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.

Bringing over fifteen years of experience in higher education, including nine years in advancement services, Adriana has performed various roles within development, from data management and gift administration to donor relations and communications. Before joining USNA, Adriana worked at the University of Cincinnati Foundation and several organizations within the Cal State System. Throughout her career, Adriana has been providing strategic direction and excellence in Advancement Services, strengthening gift administration, technology and automation, data science, and prospect development and research.

Adriana holds a Master of Science in Accountancy from the University of Cincinnati and two degrees from UNITEC – Mexico, including a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Computer Science and a Post Baccalaureate degree in Industrial Operations. In addition, Adriana has earned two certificates, one in Data Science and one in Project Management, from Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Dominguez Hills, respectively. 

Adriana is an active member of APRA, AASP, and CASE; in 2016, Adriana received the district VII Circle of Excellence Award for innovation and collaboration with Alumni Relations and Advancement Services.

Kenny Howard serves as the Director of Gift Management for the University of Colorado Foundation. There, he manages gifts processing for all four campuses of the University of Colorado system.  Over the last four years, he’s worked extensively to help develop, build, implement and improve a Salesforce based donor database. His team of five processes more than 78,000 gifts each year.

Kenny holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in nonprofit management from Regis University in Denver, CO.

Cara Giacomini is the vice president of data, research, and technology for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. In this role, she leads CASE Insights — a primary resource and service provider for data, benchmarking, analytics, and original research to the educational advancement community worldwide, launched by CASE in 2018.

Before starting at CASE, she spent 20 years at the University of Washington, most recently as the director of advancement analytics. In university advancement, she was instrumental in building a strong data culture where she improved donor outcomes at all levels and pioneered efforts to build infrastructure and expertise in digital analytics. Prior to her work in advancement, she served as a senior research scientist in the information technology department, studying the adoption of educational technologies and the effectiveness of IT services. She received her PhD in English and Textual Studies from the University of Washington in 2003. She is passionate about putting data into action—empowering CASE’s members to utilize CASE Insights resources to answer their most pressing questions and address their evolving needs.