Join us for an insightful session with Jeff Traylor, head football coach at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), as he shares his playbook for building a stronger identity and engaging fans and players in his program. In this session, Coach Traylor will delve into the unique strategies and philosophies that have propelled the UTSA Football program to success, both on and off the field. From the inception of the “Triangle of Toughness” to leveraging social media in the digital age, Coach will discuss how he has cultivated a winning culture, forged strong relationships, and harnessed the power of storytelling to enhance the brand of UTSA Football. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from one of the game's most innovative, authentic and engaging coaches.

In this dynamic conference presentation, we'll dive into the art and science of branding from both a marketing collateral and personal perspective. As higher education institutions, the data says that branding will help us stand out in a crowded marketplace. We’ll kick off the conversation with practical strategies and creative approaches to create memorable, authentic, and effective marketing collateral that resonates with your target audience.

But branding isn’t limited to our institutions; it extends to you as an individual. During the second half of our discussion, we’ll discuss building a personal brand that leaves a lasting impact. Drawing from real-life success stories, we'll explore how to cultivate your personal brand and how that can help you connect with donors, students, and industry peers. Then, we'll shift our focus inward to understand how your personal brand can empower and motivate your internal team.

Legal concerns in advancement aren't just for planned giving anymore. Whatever you do in advancement – fundraising, alumni relations, communications, or advancement services – knowing how the law affects your work could make the difference between celebrating success and a costly lawsuit. Learn from a "recovering attorney" and advancement veteran about key principles and situations to consider, whether you're planning an event, managing a fundraising campaign, writing a press release, maintaining a database, or organizing a reunion. You'll hear about plenty of real-world examples, so bring your hardest questions and toughest challenges to this lively, engaging, and interactive session – no retainer required!

A panel of women juggling children, aging parents, and leadership in advancement will engage in a healthy Q&A.

ChatGPT is the fastest-growing app in history. For many users, this is their first experience with generative AI — technology that is designed to create content. And it’s their first time encountering how AI will transform how we live, work, and fundraise. In this interactive workshop, we'll talk about the rise of AI, help everyone understand generative AI and large language models, and talk about data protection and privacy. We'll then spend time in an interactive prompt engineering workshop, showing how generative AI can increase efficiency, generate ideas, and become a part of your daily work.

Working with Parent Prospects and Donors: Best practices fundraisers need to know to start and enhance their work with parents. Giving from parents is an excellent way to identify new sources of philanthropy for your institution and many fundraisers aren't sure where to start. We'll discuss the differences between strategies for parent giving versus alumni giving, key data points to look for and best practices that can be implemented at any institution. This session is applicable for all levels of experience with parent giving.

To fully flex your fundraising muscle you need buy-in from both the annual giving and advancement services sides of the house. How do you achieve the alignment necessary to drive meaningful results? The devil is in the data. GiveCampus analyzed aggregate data from 4,532 campaigns and 4,973 giving forms to identify what’s moving the proverbial needle in fundraising and what’s not. Find out from fellow higher education fundraisers how they’re leveraging that data to drive decisions at key stages of the philanthropic lifecycle, and how they got everybody—including advancement services—to back their biggest bets.

Do you ever feel stuck with certain prospects or donors and are unsure of how to move conversations forward that may have stalled out (or never happened in the first place)? In this session, two frontline fundraisers will share their strategic process from moving prospects from stuck to solicitation and how they have partnered together to create a model of engagement that utilizes both of their skill sets and unique roles within donor and prospect relationships to expertly drive forward solicitation conversations and proposals.  Join this session to hear practical examples and case studies from this dynamic duo about collaboration and what to do (and not to do!) to generate activity and increase solicitations within your portfolios.

Alumni and Donor Relations are rarely sitting at the same table, part of the same reporting lines, and often lack a cohesive approach to constituent engagement. Breaking down the barriers between these two teams is critical to moving alumni through attitudes to affinity to engagement to becoming current and future donors. Alumni and Donor Relations are two sides of the same coin. Join us for a candid conversation on how to bridge the gap between these two worlds through leveraging alumni surveying to meet everyone’s needs with special emphasis on events, communications, and special interest areas of our constituents. We will explore how these two teams can partner on annual engagement and interest surveys, event and experience surveys, to gauging overall satisfaction with your institution. We will dive into event strategy development and partnership, collaborative communication schedules, and ensuring all programs are designed to enhance the overall alumni and donor engagement experience. Designed to be both strategic and tactical in nature, this session delivers the partnership, surveying, and engagement deep dive you’ve been needing for your organization.