Day 1: Tuesday, March 8

7:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.

Registration and Breakfast

Welcome to New Orleans! Please stop by the registration desk starting at 7:00 a.m. to check in and pick up your conference materials.

8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. 

Welcome and Opening Keynote - Rethinking Data for Equity

Now is the time to challenge what we think about data, research, and equity. Many teams and organizations have stated goals to use data to improve the equity in their programs, services, and products. But actually understanding how to move from a goal to a data equity success can be challenging and often counter-intuitive

In this highly engaging talk (and politics-free, don’t worry!) Heather uncovers the specific places where most organizations accidentally embed bias where they mean to embed equity, and shows you what you can do about it today.

Practical. Actionable. Inspirational. Real.

Speaker: Heather Krause, Founder, We All Count

9:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. 

Networking Break with Exhibitors

10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

Deep Dive Sessions (Select One): 

Data Literacy – The Key to Maximizing Your Analytics Program

Data Literacy is the ability to understand and use data in your everyday work. At its highest level it is the curiosity and agility to truly leverage the depth of information in your organization and is a necessary component to a successful business intelligence, analytics, data governance or artificial intelligence program. This session will explain data literacy, why it is essential to any information access effort and how to implement. Specific examples will also be discussed.

Speaker: Therese Callaghan, Associate Vice President, Information Technology, Rutgers University

Engagement Metrics Dashboard: A Key Performance Indicator Approach

At Ohio State, engagement professionals and Business Intelligence/Data Science partners have developed a new tool to analyze engagement data that we believe will benefit the engagement industry. Successes from this work include: an inclusive, stakeholder-centered definition of “meaningful engagement” that reflects our diverse and digital world; improved data measurement consistency among engagement professionals across the organization; a key performance indicator process that can be applied to other projects (to ask “Why?” and not “What?”); and a dashboard that provides real-time engagement data to analyze impact. Attendees will learn how to apply a Key Performance Indicator method to determine measures of success at their home institutions, plus gain ideas into tools they might want to build or refine at home to help provide real-time data and insights related to measuring the impact of engagement efforts.

Speakers: Speakers: Claire Badger, Director of Administration, Alumni Experiences, Danielle Huskey, Data Analytics Consultant, Molly Schmied, Chief Analytics Officer, Business Intelligence & Data Science, The Ohio State University

Data Fluency – Understanding, Upskilling and Speaking the New Common Language

How well do you speak data? How insightful is your organization? Much has been said about data literacy, but when it comes to increasing fluency across an entire organization it is our ability to ask the right questions that matters most. Join this session to learn a practical framework for understanding where your organization is with data and how to get where you want to go.

Speaker: Jami Hougen Johnson, Director, Prospect Management & Information Engagement, University of Chicago

Using Data to Implement Strategy and Drive Decisions

Data can be complex, extensive, confusing, and intimidating. Data can also be a great asset to engage constituents when it’s used effectively. Learn how Georgia State University’s Donor Engagement & Communications team is implementing a strategy rooted in using data to drive constituent engagement across annual giving, donor relations, and advancement communications. In this session, we will share the creative and scalable ways our team uses data to segment audiences, develop messaging, and personalize donor experiences. We will discuss how we identify data points hidden in our systems, how we obtain data directly from constituents, and how we leverage and scale different types of data to engage donors. The presentation will cover our strategy and methodology for measuring results and reporting findings through organizational examples and case studies. Join us for a lively conversation where we will share how you can benefit from using data to implement strategy and drive decisions.

Speakers: Alison Mercer, Executive Director, Donor Engagement & Communications and Michael Rohling, Director, Donor Communications & Digital Engagement, Georgia State University

11:45 a.m. – 1:15 p.m. 

Networking Luncheon & Roundtable Discussions

1:15 p.m. – 2:05 p.m.

Elective Sessions (Select One): 

From Global Standards to Global Benchmarks

Historically, organizations and institutions have relied on government and taxation laws to provide clear definitions of what is or is not philanthropic. As our world becomes increasingly global, CASE members and volunteers recognized the need for a unified definition of Educational Philanthropy.  This new term provided an anchor for all counting practices and guidelines included in CASE’s newly released Global Reporting Standards.  In this session we will introduce you to the concept of Educational Philanthropy and explore why it matters to you, no matter your role within advancement.  As part of this discussion, we will examine how CASE surveys will provide opportunities to count and benchmark consistently across global regions, while incorporating recent findings from benchmarking surveys, including the Voluntary Support of Education and Alumni Engagement Metrics.  We will also provide a roadmap of how the new CASE Standards will be integrated into both existing and new surveys, such as the CASE-Marts&Lundy CampaignSource.  The goal of this session is that attendees leave with knowledge and understanding of how CASE Global Reporting Standards and consistency in reporting advancement metrics and benchmarks can empower leadership and key decisions moving forward.

Speakers: Jenny Cooke Smith, Senior Director of AMAtlas Services, and Deborah Trumble, Senior Director, Data, Research, and Technology, Council for Advancement and Support of Education

Putting Engagement Data into Action: Designing Alumni and Development Programming to Match the Needs of Graduates

In this session, we’ll look at data trends in higher-ed advancement relating to how Facebook engagement, event attendance, contact reports, and meetings with gift officers correlate to giving, providing helpful benchmarks for teams to use for segmentation, alumni engagement, and prospect management. We’ll also go in-depth into Berkeley’s analysis to help teams look past the old way of measuring engagement (donor participation alone) and uncover the often-overlooked ways alumni are already engaging with the institution. With donor participation and retention in decline, teams need to lead with engagement insights to build a donor-focused, pipeline-propelling organization. They must understand when alumni are raising their hands and asking to get involved or be seen. They must gather key data and then put it into action. In this session, we’ll explore what that means together.

Speakers: Mike Brucek, VP of Data Strategy, Evertrue and Rhonda Kinard, Associate Director of Alumni Engagement Programs, University of California, Berkeley

Transformation as a Constant – Make the Full Transition to Ecosystem Thinking

Over the last ten years, we have evolved into an industry with an increasing number of software solutions - many for specific functionality that allows for effective engagement with a broad swath of constituents. Our limiters to adoption and innovation are now less about available solutions, and more about our own staffing, organization, and priorities. While we have seen great functional gains, we also frequently have a deficit of realized value as these solutions operate in silos - often due to our own technical debt and vendor preferences. Effective use of point solutions demands a different balance in our work, different implementation methodologies, and a new level of partnership to have a sustainable level of constant transformation. We're going to explore some frameworks for considering these issues, how we illustrate these needs to our partner decision makers, and how we can balance core system stability against forward progress.

Speaker: Karl Otto, Chief Technology Officer, Development & Alumni Relations

Using Data Analytics to Drive Cultural Change

What does it mean to make data-driven decisions? For many, this phrase evokes the image of a leader poring over spreadsheets and graphs, finding nuggets of data insight that transforms the way the organization conducts its business. In reality, our organizations are overwhelmed with data, failing to produce the insights we imagine will come. Rod Grabowksi, Vice President for University Advancement and Geoff Bartlett, Assistant Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at the University at Buffalo (UB) will present an alternative way to think about data and how it’s used. Rather than looking at reams of data in hopes of finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, the UB team is focused on finding the correct data to answer questions. While the difference may seem subtle, this decision-driven data analysis approach leads to making both better decisions and courses of action. In this session, Grabowski and Bartlett discuss how they are using data to change business practices, and with it, the culture at UB. They’ll discuss how they use data to change business processes, and how to structure a data ecosystem that is designed for future decision-driven data analytics. The session will include a variety of specific examples of how UB uses this approach to create programs that align with their divisional goals and business-drivers (for example, a data analysis study highlighted areas of improvement within gift officer performance metrics, which informed how to structure a new supplementary compensation model).

Speakers: Rodney Grabowski, Vice President for University Advancement and Geoffrey Bartlett, Assistant Vice President for Strategic Initiatives, University at Buffalo

2:05 p.m. – 2:35 p.m. 

Networking Break with Exhibitors

2:35 p.m. – 3:25 p.m. 

Elective Sessions (Select One): 

Expanding the Data you are Collecting

Telling your institution’s advancement story is much more than a few KPI’s focused on just donors and revenue.  Institutions that integrate other data points, such as engagement and marketing metrics, can begin to measure against goals and set priorities through a more holistic set of measures.  In this panel discussion, you’ll learn how institutions are incorporating new data points such as alumni engagement metrics, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging analysis, and interaction in programming outside of advancement.  Panelists will discuss how they make space for new information, collaborate across units, the institution and other parties to incorporate new data points into action-oriented next steps.  You will also hear how CASE and other Educational Partners are supporting through expanding research initiatives.

Speakers: Moderator: Brian Gawor, Vice President, Research, RNL, Panelists: John Gough, Senior Director for Advancement Data Operations, University of Texas - Austin, Reshunda Mahone, Assistant Dean for Advancement and Alumni Engagement, Senior Director of Development, Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Cara Giacomini, Vice President, Data, Research and Technology, Council for Advancement and Support of Education

Creating a Division-Wide Comprehensive Digital Strategy at the University of Buffalo – A Case Study

When the pandemic occurred, the team at the University at Buffalo took advantage of the situation and used the time to truly imagine what their work-world would look like if they applied a digital-first mentality. This began an 18-month journey to transform their organization from one that used data and technology to one that now leads with data and technology. This process incorporated a system-wide review that not only looked at how they could better deploy digital tools or more effectively use digital channels, but really allowed them to rethink their work by employing a digital-first mindset.

In this case study, hear from two of the principal architects of UB’s new digital strategy as they walk through the many steps the team undertook to develop a vision for the future, a strategy and roadmap to get them there, and how the strategy is allowing the team to reimagine advancement work. The session will focus on three key areas for digital transformation, namely people (are teams prepared for a new digital future; what needs to be done to ensure success; have silos been broken down?), process (are policies aligned with the future; is data consolidated, concisely defined, and consistently used?), and infrastructure (what legacy systems need to be converted; how are digital solutions evaluated and chosen; are there financial and policy constraints that need to be addressed?).

Throughout, the presenters will share how UB became more proactive, and less reactive, to digital platform decisions and ROI; shifted future staffing needs and decisions to be more digitally-focused; increased the digital competency of their staff; identified key technologies that underpinned digital transformation; promoted digital standards and guidelines across the division; re-envisioned alumni and donor journeys for a digital age; and aligned divisional goals and decision-making to support a larger digital vision, all of which has led to a robust digital ecosystem and greater collaboration across the division.

Speakers: Geoffrey Bartlett, Assistant Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Kathleen Heckman, Associate Vice President for Advancement Administration, University at Buffalo

Modern Data Consumption for Modern Advancement Operations: An In-Depth Look at Carnegie Mellon University’s Innovative Data Reporting and Sharing Strategy

As we enter this next chapter in higher education advancement, how will data be consumed and drive critical decision-making? Carnegie Mellon University has developed an innovative reporting and data sharing strategy that greatly empowers both end users and senior management. Employing native Salesforce reporting, Einstein Analytics, and other Salesforce-native tools, CMU is revolutionizing the way data is consumed and decisions are made. In this session, practitioners from CMU and Affinaquest (an SSB company) will discuss how CMU’s approach achieves the following... 1) Empowers end users: data consumption is as easy as logging on to the advancement database and accessing actionable intelligence to inform daily activities 2) Provides ways to gather and share business intelligence across teams and silos: cross-team collaboration for deeper insights and the avoidance of embarrassing faux pas 3) Aggregates non-traditional data sources: from HR, to student data, and from Athletics to wealth screenings—How CMU uses data to create 360-degree constituent views 4) Goes beyond data capture: once enormous amounts of data has been captured, how can it best be put to use? How CMU creates engagement scoring and predicts results based upon CASE standards

Speakers: Jim McNulty, Director of Advancement Analytics, Todd Rheinfrank, Assistant Vice President for Advancement Information Systems, Carnegie Mellon University, and Lori Stirling, Vice President of Implementation & Professional Services, and James Werner, Chief Strategy Officer, Affinaquest

My Fundraiser Dashboard – Driving the Details

As fundraisers are increasingly pressured to surpass new goals, the onus falls on prospect development teams to better support them in these efforts. Data visualization tools like Tableau allow organizations to build customized reports to address unique needs and gaps in reporting. In this presentation, learn how Syracuse University is using Tableau to enlighten and motivate their frontline fundraisers to focus on activity that drives success using interactive dashboards. In particular, hear how collaborating with a focus group of fundraisers allowed the department to create more accessible, intuitive designs that support fundraisers in their work.

Speaker: Katie Pierce, Assistant Data Analytics, Syracuse University

3:35 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. 

Vendor Sessions - To Be Announced 

4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. 

Exhibitor Demos in Exhibit Hall

5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

DRIVE Networking Event - Welcome Reception

Join conference committee members and your colleagues to network and unwind after Day 1. 

6:30 p.m.

Conference Adjourns for the Day

Dinner on your own 

 

Day 2: Wednesday, March 9

8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.

