• Business as (Not) Usual: Fundraising Success During Leadership Transitions
• A United Front: Integrating Your Fundraising Strategy Across the Institution
• Measuring Engagement: Using Data to Drive Meaningful Change
• Using Measurement to Work Smarter, Not Harder
• Courageous Conversation in Safe Spaces
• Demystifying Data: Leveraging Your Data to Achieve Your Goals
• How Podcasts Can Create a Win-Win for Your Organization
• Advancement Council: Entrepreneurial Think Tank for Big Gift Strategy
• When Your President is Also a King
• Why Have a Giving Day When You Can Have a Giving Week?
• Shifting Landscapes and Earthquakes: Leading Through Change
• Goodbye/Hello: How to Make Presidential Transitions About U
• Not for Women Only: Leaning On: Mentoring to Advance Women's Leadership
• CASE Benefits
• Challenges and Opportunities: Independent Schools
• Challenges and Opportunities: Community Colleges
• Networking: Alumni Relations
• Networking: Development
• Networking; Communications
• Networking: Donor Relations
• Networking: Advancement Services

Villanova University’s strategic plan outlines a priority in supporting vocational success of alumni. In order to bolster engagement for alumni professionals across the world, Alumni Relations partnered with the Career Center to create a month of programming dedicated to professional development for all career levels. "Nova Network November" offered 30+ events ranging from regional networking gatherings to webinars led by campus experts on topics tied back to the university’s priorities. Review our step-by-step approach to gain university support and leverage regional clubs and campus leadership alike.

You've got great stories to tell. Now you have to decide which outlets are best to get the most eyeballs on them. This session serves as a practical how-to guide for getting the most out of your great stories. During this workshop you'll be working toward creating a checklist that will simplify your team's ability to maximize sharing your good news.

Transitioning to a new president, provost, or dean poses unique challenges – yet change can be positive. With change comes opportunity to revisit institutional goals and priorities, to reinforce positive outcomes from outgoing leadership, and to refresh your institution’s mission and vision. How can we leverage leadership changes to further fundraising goals? How do we navigate the challenges that arise when the transition happens in the middle of a campaign? Explore strategies and best practices for maximizing leadership transitions to establish a sustainable future for our institutions.

Most alumni relations professionals would agree that their event planner toolbox can sometimes feel a little empty. Join an event planner (turned alumni relations colleague) as she shares reliable tools of the events industry, ones that will create purposeful events to increase alumni engagement. Explore practical scenarios for how to plan for events, how to stretch your budget, and how to learn from her successes and failures. You'll leave this session armed with more tools than a superhero's utility belt.

Digital alumni engagement tools are changing faster than most schools can keep up. But chatbots, once the sole province of tech and customer service websites, are on the verge of disrupting the alumni engagement paradigm with an "always on" approach that recent alumni have come to expect. Hear my story of success, failure, and learning how to love a chatbot in NJIT's alumni program.

As university fundraisers, we work with highly diverse donor populations that are both multicultural and global, and philanthropy may be interpreted in varying ways. Donor values are driven by life experiences that shape their individual and unique perspective. To understand the impact of those experiences and how they impact giving and engagement, we need to examine our own assumptions, inherent biases, and apply best practices in order to uncover donor motivation. Discuss strategies to discover donor perspectives illustrated with actual donor situations.

The compressed timing of parent major gifts requires a nuanced approach that balances clarity of purpose and personal engagement. This session provides a blueprint for opening the door with parents, for test capacity and inclination, and for guiding parent giving toward a major gift conversation.

As part of a comprehensive fundraising strategy, events and direct response campaigns can combine to form a meaningful tool that increases both engagement and revenue. Events and campaigns can intersect to propel engagement forward – resulting in increased participation, unrealized revenue, and a pipeline for major gifts. In this session, the event leader and campaign leader will describe the strategy, implementation process, and tactics they developed to successfully create a scalable project flow that positions fundraisers for success, and is easily replicable and scalable for fundraising teams of any size.

We all face the problem of a shrinking and aging donor file, and our bosses are telling us to do something about it by reaching out to younger donors. But what should our expectations from these donors be? Learn about a 2018 study to determine the giving habits of the various different generational groups (i.e. Millennials, Gen Xers, Baby Boomers, etc.) and what we should be expecting from our own donors. Find out how Swarthmore College (and other institutions) are attracting young alumni through effective and proven direct marketing strategies.