Stop by the registration table and pick up your conference materials. Registration for the New to Profession preconference will open soon!

Geared toward early-career advancement professionals, this pre-conference workshop will kick off a six month cohort-model professional development opportunity that is fully cost inclusive. New to the Profession (NTP) attendees will become immersed in the industry through engaging sessions (at the conference and virtually), self-reflection, and peer learning. The pre-conference session format includes a pre-arrival session via zoom (live and recorded), an introduction to CASE, a DiSCⓇ assessment and an expert led learning experience, networking opportunities, and an informal mentor pairing with a fellow CASE V conference attendee during the conference. Learn more about the six month cohort format and objectives. Registration for the New to Profession preconference will open soon!

Marianne W. Lewis is dean and professor of management at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati. She previously served as dean of Cass (now Bayes) Business School at City, University of London. A thought leader in organizational paradoxes, she explores tensions surrounding leadership and innovation. Lewis has been recognized among the world’s most-cited researchers in her field (Web of Science), and received the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award (2023) and Paper of the Year Award (2000) and Decade Award (2021) from the Academy of Management Review. Her work also appears in media outlets, such as Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Newsweek. Her latest book Both/And Thinking is published by Harvard Business School Press. Lewis earned her MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, and her PhD from the Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky.

Parents are one of the hottest markets for philanthropy and fundraising; but in order to solicit them, we must first engage them, and meaningfully. This session will discuss the ways one institution built a family engagement strategy--through its onboarding of first-year families, in-person and virtual programming, and strategic and aligned communications, all sequenced to reinforce one another.

Because parent programming on college campuses can be scattered and disjointed, we developed a strategic plan for family engagement to provide coherence, direction, and vision. This session will provide an overview of how we not only built that plan but quickly implemented that plan and how collaboration across the institution has allowed us to meaningfully engage families and contribute to our fundraising and philanthropy goals.

Prospecting often marks the beginning of each relationship we hope to form with a donor. Despite this, fundraisers tend to focus their energy learning more about gift closure conversations than how to reach their donors in the first place. Through the lessons we have learned during our experiment in prospecting we will share how you can connect to your intended donor base with ease!

In this session we will walk through a 3 month study we conducted using our prospects. We will talk about how we approached the work we did, what we believed the results of our work would be versus what actually happened, as well as how all of this informs our work today. Additionally, our session will be full of opportunities for you to ask questions and share your experiences in prospecting.

At the end of this session you will be able to identify your target audience, create an outreach plan to increase the responses you receive from your audience and utilize these prospecting tools as an asset that aids the work you do with donors throughout the rest of the gift cycle. Let us help you make the most of the time you spend prospecting so that you can get back to closing more gifts!

The U-M Medical School Communications Community of Practice (CoP) is successfully navigating the collaboration and support of more than 90 unit-embedded communicators to develop partnerships, ensure access to resources, and embolden a unified voice, brand, and message across the Michigan Medicine landscape. In this presentation we will define a CoP and its components, examine practical steps for building a sustainable CoP, discuss participation benefits, and share successes and learning opportunities.

As the national trend of declining donor counts continues, many institutions are ramping up engagement and acquisition efforts to attract new prospective donors. But increased data collection like this can often lead to differing schools of thought between the engagement professionals who seek to grow the donor pipeline and IT/data partners who aim to protect data integrity. What are the right pieces of data to collect? How can data quality be protected? At what point does data collection hinder a positive customer experience? Is there such a thing as too much data? This session will show how Ohio State Advancement has taken a collaborative approach to working through these questions and more by bringing the two areas of business together to develop solutions.
Key topics will include:
• How to align teams, practices, and goals.
• How to determine the right data points to ensure quality data while collecting engagement data to build and strengthen the fundraising pipeline.
• How to select the right data collection tools for varying types of engagement opportunities.
• How to tell the story of how engagement and acquisition data impacts the long-term health of an organization.

Imagine your alumni advocating for your school inside your largest community employers, connecting you to resources and opening partnership opportunities. This presentation features insights from an Alumni Council Leader, as well as the infrastructure and relationship building ideas that helped to make this possible.

New fundraisers, whether new to the profession entirely, new to your organization, or new to a discipline or role, can feel like they don't receive enough guidance, direction, and onboarding from their supervisors, mentors, and peers. This session provides practical, clearly defined suggestions for setting up your new fundraisers for success from Day 1! Learn the most important elements of onboarding a new staff member to ensure that they understand your organization and their role.

Uncovering hidden gems in your fundraising pipeline through unlikely and powerful partnerships that drive transformative success! Diving into the integration of prospect research and major gift discovery to transform your fundraising efforts into a data-driven success story.

Alumni Engagement and Community Partners share common values and goals when it comes to building lasting and life-long relationships with their stakeholders not only on campus but also in the surrounding community. Targeted events that foster a sense of "togetherness" and "community" are imperative to smaller towns that thrive on the impact that the students provide during their time at our university.
Finding our niche and standing out with admissions and recruitment visits has been instrumental since the development of these new community centered events. Come listen to how we have been ranked #1 in the state of Minnesota for the Best Game Day Atmosphere the past few years.
Through this presentation, you will hear how one institution takes a new approach to community centered events, has grown them into highly anticipated events for the entire community, and the economic impact that it has brought to the city, along with the excitement and buzz that started in 2017 and continues to get bigger each year.

Discover how to amplify your annual giving efforts through the power of social media. Anna Davis, Assistant Director of Annual Giving & Digital Strategy at Grand Valley State University, will share proven strategies to engage donors, boost visibility, and drive donations using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Learn practical tips for creating compelling content, leveraging paid digital campaigns, and measuring success effectively. Whether you're new to social media fundraising or looking to refine your approach, this session equips you with actionable insights to enhance your organization's outreach and impact.

Alumni crave meaningful engagement with their alma mater, and colleges are trying to reimagine how they engage alumni in new ways and continue to add value to alumni lives well beyond graduation. Join us for this panel discussion featuring two different institutions of different sizes for a conversation about strategies for successfully engaging alumni in initiatives across the lifespan. Specifically, we will discuss: affinity-based programming and research, career-focused alumni programming, virtual programming, and the use of data to support and assess this work.

Faced with mounting anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across the country and attacks on DEI in higher education, philanthropists at Indiana University unite to uplift queer students, faculty, and staff across the university through a giving circle model that has strengthened existing donor relationships while building a strong pipeline of young, diverse donors. In this session, we will discuss the successes and challenges of creating an identity-based giving circle and share lessons learned along the way. Come prepared to engage in open dialog about the current landscape of LGBTQ+ programs in higher education and how private philanthropy can support the community in uneasy times.

In a world of distractions and shrinking attention spans, listening is a disappearing art. Gaining insights into stakeholders’ diverse experiences takes collecting stories and asking “crazy good” questions. Turn off your cell phones and join us to make listening your philanthropic superpower!