Did you know advancement services is the backbone for all fundraising and development? Do you know where you fit within the advancement services department? What you do every day has an impact on your institution's ability to raise funds and engage constituents. This session will help you get a lay of the land and prepare you for all the institute has to offer.
4:30 – 4:45
Institute Transition Break
4:45 – 5:30
Cohort Conversations
All Faculty
Participants will have the opportunity to engage in small group discussion with fellow attendees to maximize their learning throughout the institute. These meetings are facilitated by a faculty leader and are designed to help attendees more deeply explore concepts covered.
6:00 – 8:00
Welcome Reception
Cap off your first day by joining the institute faculty and fellow attendees for a welcome reception to enjoy food, drinks and good company.
8:00
Institute Adjourns for the Day
8:30 – 8:45 AM
Morning Announcements
8:45 – 9:45
Elective Sessions (Choose one of two)
Fundamentals of Gift Processing & Sticky Gifts
Are you just getting started in gift processing, or do you want to brush up on skills acquired over a number of years in the profession? Do you have specific questions about the odd gift? We'll start with gift processing basics including IRS and CASE guidelines. We'll also cover complex gift processing situations like partial use gifts, stock, gifts-in-kind, gifts with quid pro quo, pledge recording, and more.
Building a Data-Centered Culture at Your Institution
Every organization has a potential treasure trove of data, but not everyone recognizes the potential value of this commodity. This session will focus on the basics of addressing data needs at your organization. Participants will explore the value of data, strategies for data acquisition and integration, and practical ways in which we address data integrity. Importantly, practical means of measuring data-related ROI are explored.
9:45 – 10:00
Coffee Break
10:00 – 11:00
Elective Sessions (Choose one of two)
System Selection, Implementation and Project Management
Good project management, simply put, aims to get the right people working on the right tasks at the right time to ensure successful outcomes. Many of your existing advancement services staff members likely have that mix of attention to detail and interest in process and outcomes that make them good project managers. Gain an understanding of how to deploy those skills to best benefit your department and your organization.
Introduction to Analytics
Collecting and storing information is a key function of advancement services. By taking the next step to make sense of the ocean of information and turn it into actionable information, we can provide more benefit to our organizations. Learn the fundamentals for putting in place analytics to drive your organization forward.
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Lunch
12:30 – 1:30
Elective Sessions (Choose one of two)
Policies and Procedures for Managing Expectations, Compliance, and Best Practices
A clearly articulated (and easily implemented) set of policies and procedures supports every advancement operation's long-term ability to maintain data accurately, manage team and stakeholder expectations, and comply with requirements. But who decides what is the core set of policies and procedures you need in your toolkit and when each should be deployed? Where do you start in developing or refining your institutions set of policies and procedures? Why do you need both and how do you document and distribute each for the greatest impact? We'll discuss these questions, and more, as we identify the key policies and procedures you need and gain ideas for implementing best practice solutions while avoiding reaching for a one-size-fits all answer.
Portfolio and Moves Management
Transition is common in the advancement office as staff come and go, and we move in and out of campaign periods. It's critical to make sure your best prospects don't get "lost" in your database. A well-designed prospect management system helps to ensure continuous donor engagement and stewardship by tracking relationship history and future plans for your top donors and prospects. We'll look at moves and prospect management (and the difference between the two), and how to create a prospect management system that supports individual staff efforts as well as prospect pool and campaign analytics.
1:30 – 1:45
Transition Break
1:45 – 2:45
Elective Sessions (choose one of two) ***Crossover Electives***:
CASE Standards – Putting Advancement Metrics into Practice
How am I doing? Is it good? So, what? In this session, you’ll learn how these questions can set you up for successful benchmarking and analysis. You’ll also hear about the first prerequisite to benchmarking—a common set of counting practices, as established in the newly released CASE Global Reporting Standards. You’ll walk away from this session with:
An understanding of how CASE’s Global Reporting Standards can inform your institution’s counting practices and gift acceptance policies based on a unified definition of Educational Philanthropy;
Deeper knowledge of the resources available from CASE for benchmarking across the advancement spectrum;
Insights from the latest global and regional philanthropic and alumni engagement trends;
Suggestions for applying data and benchmarks for strategic change
2:45 – 3:00
Refreshment Break
3:00 – 3:30
Office Hours
3:30 – 3:45
Transition Break
3:45 – 5:00
Cohort Conversations
All Faculty
Participants will have the opportunity to engage in small group discussion with fellow attendees to maximize their learning throughout the institute. These meetings are facilitated by a faculty leader and are designed to help attendees more deeply explore concepts covered.
5:00
Institute Adjourns for the day
Free evening, dinner on your own
8:30 – 8:45 AM
Morning Announcements
8:45 – 9:45
Elective Sessions (Choose one of two)
Service Desk & ITIL
How to best deliver timely service to users and to manage applications, technology, and infrastructure that support fundraising initiatives.
Advancement Services' Role in Donor Recognition Programs
Since no two donors are alike, it can be difficult to recognize them in a standardized, scalable fashion. Yet, over the years many approaches to donor recognition have evolved into what are now considered standard practices. Recognition societies, donor walls and annual donor rosters are a few such examples. Learn the basics of these practices and how advancement services supports them. Peek into the future of donor recognition via a brief look at some of the new ideas and trends seeking to further evolve our standard practices.
