Rebecca Weitz is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in gift services and data management. She currently serves as the Senior Managing Director of Gift Services at the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association (WFAA). Rebecca leads a team of ten amazing humans who annually process over 140,000 gifts and pledges. WFAA’s Gift Services team is committed to timely and accurate gift processing, collaborative stakeholder support, and continuous innovation.

Before joining WFAA, Rebecca dedicated sixteen years to the University of Colorado Foundation. There, she excelled in managing gifts and records services, reporting, prospect and proposal management, and data analysis. Her efforts were instrumental in developing and implementing significant process improvements for both the CU Foundation and the Office of Advancement at CU.

Rebecca has participated in two major CRM conversions: from Ellucian Advance to UCI’s Ascend and from Blackbaud CRM to Affinaquest. She also has extensive experience with smaller-scale CRMs, including Trailblazer and Neon CRM. Rebecca is dedicated to enhancing operational intelligence and efficiency. She strives to streamline processes and elevate the standards of gift and data services, positioning them as a cornerstone of inspirational and influential advancement practices.

Rebecca is also a recognized speaker and presenter, having contributed to multiple Ellucian conferences, CASE conferences, and the aasp Summit. She has served as Chair and faculty of the CASE Gift & Records Workshop multiple times. Rebecca holds a bachelor’s degree from Franklin & Marshall College and a certificate in professional management from Employers Council.

With almost 20 years of experience in public higher education, Robyn possesses a deep understanding of the issues and challenges unique to the filed. The past 19 years she has focused her career in Advancement, making her well-versed in the business needs of university stakeholders and the data, systems, and processes that are critical to a successful fundraising enterprise. Using a “Start-up” approach to solving business, organizational, and technical issues, Robyn is adept at developing strong, cross-functional teams, strategies, and services. Past successes include database conversions, business process improvements, and training programs that encompass the entirety of the Advancement organization.

Robyn has served as conference speaker and presenter at multiple CASE conferences and AASP Summit. She holds a bachelor's degree from California State University, Chico and a certificate in digital transformation from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

Karen A. Sims-Harrell currently serves as director gifts and records management at NC State University. Sims-Harrell brings over 20 years of experience within gift processing and donor records management. She is an experienced advancement professional with proven skills in fundraising and financial management, gift administration, policy creation, leadership and staff development. She is skilled in the use of consultative approaches to increase efficiency in integration of industry best practices for gift acceptance and data standards.

Sims-Harrell has served as a board member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals-Eastern PA Chapter for seven years and served as the Ethics and Accountability chair for two years. She has also served as a conference presenter and volunteer with CASE in varying capacities during her membership over the last 15 years. Sims has received the distinction as being a CASE district faculty stellar speaker for multiple years and was awarded the CASE 2021 District III Opportunity and Inclusion Award for her work in promoting diversity and inclusion industry best practices.

She holds a bachelor's degree from DeSales University in management and marketing and a master's degree in educational leadership from Lehigh University.

Ann Kaplan is senior director of the Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. In this role, she oversees the national online survey which includes survey administration, working with respondents of the survey, cleaning and analyzing the data, data validation, and more. Ann has been the director of the VSE since 2002 when it was administered by the Council for Aid to Education. She also helped develop Data Miner, the longitudinal and comparative metrics on-line reporting solution that is available to CASE members.