Difficult situations and seemingly intractable problems can be the seedbed for creative problem-solving and thinking outside the box. With the use of excellent storytelling, learn how some veteran administrators found a path forward, gaining traction on what seemed to be an impossible situation and turning it into something important and significant for the school.

Great video does not have to come with a hefty price tag or an experienced on-staff producer. There are many things that anyone with a smartphone and a few low-cost tools can accomplish to build your message and form a meaningful connection with your audience. In this fun and informative session, you will learn a variety of no-cost to low-cost tips that can improve the quality of your in-house video productions, as well as some general tips that can also get more bang for the buck when working with pros.

Data drives your work and ensuring you are using the best tool is important...and daunting. Raiser's Edge, Microsoft CRM, SalesForce, Senior Systems, custom build, etc. we've all used many, and when it is time for an upgrade it can be time and resource consuming. In this session, we will go over seven key steps to help you through this process and discuss how to successfully implement a new CRM or upgrade your current one.

Let’s face it: measuring engagement is harder than counting gifts, and finding time and resources to get started can be even harder! In this session, we’ll make the case for why it’s worth the investment and how your school can apply CASE’s alumni engagement framework, which measures alumni interaction philanthropically, volunteerism, experientially, and through interactive communication - to meet desired outcomes. The session will draw on data from the CASE Insights on Alumni Engagement survey and engage participants in a discussion about how to get started and take action on results.

Learning Objectives:
1. Understand how CASE measures engagement across four modes and the minimum needed to get started
2. Identify key outcomes of engagement and consider which are top priorities for your school
3. Gain knowledge to create your own strategic data roadmap to refine data collection based on your goals

We are all on the same bus together, so rather than focus on who’s driving, let’s cut through traffic and get on the highway toward long-term financial sustainability so that your school’s mission can thrive in perpetuity. This multi-perspective panel of professionals with decades of combined success in higher ed and independent school business and advancement will illuminate how to tune up your revenue engine and reach further mile markers on the road to fiscal health. Work together effectively by sharing a mentality of stewardship as well as a commitment to transparency and making the business model work for you through the use of intelligent forecasting and metrics. Strong leaders in business and advancement who value partnership are better equipped to make the most of inevitable bumps – and glide through roadblocks – as they steer their school to its fullest potential. Join us to discuss how to lead your institution to its next destination faster, ultimately ensuring that the journey extends for generations to come.

Unlock the secrets of reviving lapsed donor engagement! Discover how a tailored drip campaign, sent directly from a work email, can astonishingly achieve over 70% open rates. Dive into this transformative approach, bypassing expensive mass email systems, and watch your click-throughs soar!

Volunteers bring a wealth of knowledge to an institution, but volunteer management is not without challenges. Using Phillips Exeter Academy’s Alumni Thought Lab program as a guide, this session will demonstrate how to efficiently leverage volunteer resources to drive alumni engagement without placing unnecessary strain on staff or institutional resources.

The Alumni Thought Lab is a virtual event series that enables alumni to come together to discuss global issues or topics that are relevant to alumni and society. This series strives to foster engagement and build community through productive dialogue and the thoughtful exploration of ideas.

This event series is planned and executed for alumni by alumni, with support from the alumni relations office.

Are you the leader for 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 building an effective annual retreat, align team objectives with the strategic plan, and foster authentic friendships among colleagues on your team.

This session will follow a recent brand refresh that became so much more for a pre-nursery through Grade 12 day school located in the highly competitive Long Island market. Learn what went into taking this school from “Who are we?” to “This is us” within months. You will see a before snapshot, learn about the process, and hear the outcomes. Be inspired by how this exercise ultimately bridged departments by bringing clarity to natural ways Development, Communications, and Admissions teams could work together toward one another’s goals based upon renewed common understanding and language. Leave with ideas and inspiration for how better owning who you are as a school strengthens so much more than a marketing message—it strengthens and ignites an entire community.

For the past two-plus years at Brooklyn Friends School, "Arti-Facts"—a short story about an aspect of our school's history—has anchored our digital, weekly newsletter. Each week "Arti-Facts" looks back at a moment in time from BFS' history and is written in a very light-hearted, but informational way. This has caught on very well with our entire community. The main goal is to be able to share key moments in our school's history—which dates back to 1867—and put a spin on the story that applies, and relates, to today's families. These subject of these stories range from former students, colleagues, moments in time, the buildings our school occupies, etc. It is a great way to share history of the school with our current families and alums in a very approachable way. This session will demonstrate how pieces of your school's history are still relevant today and how the past often ties together with the present. How you can define their school's current mission, using past events and moments, without that event or moment defining who the school is. In other words, the event, person, or moment is critical to the story being told, but not necessarily to the outcome and the end result of the message you are trying to get across. This session is intended to be interactive—to help all school's tell their great stories—past and present.