Inclusive philanthropy requires deliberate actions that permeate throughout advancement organizations, but the current legislative and political climate is eroding these efforts. This session will help attendees understand “how we got here;” explore how advancement services, alumni relations, fundraising, and marketing and communication professionals can be active participants in DEIB advancement strategies, and how those new to the profession can develop a skill set that will add value to their organization.

Whether you're just starting out or you’re a seasoned professional, join us as we explore our Summer Institute program and your CASE membership. We’ll talk through Institute community features and share tips to enhance your week in Madison. Discover how to leverage CASE's extensive educational opportunities, robust library, and volunteer opportunities to enhance organizational impact and your career.

Fundraising campaigns are complex organisms. To bring essential investment into our schools, we need to engage thousands of constituents who have a broad range of interests, varied connections to the institution, and very busy lives. (Not to mention the wide array of internal stakeholders on our campuses who require care and feeding, too.) So, where to start? Together let’s cover some of the basics, including that foundational document—the case for support— which will lead us into discussion of the business that underpins campaigns and communications that can bring our institutions—values, mission, character, hopes, and dreams—to life.

Curious how DEI practices can enhance your engagement strategy but unsure how to proceed? Join us to discover how to harness DEI data to elevate your alumni engagement efforts. Learn how to apply these insights to craft inclusive and meaningful experiences, identify and address the unique needs of alumni from diverse identities, and ensure that every interaction fosters a sense of belonging and community.

Strategic and generative conversations are at the heart of our work. Questioning and listening are powerful life skills. First, they will help you create productive donor relationships. What organizations do you support with your philanthropy? Where are we on your list of philanthropies? How do you make your philanthropic decisions? What has been your most meaningful gift? Quality questions elicit amazing information that will guide you in the solicitation process and help you build relationships on campus with your supervisor, peers and faculty members. Learn how to develop questions instead of talking points that will inform your gift strategy, advance relationships, and result in a joyful, generous "Yes" to your request for increased engagement with your institution, a significant gift to one of your priorities or for whatever you were hoping that volunteer or colleague would do to help you achieve your goals.

Looking for inspiration? In this session, you’ll see communication and marketing examples that use AI to solve problems, save time, spark creativity, and achieve successful outcomes. Plus, you’ll leave with a few AI best practices. Are you already getting creative with AI? As part of this session, you’re invited to share your AI success stories. Finally, you’ll hear about specific AI tools campuses are using now and what to look forward to trying next.

One of the greatest privileges of working in education is in a community filled with unbounded ambition. although most academic-development interaction centers around prospect and donor work, this session will explore ways we can cultivate meaningful relationships with members of the academic and campus community to strengthen fundraising potential and expand our intellectual curiosity. You can learn how to effectively identify who and how to approach them, maintain relationships, and build your own board of directors.

Why do some fundraising & advancement professionals thrive where others struggle? What can we learn from individuals who arrive at the highest levels of performance? How might recent studies of expert performers inform our approach to our work? We will explore these questions and review techniques that are essential to our craft. Join us and discover why advancement stars are made and not born.

Collaboration crediting. Prospect assignment hierarchy. Portfolio assessment cadence. Prospect and portfolio transfer policies. These are just some of the Prospect Management (PM) relevant topics organizations wrestle with, whether their PM program is just starting out or has reach its maturity zenith. Join in the conversation on establishing PM policies and strategies from 3 perspectives: one with a fledging PM team, one with a mature PM program, and a gift officer's perspective on PM.

For more than 10,000 years humankind has been moved by great stories. Stories have changed the course of history, been used to right wrongs, and to educate new generations. Each of our educational institutions is bursting with powerful, meaningful stories. As advancement professionals, we have the opportunity and the challenge to capture this vital information and bring it to life. Many believe that the best fundraisers are also exceptional storytellers. This elective session will dive into the techniques and approaches that will help anyone learn to tell a great story, including time to role play what you’ve learned with your classmates!

Highly sought advancement professionals understand strategy. Whether you’re an early professional, mid-career, or aiming for an executive chair, those who are most valuable to their team understand what their university stands for, who it benefits, and why people should care. These essential but ephemeral ideas are wrapped up in the university’s brand and organizational strategy. In this session we’ll explore how to understand your university’s strategy and how to align your goals, talents and interests with the needs of your institution for the greatest mutual benefit.

Whether you work in the department or not, understanding annual giving is foundational in successful development programs. This presentation will touch on common strategies, efforts and emerging trends; giving you a strong start for an annual giving specialist career or providing insight on how best to leverage the power of annual gifts.

Millennials are from Mars; Boomers are from Venus. Generational differences affect how successful we are in our workplaces as well as in our work. Do you want that next promotion? Do you want to close big gifts? Effective communication is critical to building productive and authentic relationships – with our colleagues and with our donors. Learn how understanding and adapting for generational differences can help us get ahead in our careers and raise more money for our institutions.

As a leadership annual fund or major gift professional, you can become a detective or anthropologist, uncovering clues to your donor's philanthropic interests, motivations and values. And, like a good detective or anthropologist, you have many different tools for gaining the information you need. In this session we will identify some of the critical skills needed to be a strategic listener and observer as well as an active participant in relationship building.

A strong and thriving annual giving program requires that you must first have a clear vision of the role annual giving plays in your institution’s overall development effort. Understanding this relationship allows you to develop plans for your program in a strategic and meaningful way that increases your chances of having a successful fundraising program and building traditions of giving among your alumni, parents, students and others. In this session we will explore what it means to have a clear vision and mission for your annual giving program, how to develop annual and long-term plans based on a variety of factors, set metrics and evaluation methods, and report and analyze your program regularly.

A robust pipeline might be one of the strongest indicators of current and future fundraising success. It ensures that your organization will always have the critical philanthropic support that is so needed. Attend this session to discuss the various areas within the pipeline, ways to create robust pipeline activity, and how to measure and report its overall health.

At many of our institutions young alumni are often overlooked and undervalued in our annual campaigns. As a result many fundraisers are forced to concentrate their efforts on “established graduates” with presumably more time and discretionary resources to support our organizations. This conversation will explore ideas and suggestions around identifying, engaging and soliciting young alumni. By actively engaging our alumni as volunteers and donors at an early age, we set the building blocks for success that will benefit our programs for many years to come. Please join us as we explore ideas to augment programs aimed at better serving the needs of our youngest graduates.

No matter how your organization classifies major gifts, these large commitments are the fuel that often drives annual production of private support. This introductory session will explore definitions of major gifts, how they fit into a comprehensive development effort, and what motivates donors to make them. The presentation will provide a conceptual understanding of how the development cycle applies to major gifts and the steps involved in securing them. The session will close by placing these large donations in the context of societal, economic, and philanthropic trends across the nonprofit educational sector.