Rebecca Weitz is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in gift services and data management. She currently serves as the Senior Managing Director of Gift Services at the Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association (WFAA). Rebecca leads a team of ten amazing humans who annually process over 140,000 gifts and pledges. WFAA’s Gift Services team is committed to timely and accurate gift processing, collaborative stakeholder support, and continuous innovation.

Before joining WFAA, Rebecca dedicated sixteen years to the University of Colorado Foundation. There, she excelled in managing gifts and records services, reporting, prospect and proposal management, and data analysis. Her efforts were instrumental in developing and implementing significant process improvements for both the CU Foundation and the Office of Advancement at CU.

Rebecca has participated in two major CRM conversions: from Ellucian Advance to UCI’s Ascend and from Blackbaud CRM to Affinaquest. She also has extensive experience with smaller-scale CRMs, including Trailblazer and Neon CRM. Rebecca is dedicated to enhancing operational intelligence and efficiency. She strives to streamline processes and elevate the standards of gift and data services, positioning them as a cornerstone of inspirational and influential advancement practices.

Rebecca is also a recognized speaker and presenter, having contributed to multiple Ellucian conferences, CASE conferences, and the aasp Summit. She has served as Chair and faculty of the CASE Gift & