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.

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, people have already decided whether or not it's worth their time to open your university's email newsletter. With the average American receiving about 120 emails per day, we have only a few seconds to entice someone to click, read, and engage. In summer 2023, the community and internal communications team at American University redesigned their weekly newsletter—mailed to 19,000 students, faculty, and staff. The new and improved publication, AU Now, increased engagement by 204 percent over the previous academic year to over 26,000 unique clicks. The team also doubled their click-to-open rate to more than 10 percent. During this session, you’ll learn what different audiences want from your newsletter, how to track reader engagement using a data dashboard, and how to create a valuable publication with a big impact—even with a small staff and an even smaller budget.

Do you have an institution almost 300 years old but lacking a formal principal gifts program? Have you relied on your major gift donors' support to continue fueling your pipeline and perhaps even be the cornerstones of a campaign? Do you have a committed, albeit philanthropically hesitant Board of Trustees willing to dig their feet in and raise the bar for your institution? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this session is for you! Join us as we discuss the state of giving at Moravian University and how one particular donor served as the catalyst for our Principal Gift Program. We will also discuss how our newly formed Principal Gift Program has allowed us to surpass our campaign goal of $75M two years early.

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.

Identify with clear examples and donor success stories, how Princeton Universities has leveraged several initiatives within their current campaign to maximize the philanthropic intent with a focus on identifying future leaders. Of them, giving societies, innovative gift opportunities, targeted volunteer engagement opportunities, and leveraging the influence and expertise of alumni leaders and University professionals.

We will dive into how internal and external communications strategies can make your organization resilient . Using real time examples, we will explore how resilient nonprofits develop strong communications platforms to manage and even rise above distractions and other forms of negative news. Audience participation will be encouraged as we explore our own challenges.

Leading a division through a major project requires implementation of change management. Learn how Johns Hopkins recently moved their entire division to a new CRM - a big undertaking. It was successful through stakeholder management, tailored messaging and equipping leaders and users with the necessary skills to adapt to the change. Learn how they became emotionally ready through storytelling, and becoming partners in driving the change. And...they also will highlight the importance of embracing the unknown and learning from failures. Karen Latora and Caroline Chang will serve as moderators in this session with Teresa and Liz leading the discussion and providing the content.