In need of a new event to energize alumni, engage volunteers, and offer opportunities for collaboration, the Alumni Engagement team at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo looked to the past to create a new annual tradition — Founder’s Day! Celebrating the university's founding on March 8, 1901, Founder’s Day aims to engage as many alumni as possible in new and exciting ways. During the inaugural event on March 8, 2024, 17 alumni communities hosted unique events across the United States, reconnecting alumni to Cal Poly by celebrating this special day in history. During this session, you’ll learn more about how we collaborated with our Board of Directors, alumni volunteers and campus partners to facilitate the planning, timing, pricing, food & beverage, and all other event details needed to pull off this successful engagement event. We’ll go over planning a timeline and marketing plan, as well as lessons learned and planned improvements for this year’s celebration. Join us for this interactive session and leave with a few ideas on how you can utilize your university or institution's unique brand and history to engage alumni on new levels.

Want to maximize your Gala ROI? Discover the transformative power of volunteer engagement. In this presentation, we will delve into innovative strategies to enhance your return on investment (ROI) by empowering your volunteers. Learn how the Chinese American International School (PS-8), leverages our volunteer's unique skills and passions to create a more dynamic and efficient event that not only meets but exceeds our fundraising goals.

With competing communications priorities and a limited news team, Cal State Fullerton’s Office of Strategic Communications and Brand Management created a user-generated website for the campus community to share news, announcements and accomplishments. Learn how we launched the site, set guidelines for content submission, promoted its widespread use and grew submissions by 20% from year one to two. Additionally, our user-generated content site has become a tool for fundraisers to increase the volume of donor stories and capture information for prospect research; a tool for talent management teams to recognize faculty and staff achievements at all levels; and a tool for expanding internal news and promoting inclusive coverage by empowering campus partners to share their information.

We will provide tips and lessons learned on how to maintain daily operation of the site (managed by professional writers!), discuss practical and ethical considerations for non-writers sharing content, share the campus feedback we have received, and give you a preview of our next steps as we get ready to launch version 2.0.

Learn from Arizona State University's College of Nursing on how we seamlessly integrated alumni relations in to the Marketing and Communications department. This partnership has produced a cross-collaborative relationship that is not only mutually beneficial, but contributed to new projects and programs that the university is looking to duplicate on a large scale.

Learn how to create a dynamic and effective student ambassador program that energizes your community and drives success on Giving Day. In this session, discover how to empower students as brand advocates, equipping them with the skills to promote philanthropy and engage their community. You’ll learn strategies for executing impactful promotional activities, creating compelling marketing and social media content, and fostering meaningful connections with causes, alumni, students, and supporters. Join us to explore innovative ways to elevate your Giving Day through brand ambassadors and leave with actionable insights to boost participation and maximize your Giving Day’s impact!

There's nothing like that inaugural Giving Day. The energy and excitement from campus partners and senior leadership is palpable. But as the event enters year six, seven, eight and beyond, how do you maintain that spark? How do you keep away or recover from plateauing results? This session will cover how UC Irvine shook up their approach to reengage internal stakeholders and reassess the look and feel of the event, resulting in back-to-back record breaking Giving Days. We will share what has worked for us: processes, programs, collaborations, and more.

This session reflects on the 5-year evolution of a graduation celebration, intended for all students, but particularly those students and their support system who may not be able to participate in the traditional 2-hour ceremonies due to family, physical accommodations, work, or travel. This session will help you understand how to design a custom celebration that can be adapted for various budgets, audience sizes, and in-person or virtual formats.