaged Board members is not enough. Creating engagement that is meaningful to Board members is key for every school. Seeing what this means through the lens of Board members will be at the heart of this session. What is meaningful engagement, how to create it, and how it can lead to increase giving are all part of the session.

Educating new families about the importance of philanthropy at independent schools is more important than ever. At Seven Hills, we introduced New Family Philanthropy Meetings to share information about how philanthropy benefits every student, introduce our top giving priorities, invite families to participate in giving and volunteering, and identify possible parent leaders. A partnership with the Board of Trustees Development Committee and the Development Team, these meetings have become an important part of the school’s giving strategy, helping build personal connections, promote a culture of philanthropy, and have resulted in a significant increase in new family giving to the school each year.

How a board member's idea turned into a hallmark (and manageable!) summer internship program run by alumni for our students. This will be a discussion on the opportunities and challenges of starting an internship program and what the path looked like for The Kinkaid School.

Questions of gender are front and center in the evolving culture wars affecting society today, and single-sex independent schools are at the epicenter as they are being asked their position on admitting and retaining students who do not fit the gender binary. When the Browning School introduced its gender policy in June 2023, it received negative national media attention as well as much heartwarming support from the school community. Come hear about how the policy was communicated, lessons learned, and how to approach this issue from an advancement perspective whether you are in a single or all gender school.

Incredible things are possible when your advancement team and volunteers align on the same goals....but it's not always as easy as it sounds. This session will follow the evolution of the role of volunteers in engagement and fundraising goal-setting from the quiet phase of a campaign through the end and towards uncharted horizons. Learn how The Peddie School transformed current and created new volunteer roles to more closely align with their school's priorities during the One Peddie Campaign. This interactive session will also dive into how Peddie utilized CASE's Alumni Engagement Survey to revitalize their culture of engagement and philanthropy and most importantly, it will give participants exercises, prompts and questions they can take back to their own teams to overcome barriers to progress. This workshop is ideal for institutions looking to scale engagement or lay the groundwork for future volunteer-led campaigns.

This session highlights the importance of data collection from the collaboration between all three aspects of the Advancement umbrella - Marketing, Admissions and Development that’s honed around a school's mission, strategy, and message.

Dive deeper into your information gathering from the Admissions/Enrollment process to find out about your potential donors, their behavior and truly determine what you can do to achieve your goals. Learn how best to communicate with your donors through your marketing and communications analytics.

Let the humble data not only dazzle and work for you by identifying giving potential within your school community but also engage with prospects and donors in appropriate and highly personal ways.

Set the stage for inspirational giving by being able to better evaluate the role of prospect research within your development program.

Amidst the many challenges that independent schools face during crises, maintaining strong and positive relationships becomes paramount. Navigating the Storm: Effectively Managing External Relations During Crises is an engaging and informative session that delves into the art of managing external relations during turbulent times in educational institutions. The session will focus on both communications with constituents and necessary relationship building. In times of crisis, schools are not only responsible for the well-being and education of their students but also need to adopt a pastoral mindset about effectively handling their many relationships with constituents. This seminar aims to equip school administrators, leaders, and communication professionals with the knowledge and strategies required to steer through crises while preserving a school's reputation and fostering meaningful relationships with parents/guardians, faculty/staff, students, alumni, neighbors, media, and other key stakeholders.

The past three years have tested the resilience of our schools and the generosity of our communities. Despite all the outside factors and challenges, one fundraising tool has stood the test of time: the capital campaign. But as the philanthropic landscape evolves, capital campaign strategies must evolve too. In this session, advancement leaders from across the country will weigh in on their tried-and-true campaign strategies and share innovations and future-looking tactics they are deploying. From AI to creative volunteer leadership structures, to reaching a new generation of donors, this conversation will touch on factors that are impacting capital campaigns at independent schools and how advancement leaders are navigating this evolving era.

Motivating donors and volunteers around a single mission is key to the success of any annual fund. In this session, we'll discuss how to build a culture of deep, purposeful participation within the annual fund's volunteer base and its donors. Learn how to deepen constituent investment by getting beyond the "fluff" and focusing on purpose.