Healthy accountability is at the core of successful advancement enterprises, but establishing and nurturing a culture of positive accountability can be difficult. Leaders have to be willing to have difficult conversations and find a way to promote performance metrics that empowers employees, avoids micromanagement and leverages an institution’s strategic goals and mission. Team members need to feel like they can rely on their peers and have difficult, even vulnerable, conversations. And individuals must have a clear understanding of expectations and the confidence that all employees are being held to the same standard. 

Alumni engagement metrics have come a long way in a short time and are proving to be crucial to advancement teams. With years of solid data under their belts, many in alumni relations are finding significant results from building systems around these metrics, altering their actions in response, and displaying the value of their work to constituents, institutional leadership, and board members.

Leaders in each of the pillars of advancement–fundraising, communications and marketing, alumni relations, and advancement services–from different types of schools discuss the ways the global pandemic has changed their work, the way they connect with their colleagues and constituents, and what it might mean for the future of education.  

This month marks an important moment in our CASE history. We have fully transitioned into a reimagined organization with one legal board. We've moved away from a complex governance structure involving 11 different legal boards, active across time zones, countries, oceans, and hemispheres. The model now has volunteers at its heart, with a structure that is maximising the immense value that each and every one of them provides.

The University of Illinois Foundation's chatbot, silent reading parties for UCLA alumni, Minecraft graduations, virtual potlucks for advancement staff, and more.

What members are thinking and sharing

COVID-19 has changed the way many advancement leaders operate. As Spain grapples with the pandemic’s short- and long-term impacts, Juan Pablo Garrido sees opportunity.

Meet expert Heather Hamilton, explore CASE's regional councils, and more.