Most development professionals have experienced an uncomfortable, offensive, or harmful donor-constituent interaction. This cannot just be seen as “part of the job” rather something that is addressed to create a culture and systems that build brave spaces and policies and procedures that result in greater safety and professional satisfaction.

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.

In the dynamic world of advancement for education, effective management and support of volunteers is crucial for organizational success. This session, "Advancing Board Management," delves into the volunteer component of advancement, exploring how to optimize work with a variety of volunteer groups including alumni boards, advisory boards, foundation boards, governing boards, task forces, and committees.
We will begin by examining the best practices of high-functioning boards, highlighting key strategies that drive efficiency and impact. Learn about proven techniques to cultivate a productive board culture, establish clear roles and responsibilities, and implement robust governance structures.
Next, we’ll explore effective engagement strategies for board members that enhance participation and commitment. We’ll share innovative approaches to involving board members in meaningful ways, ensuring they are both motivated and empowered to contribute their best.
Finally, we’ll discuss ways to leverage communities of practice to increase collaboration among colleagues doing similar work, helping to provide for a more cohesive and coordinated approach towards effective board management.

Each and every message we send and receive over the course of the day is coded by the
sender and decoded by the receiver. This leaves room for misinterpretation and confusion
if we aren’t careful. Using Schramm’s Communication Model, this interaction session will
demonstrate the power and impact of coding and decoding of messages and attendees will
leave with a new perspective on the intentionality we should consider with every
communication we send (or receive).

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.

How often have your staff come to you to tell you about an inappropriate comment, touching, or other more egregious behavior from a donor, board member or volunteer? Or do you simply hear about it second hand because reporting it means losing a prospect or being told that it's "just part of the job"? Staff who work in the field have put up with harassment in many forms for many years, but with recent cultural shifts and efforts like CASE"s Zero Tolerance Policy, advancement shops are taking action. Please join the presenters to learn about how some shops are taking concrete actions and practices to prevent harassment and discrimination in advancement, fundraising, and related functions and how you can take these approaches back to your own team, including training to empower and protect staff members, as well as transparent reporting and remediation processes. Through gathering research, developing guidelines, and creating concrete actions and practices to address the problem, and sharing our own journeys, we can all help change the industry to create a safe and respectful workplace culture.

What is it about “the little engine that could” that allowed it to successfully pull the train over the mountain when larger engines refused to even try? Why is it that California pistachio farmers so often become millionaires when the trees take years to mature and bear fruit? What can we learn from the little engine that exclaimed “I think I can…I think I can” as it huffed and puffed to the mountain top?
Can universities and colleges embarking on their first-ever comprehensive campaign learn from these examples? Yes, when one considers the common characteristics or ingredients in a successful campaign: patience, persistence, and a healthy culture of philanthropy. It is almost universal that comprehensive campaigns, especially multi-year, first time efforts, are a mixture of challenges and opportunities. But with patience, persistence and a keen understanding of your culture of philanthropy, the challenges can be met, and the opportunities can bear fruit.
Join us for an in depth look at these issues and obstacles and get tips on how patience and persistence can lead to success:
• You can’t raise money for everything! When every department on campus wants to raise money, how do you go about setting meaningful priorities and goals? How do you respond to shifting priorities?
• Explore strategies when changes in leadership occur, whether at the executive level, key volunteers or even your Development staff.
• Most Advancement officers will squirm a bit when asked if they have sufficient prospects for a campaign. Join our discussion on successful techniques to grow or enhance your prospect pool.
• Return on investment. It takes money to raise money. Explore with colleagues the multiple methods for aquiring resources that will put you on a path to a successful campaign.
• Whether a campaign is big or small, short or long, there comes a time when campaign fatigue sets in. Volunteers get tired or need to move on to other things, staff move on or get frustrated, people will begin to wonder if it will ever end. This session will reveal successful ways to overcome the challenges inherent in campaign fatigue.
• Identifying and growing your culture of philanthropy is essential to campaign success. Explore with us the four key pillars of a robust culture and how you can improve them as your campaign unfolds.

Key Takeaways:
• Develop campaign priorities that are bold, transformational and aligned with your mission and strategic plan. And don’t forget to measure prospect and donor interest. Be flexible and amenable to change if needed.
• Expect to experience changes in leadership – sometimes the president or other executives, development team members, or volunteers. Consider these changes to be opportunities for fresh perspectives and new energy.
• Be prepared to state your case with the need for sufficient resources. You cannot expect to take your fundraising program to higher levels with the same old budget.
• When your prospect pool is insufficient for your chosen goal, you must build the ship while sailing it. Building your pool takes grit, patience, hard discovery work and creativity. Never stop mining your database.
• Remember the story of the little engine that could, which teaches the value of optimism and hard work. Despite a steep climb and a heavy load, the little engine slowly succeeds in pulling the train over the mountain. And keep in mind the lessons of the pistachio farmer, who never gives up and sees from the beginning the value of nurturing cultivation of his trees, just as we must be patient and persistent with our prospects.

Join us for an informative session on "Equitable & Inclusive Alumni Engagement through Alumni Chapters"! Discover strategies for fostering inclusive alumni chapters that represent the diverse areas of your college community. Learn how to create and sustain affinity chapters that advocate for various interests and backgrounds, ensuring every voice is heard. Acquire practical tips for maintaining inclusivity and enhancing engagement across all alumni groups. This session will equip you with the tools to build an equitable and inclusive alumni network.

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.