Continental Breakfast / Roundtables

9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Data Collection—Ethical Considerations and Recommended Practices

The ethical and responsible use of data related to diversity, equity, and inclusion is a priority for many advancement teams, as they strive to ensure diverse perspectives are represented and a diverse constituency engaged across their work. However, many practices, processes, and systems are not optimized to collect and utilize race, ethnicity, gender, pronoun data, and other identity data in transparent, ethical, and responsible ways. In 2021, Apra released the Apra Ethics and Compliance Committee Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Data Guide  to provide foundational guidance in this space. In this session, we will provide a high level overview of the Apra guide, introduce the next chapter of this work involving an exciting collaboration between Apra, aasp, AFP, and CASE to create in-depth recommended practices guides for the collection and responsible use of various DEI data types, and provide an interactive discussion on some of the key questions and challenges related to DEI data.

Speakers: Therese Callaghan, Associate Vice President, Information Technology, Rutgers University, Lori Hood Lawson, Vice President of Advancement Insights, UC Innovation, Shalonda Martin, Senior Director of Data Integrity & DEI Council Chair, University of Southern California, and Cara Giacomini, Vice President, Data, Research and Technology, Council for Advancement and Support of Education. 

10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

Networking Break with Exhibitors

10:30 a.m. – 11:10 a.m.

Vendor Sessions - To Be Announced 

11:10 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Exhibitor Demos in Exhibit Hall

12:00 p.m. – 1:25 p.m.

Networking Luncheon & Roundtables

1:25 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.

Elective Sessions (Select One):

Achieving Accuracy in Gift Reporting

It is essential for a fundraising organization to be able to report gifts accurately and predictably to internal and external partners. The ability to report accurately is a sign of a fully functioning development office that has a strong handle on database design and data governance. Reporting with accuracy imbues confidence in gift reporting, failing to do so creates skepticism, doubt, and suspicion of the reporting function.

Speaker: Brian Zive, Consultant, Analytical Solutions, Marts & Lundy

Creating Annual Giving and Volunteer Scores: Tools, People, Challenges, and Best Practices

Predictive models enhance the work of subject matter experts who can more quickly identify potential donors and volunteers. How can you measure a good donor or a good volunteer? You can give them a score.

What is predictive modelling? It is a computational method that predicts an outcome or score based on certain input variables.How to run a predictive model to identify potential donors and volunteers? You need subject matter experts, a team, and tools. Here are the lessons learned by the Advancement Analytics team at Carnegie Mellon University that can be helpful for those who want to use data driven analytics to improve donor and volunteer acquisition.



Speakers: Michael Calhoun, Salesforce Analyst, Advancement Analytics, Jim McNulty, Senior Director, Advancement Analytics, and Muza Furin, Senior Associate Director, Advancement Analytics, Carnegie Mellon University

Deep Dive into DEIBJ Data & Assessment: How to Baseline, Measure and Integrate Your Development and Engagement Programs with Actionable Data Insights

Development organizations have both an imperative and unique opportunity to advance DEIBJ. A core aspect to advancing DEIBJ is embracing the data. DEIBJ data drives the strategy and informs organizational decisions. When engaging in this work sometimes determining where to begin is the hardest part. So, how do we determine that? Assessment! Join us as we dive into DEIBJ data and explore how we can assess our organizations in an impactful way.

Speakers: Jay La Roux Dillion, Executive Director, Alumni Relations, University of California, Berkeley and Shalonda Martin, Senior Director of Data Integrity, DEI Council Chair, University of Southern California

Young Alumni Mindset Report: Strategy Informed by Data

This session will provide an example of how to combine multiple data sets (alumni attitude survey results, digital behavior metrics, donation history, and event attendance, etc.) to build a roadmap for actionable strategy for young alumni engagement. We will take you through our journey of data collection, analytics, report development, data-driven strategy brainstorming, and results. After attending our session, attendees will be able to: i. Understand different data points needed to build out a comprehensive mindset report. ii. Understand beginner-level analytics methods for combing through and combining disparate data points. iii. Learn how the GT Alumni Association took this data story and build an engagement strategy for young alumni.

Speakers: Abbey Callahan, Director, Student and New Alumni Engagement and Katie Sclafani, Data Analysis, Georgia Tech Alumni Association

2:15 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. 

Final Networking Break with Exhibitors

2:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Closing Keynote and Remarks

4:00 p.m.

Conference Adjourns

Thank you for attending DRIVE/ 2022