Wednesday 26th May, 13:00 - 14:15 CEST

Switching From “As Usual” to “Digital Only” – Case Studies From Denmark, Norway, and Finland

This session is supported by:

Since early 2020 we have been forced to reconfigure how we best can keep connected with our loyal stakeholders. The big annual conference, a large international alumni network and the annual alumni gathering was no longer possible in the way we usually have been operating. The pandemic, travel bans and the home office forced us to transform from our normal routines into new digital initiatives. In this session, we share experiences on developing new offerings both local and global and share with your learnings from three universities across the Nordics.

Mia Ingman, Head of External Relations, Arcada University of Applied Sciences, Finland

Adriana Moreno-Gavaldon, Adviser, International Alumni Relations, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway

Jacob Jensen, Senior Executive Officer, Stakeholder Management, DTU (Technical University of Denmark), Denmark

Mette Melvej Stærk, Event Manager, Stakeholder Management, DTU (Technical University of Denmark), Denmark

Facilitated by Barbro Kolbjørnsrud, Career and Employability Coordinator, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo, Norway

14:15 - 14:30 CEST - CASE Membership Showcase

Use this time to find out more about how to get the most out of your CASE membership, including a demonstration of how to navigate resources. This is also an opportunity to ask any questions about CASE member benefits. 

Christina Powis, Membership Services Manager, CASE

Wednesday 15 September, 13:00 - 14:15 CEST

Strategic Planning: Behind the Scenes



Are you planning a new alumni relations strategy or a new cross-institutional initiative within alumni relations? Strategic planning is not only about putting the best plan in writing. It’s just as much a process to involve relevant internal stakeholders and securely get buy-in. And to keep them involved. Join us as we share and discuss the process of strategic planning based on recent examples from Nordic universities.

Facilitated by Line Axelsen, Special Consultant, Enterprise and Innovation - AU Career, Alumni and CRM, Aarhus University, Denmark

Programme - via Zoom

13:00 - 13:05 Welcome from CASE

Bruce Bernstein, Executive Director, CASE

13:10 - 13:25 Strategic Steps for Strengthening External Relations

Top Management’s strategic perspectives and steps to strengthen the organization’s ability to create new initiatives for collaboration with external relations, the business community and alumni.

Amir Sasson, Provost for Innovation and Outreach and Professor, BI Norwegian Business School

13:30 - 13:45 Merging Alumni Operations 

Elina Suojanen-Laine, Head of Fundraising, Alumni and Stakeholder Relations, Tampere University

13:50 - 14:05 Strategy and Implementation

Strategic and hands-on perspective: Developing a central alumni strategy in 2020 to combine decentralised efforts. The focus will be on developing the strategy, implementation and challenges.

Line Axelsen, Alumni Relations Manager, Aarhus University

14:05 - 14:15 Q&A and wrap-up

Rich Nicholl, Head of Educational Programmes, CASE

Wednesday 24 November, 13:00 - 14:15 CET

Partnerships For Relevance

How to build partnerships that can add more industry relevance to education.

Title: Partnership for a better future

Students expect the education to offer the knowledge and skills needed to influence business and society in a positive direction, and that future employers will give them the opportunity to influence. The INSPIRE TO IMPACT conference gathers students and business people annually to explore and discuss how climate risks can be turned into climate opportunities. We will share the story on how BI Norwegian Business School, DNV, UN Global Compact and BISO Impact (a BI student society) are partnering to explore and showcase new business models and breakthrough innovations to support the Sustainable Development Goals. Per Erik Johannessen, Innovation and Outreach, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway

Aalto University is a forerunner in collaborative educational programs. Educational collaboration is an essential part of our long-term corporate partnerships. Every year 100+ companies collaborate with Aalto in education. In this session you will learn more about Aalto’s educational collaboration models and hear some concrete examples with corporates and their benefits to all parties. Outi Toijala, Head of Corporate Relations at Aalto University, Finland

Peter will outline the main reasons behind and rationale for strategic partnerships at Chalmers University of Technology, outlining some of the mechanisms for collaboration, how the program is anchored within the organization and how the work is organized and governed in day-to-day operations. Peter Lindwall, Partnership Manager, Office for strategic collaboration, Chalmers University of Technology

Facilitated by Nik Miller, Partner from More Partnership

Wednesday 9 February, 13:00 - 14:15 CET

Online Communications and Marketing

Digital Marketing For Donor Acquisition

How to create a successful digital marketing campaign to attract new support and engage existing audiences.

Digitalization has opened us versatile fast lines for interacting with our existing donors, and especially reaching for totally new audiences, and engaging them to become our loyal supporters. In this seminar, we will present you two different approaches utilizing digital media for fundraising and donor acquisition. You will learn how crowd funding can be a successful means to inspire local communities to contribute, and how a university can attract special audiences, in this case space enthusiasts, to donate in social media. Also, you will have a chance to share your own ideas about digital fundraising with your peers.

Facilitator: 

Annika Linna, Senior Communications Manager, Advancement and Corporate Engagement at Aalto University, Finland.

Annika is a communications professional inspired by sustainable goals, co-creation and change. For the past four years, she has been working for engaging Aalto University’s key stakeholders – alumni, donors and corporate partners – to become even more active and happy members of the Aalto community. Prior to Aalto, she has acted as communications specialist and lead both in agencies and corporations.

Case presenters:

Josine Meerburg, Relationship Manager at Twente University Fund, the Netherlands.

Josine started working in higher education in 2011 as a fundraiser for Utrecht University. Before that she worked for companies, mainly in sales and relationship management. Since 2014, she has been working for the University of Twente as a project lead for an annual campaign. She is also responsible for the university’s crowdfunding website and alumni engagement in the major donor campaign. Josine holds a MSc in organizational psychology from the Utrecht University.

Sarita Heikkinen, Donor Engagement Manager at Aalto University, Finland.

Sarita has several years of experience in digital fundraising, donor acquisition, and marketing and communications. Before joining Aalto University, Sarita worked in a UK based international development charity where she built the organisation’s digital acquisition programme, developed and implemented social media strategy and trained colleagues around the world on digital best practice. At Aalto, she enjoys developing new approaches to individual giving and using digital fundraising tools to help solve some of the world’s toughest problems.