An interactive and insightful session that explores how advancement marketing and communications can evolve from a support function to a strategic partner in higher education institutions. Discover the strategies, challenges, and successes involved in transforming your MarComm team to play a more pivotal role in alumni and donor engagement, major and principal level fundraising, and collaborating effectively with frontline gift officers to drive impactful results. Attendees will leave with actionable insights and approaches for elevating their MarComm teams into strategic partners in achieving institutional goals.

Are you looking for a way to engage your constituents through new communication channels? How about sharing your organization's mission, stories, or upcoming events through a podcast? Don’t know where to start? This session will provide you with an understanding of why podcasts are so helpful in reaching a wide variety of your supporters. Additionally, this presentation will give you tools to understand how to create your own podcast. Moravian University’s Houndcast is available on Spotify, Podbean, Google Podcast, and Apple Podcast

When RIT began building its Regional Advancement program, the intention was a team of Rochester-based major gift officers deployed nationally on a regular basis. The pandemic and opportunities for strategic hires shifted that thinking, but brought unexpected challenges. This session, and subsequent conversation, will discuss ways to keep the remote team engaged in the life of the institution, help them learn the institutional culture, and develop close collaboration with their institution-based colleagues. The positive outcomes for the institution, advancement team, and constituents will also be discussed, as will some lingering challenges.

While women hold the majority of professional staff roles in higher education advancement, their voices are largely absent from the literature describing talent management practices and individual career journeys of professionals in the field. This presentation will describe the findings of a research study that explored the lived experiences of women in fundraising and alumni engagement roles. By centering women’s stories, this research highlights the relationship between gender and advancement work, the factors influencing job-related decisions, and challenges to gender equality in the field. Following a discussion of this study’s findings, participants will have the opportunity to engage in a dialogue about actionable strategies to create a more inclusive and supportive work environment for women in the field.

Are you struggling with how to fundraise for research? Join this interactive session to explore strategies and tools to increase philanthropy for science, innovation, and experimentation. Learn how to inspire both individual and institutional donors with the excitement of investing in discoveries and transformation that advance the mission of your institution. You will learn at least three strategies for fundraising for research that you can immediately implement in your institution's efforts!

Mentorship programming is one of the most sought-after and rewarding volunteer opportunities an alma mater can offer to its alumni. The problem, though, is that it is also an initiative that takes a tremendous amount of time, effort, and resources to run successfully, all while balancing your other duties. However, with proper coordination and open communication (a LOT of communication), it is possible to do it at scale, regardless of the size of your shop. You just have to get everyone on campus involved. Easy, right? Hear how Saint Francis University’s Offices of Alumni Engagement and Career Services partnered together to bring Mentorship Week to campus and expanded its yearly Homecoming tradition. Learn how to pool resources with your colleagues, leverage your relationships to get buy-in from faculty and staff, and implement the timeline and logistics necessary to create your own marquee mentorship program that benefits everyone: current students, alumni, fundraisers, student enrollment, specialized student services, and more.

Following a 2023 strategic planning exercise, the Temple University Alumni Association in collaboration with its Alumni Engagement team, developed a new standard for volunteer leaders, which creates consistency and transparency across its many alumni organizations and groups. The plan establishes clear volunteer codes of conduct and expectations as well as bylaws, requirements, and processes for handling governance challenges. By embracing these universal practices across boards, Temple aims to cultivate a more engaged, informed, and professional alumni volunteer community.

Can a company’s DEI goals move past checking a box and lead to more meaningful partnerships with diversity programs at your institution? These programs can have an immeasurable impact on students when donors and partners are truly invested in taking these initiatives to the next level. This session will show you how to highlight the powerful work of student diversity programs during important conversations with corporate donors and help them invest in student success beyond their dollars. Additionally, the session will cover strategies for using these initiatives as a starting point for meaningful engagement with individual alumni. Learn about organizations that went beyond the checkbox and discover how to engage diverse alumni both philanthropically and through purposeful volunteer opportunities.

Have you ever received a snail mail, two-sided, front and back, end-of-year appeal from your alma mater? Most likely it is written by a student receiving financial aid demonstrating the impact of how your gift makes a difference. The tone of the ask, coupled with the feel-good nature of the holiday season, is a win-win. Or is it? Explore how your team can model Calvert Hall's A/B testing model to find the perfect sized email appeal campaign to convert more gifts every fiscal/calendar year end.

Join us to hear about the magic that happens when silos are broken down and the different parts of advancement are strategically woven together, from business planning to program execution and even during everyday chat around the watercooler. Genuine engagement brings together all of these pieces and keeps your organization's mission at its core.