In times of crisis, your people (the talent you manage) look to leadership for grace, security, and guidance. Learn how leaders at Michigan State University kept internal and external constituents informed and moving forward together during turbulent times, including a campus shooting, the abrupt resignation of a university president, an unexpected passing of a staff member, and firing of a football coach for unethical behavior, by providing staff members with timely and informative communication, health and wellness resources, and space to grieve.

Are your new hires and key partners on board with onboarding? What makes an onboarding experience successful for a new hire is one thing, but effective processes for the employees behind the scenes of that experience is another journey. This session, led by Harvard Alumni Affairs and Development, will highlight the changes to our processes that have received rave reviews, the challenges that persist, and explore new ideas to address the needs of an ever-evolving work environment. No matter the size of your advancement organization, we all share similar challenges when it comes to onboarding. This session will engage the audience to collaborate on best practices for an extraordinary process for all involved in onboarding. Facilitated by HR Program Consultant, Sarah Keeping and Talent Management Program Manager, Amanda Ulmer.

As the higher education recruitment market shifts, talent management teams must remain innovative and focused on consistent processes. Centered in a diversity and equity perspective, the process of selecting a great candidate and the tools to help mitigate personal bias in the recruitment process play an important role in creating an inclusive workforce. In this session, Brown University's Division of Advancement Talent Management team will explore how to create an inclusive recruitment process through bias mitigation, criteria selection, and consistency. Participants will leave with tangible learning outcomes that they can implement into their processes. This session will be facilitated by Associate Director, Talent and Learning, Sasha Callejas; Talent Acquisition Manager, Darius Davis; and Talent Specialist, Daniela Monge.

Join us in this dynamic and engaging session as we explore the critical aspects of acquiring, engaging, and developing talent while crafting sustainable career paths for your organization. You’ll gain insights into the critical significance of proactively constructing strategic talent pipelines, ensuring a sustainable workforce for the future. Discover simple yet impactful tools that will transform your approach to strategic talent review and succession planning and walk away understanding strategies for building intern-to-hire pipelines and nurturing your organization's next generation of top fundraising talent. This interactive session includes a breakout activity where you'll evaluate and discuss your own team's talent using a simplified approach. You’ll walk away with tools and templates that can be implemented at your organization and a simplified strategic framework for making succession planning practicable. Don't miss this opportunity to chart a course for your organization's continued success!

How often have your staff come to you to tell you about an inappropriate comment, touching, or other more egregious behavior from a donor, board member or volunteer? Or do you simply hear about it second hand because reporting it means losing a prospect or being told that it's "just part of the job"? Staff who work in the field have put up with harassment in many forms for many years, but with recent cultural shifts and efforts like CASE"s Zero Tolerance Policy, advancement shops are taking action. Please join the presenters to learn about how some shops are taking concrete actions and practices to prevent harassment and discrimination in advancement, fundraising, and related functions and how you can take these approaches back to your own team, including training to empower and protect staff members, as well as transparent reporting and remediation processes. Through gathering research, developing guidelines, and creating concrete actions and practices to address the problem, and sharing our own journeys, we can all help change the industry to create a safe and respectful workplace culture.

Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader is a quiz game show that originated in 2007. Contestants attempt to answer questions from 1st to 5th grade. The contestants are allowed to “cheat” from current 5th graders. The show provides a fascinating insight into diversity versus identities. The research is based on seasons 2007 and 2015 and demonstrates the significant bias in the show of children of different lived experiences. How do we make this shift? How do we make our inclusion efforts not exclusive? Even in our work to establish belonging for staff and colleagues, organizations are still creating exclusive approaches and practices. This session helps attendees shift to identity while appreciating everyone’s collective characteristics that contribute to their unique sense of self.