Everyone wishes to better engage with their alumni and donors, but how do you leverage digital technology to so? The Marketing & Digital Strategy team at Emory Advancement & Alumni Engagement will showcase our approach to marketing and digital engagement and how we've strategically utilized digital technology to create a cohesive and tailored approach to build trusting and lifelong relationships with alumni and donors.

Giving Tuesday is the biggest giving day in the world, so getting a foothold can be difficult. Austin Peay reimagined this crowded giving day to make a larger impact through project based fundraising. Come learn how a small shop with limited tools was able to invigorate faculty and staff, and reengage alumni and friends, and fund more than 30 projects across campus.

Over the past year, a cross-departmental working group began the transformation of officer metrics and goalsetting at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Informed by David Lively’s Managing Major Gift Fundraisers: A Contrarian’s Guide (published by CASE), the working group updated officer baseline performance standards that had been in place since 2018, while setting a strategic direction toward an increased emphasis on qualification, major gift proposals, and building portfolios with three-year horizons. These changes were accompanied by new and revised tools, including a new suite of gift officer types, revised officer scorecards, and a new portfolio visualization. Several members of the working group will walk participants through this case study.

In today’s dynamic service-oriented environments, navigating change effectively is crucial for advancing organizational goals and maintaining competitiveness. This session explores key strategies essential for leadership in guiding advancement services through transformation. We will share our preferred principles of leading change, overcoming resistance, and strategies for success in building great teams and elevating culture. With considerable depth and breadth of experiences at small and large institutions, our lessons learned, and real-world examples provide practical insights for effective leadership in advancement services through a proactive approach to change management and fostering a culture of innovation and resilience.

Teamwork makes the dream work! Are you new to engaging your young alumni? Need new strategies? Or want to spice up your events? Join Virginia Tech, James Madison University, and the University of Virginia to learn more about harnessing the power of cross university collaboration to make a strong impression on your young alumni!

Unleash the power of Generative AI (GenAI) to revolutionize your work! This session will explore how AI-powered tools can help you work efficiently, personalize outreach, develop data-informed strategies, streamline processes, and drive innovation in your daily work and across advancement. Discover real-world case studies of applications and share your strategies for integrating AI into your daily toolkit, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve in this rapidly evolving landscape.

In an era where diversity, equity, and inclusion are essential, the representation of young alumni on national alumni association boards is more critical than ever. This session will delve into the opportunities and inclusive practices that can help amplify young alumni voices, drawing from my personal experience as the youngest board member on my alma mater's national alumni association boards.

Frontline fundraising has long been a holdout in advancement’s data-driven renaissance. This is where the art, rather than the science, of fundraising was paramount. The importance of data as the currency in relationship-based giving programs, however, has never been greater. From well planned and managed cadencies to qualify, cultivate, and close major gifts to collecting and recording data points that will be foundational in predictive modeling, it has never been more important for gift officers—and the programs whose success they power—to be data minded.

This session will invite gift officers to reevaluate their relationship with data and own their opportunity to manage their portfolios and prospects with their role in managing data to maximize insights in mind. It will also focus on how fundraiser managers and advancement services professionals can partner with gift officers to manage a data-forward frontline fundraising program.

While most organizations direct their attention to alumni donors, out of necessity Elon University has more strongly emphasized parent and family fundraising for the past 40 years. Explore Elon's adapted fundraising model and discover engagement strategies to enhance parent and family fundraising in your organization. We'll delve into the efficient cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of parents within a limited timeframe, and discuss engaging campus partners to maximize fundraising success.

This workshop will explore the journey of the Wake Forest University School of Business in significantly enhancing alumni satisfaction from 17% to 56% over six years. Through consistent communication to alumni and effective collaboration across School and University departments, the School of Business implemented strategies that not only improved alumni engagement but also strengthened relationships within the academic community. Participants will gain insights into practical approaches, collaborative frameworks, and communication strategies that can be adapted to their own institutions to foster alumni satisfaction and loyalty.