Kickoff the conference by meeting the faculty, learning about the attendees present, and discuss how to get the most out of your time in DC.

This session will explore how embracing neurodiversity can enhance the effectiveness of advancement services, emphasizing the unique strengths and perspectives that neurodivergent individuals bring to the field. Attendees will gain insights into practical strategies for fostering an inclusive environment and leveraging diverse talents to drive success in advancement services.

Come to this session prepared to discuss the most exciting solutions you've learned about here at the conference. We will use our collective brainpower to solve problems and share ideas that will work in small shops, from scaling down large shop solutions to abandoning some tropes of advancement services. Please bring questions, current challenges, and creative solutions that have worked for your shop.

In a world where our gift processing ecosystem is evolving it is important for our units to be equipped to support fundraising efforts that will surely include third-party gifts. These include matching gifts, donor-advised and donor-directed gifts, as well as crowdfunding, social media campaigns and others. We will share best practices on how to handle these gifts within different databases while navigating how to create appropriate policies and procedures that will work for your organizations.

We all know it: most people in our organizations don’t think about us unless something goes wrong. We also know that when our teams do fast, excellent work, everything, and everyone else in the organization benefits. But keeping up that pace and that keen attention to detail can be taxing, leading to burnout and turnover, and getting approval for additional resources is rarely easy. How can we maintain that “well-oiled machine” – churning through gift processing and data management at an impressive pace with remarkable accuracy – while recognizing and honoring that we are not machines? Let’s talk about how to manage up, down, across, and within to maximize productivity, retention, collaboration, and (dare I say it?) joy in our work, while also setting expectations, acquiring valuable resources, and maintaining that coveted work-life balance.

As society continues to work on building just, fair, and equitable systems our sector also continues to strive toward creating practices grounded in equity. However, the pace of change, expectations, and the explosion of AI in this space has left many of our organizations scrambling. In this session we’ll lead a conversation where we explore institutional efforts and best practices and talk through obstacles and roadblocks that exist within our organizations. We'll also offer you some nitty gritty practical advice you can apply in your data management.

While there may still be some in your organization who refer to our role as “back office” we are anything but! The complexity and demand for data in our organizations, especially in analytics, dashboards, accessibility, and of course campaign has moved our role to one of central importance. The panel will share how we’ve transformed our organization’s perception of these vital functions to get a well-deserved seat at the strategy table.

Some days processing gifts feels like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get, and some of them leave a terrible taste in your mouth. Let’s dissect those sticky gifts: DAFs, private foundations, family foundations, IRA/QCD, GIKs, cryptocurrency, QPQs, and even pledges. We’ll talk about bifurcation, we’ll probably talk more about Benevity, and we’ll have a “most bizarre gift” contest!

With multiple sources of data and increased stakeholder demands, keeping your data clean can feel like (and actually be) an overwhelming role in your organization. In this session we’ll explore tips and tricks to methodically evaluating, streamlining, cleansing, and auditing your data using the core concepts of collaborative data stewardship to shift this role from being primarily the data team’s responsibility.

Come together to discuss your greatest challenges and most exciting opportunities with those who truly understand: your colleagues. We’ll have dedicated tables for the hottest topics and biggest pain points you’re experiencing – taken straight from the pre-conference survey – and get you started with questions and ideas. Faculty will float throughout the session and participate with you.