9:45 – 10:45
Coffee Break
10:45 – 11:00
Elective Sessions (Choose one of two)
Process Redesign
Improve and increase the effectiveness of your organization through process mapping! Explore the basics of process mapping and find out how to use these tools in your own shop.
Elective Session
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Lunch
12:30 – 1:30
Elective Sessions (Choose one of two)
Gift Agreements & Compliance
What's a Gift Agreement? Why are they important? What should or shouldn't be in a Gift Agreement? We'll cover the critical importance of a properly written Gift Agreement and how it benefits both your institution and the donor. We'll also cover the various regulations and laws that impact Gift Agreements. Give you guidance on how to write appropriate Gift Agreements that meet your donor's requests while also staying compliant.
Technology Ecosystems and Trends
Modern philanthropy infrastructures are increasing in terms of size and complexity. Review technologies common to modern fundraising organizations, each of which must interact and evolve to comprise complex technology ecosystems. We will familiarize ourselves with the ecosystem concept, discuss impact on advancement services, share challenges and look to the future and look forward to increasing future trends that impact our work. Some trends will be familiar friends, while others offer a fun opportunity for speculation.
1:30 – 1:45
Transition Break
1:45 – 2:45
Elective Sessions (choose one of two) ***Option for Crossover Electives***:
View from the Vice President's/Development Office
Review best practices for working with leadership at your institution.
Measuring Alumni Engagement – Three Years of Insight
Alumni engagement isn't just measured by giving participation rates anymore. Learn about the new focus on alumni engagement scores. We'll cover what data should go into an engagement score, how to collect the data, and how the score can be beneficial to your institution. We'll also cover CASE's new Alumni Engagement Metrics survey.
2:45 – 3:00
Refreshment Break
3:00 – 4:00
Elective Sessions (Choose one of two)
You are What You Measure: Standard Reports, Metrics & KPI's
What are standard reports? What should they look like? What tools can be used to create them? And how will they help drive your fundraising program forward? How are campaign reports different from standard reports? What do you measure and why? What are the key performance indicators for benchmarking?
Acknowledgements and Advancement Services
Donors expect a lot of things, but a prompt and appropriate thank you is at the top of the list. What does it take to put together an effective acknowledgement process? What makes a particular thank you appropriate for one donor, but highly inappropriate for another? How can we balance large-scale with intimate personalization? Learn the essentials and separate the "must-have" elements from those that are simply "nice-to-have."
4:15 – 5:00
Cohort Conversations
All Faculty
Participants will have the opportunity to engage in small group discussion with fellow attendees to maximize their learning throughout the institute. These meetings are facilitated by a faculty leader and are designed to help attendees more deeply explore concepts covered.
5:00
Institute Adjourns for the day
Free evening, dinner on your own
8:30 – 9:00 AM
Morning Announcements & Activity
9:00 – 9:15
Transition Break
9:15 – 10:15
Plenary Session – All Institutes
Practicing Diversity, Equity, inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) in Advancement
Inclusive philanthropy requires deliberate actions that permeate throughout advancement organizations. Advancement services, alumni relations, fundraising, and marketing and communication professionals will learn DEIB advancement strategies and work to develop a skill set that will add value to their organization.
10:15 – 10:30
Coffee Break
10:30 – 11:30
Plenary Session
Managing Advancement Services in a Complex Advancement Environment
Are you leading or part of an advancement services team in a complex environment? From politics, staffing and competing priorities to relationships and expectations, our worlds can be complicated. How do you get the right people on your team, partner with your internal partners and serve your external constituents all at the same time? Learn how to think about who you are as a department, who you have on your team, how to partner throughout the organization and how to model an ethos that brings advancement services into the planning and strategic space instead of the constant responding world.
11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Lunch
1:00 – 1:30
Office Hours
1:30 – 1:45
Transition Break
1:45 – 2:45
Elective Sessions (choose one of two) ***Optional Crossover Electives***:
Development Planning: Working with Fundraisers on Proposals and Goal Setting
How can we help fundraisers set goals using proposal data? Learn how we can help drive the development process using proposals and goals.
2:45 – 3:00
Refreshment Break
3:00 – 4:00
Elective Sessions (Choose one of two)
Using Analytics to Assess Your Prospect Base and Campaign Success
Analyzing your prospect data is a critical component of campaign management before, during and after the campaign. Review analytics projects you can do to get ready, stay on track, and learn lessons to apply to your next campaign. Discuss setting campaign goals, gift table development, prospect pool maturity analysis, campaign revenue projection, identifying problem areas during the campaign, and reviewing your campaign when it’s over.
Cyber Security & Data Governance
Addressing Cybersecurity and Data Governance in Education Fundraising
4:00 – 4:15
Transition Breaks
4:15 – 5:00
Program Wrap-Up
All Faculty
5:00
Institute Adjourns
6:00 – 9:00
Evening Event
Join conference attendees from all Summer Institutes at the Monona Terrace to celebrate our last evening in Madison with spectacular views and outdoor fun. Food, drinks, and live music will be provided. Shuttle service will begin at 5:30 pm outside of Witte Hall.
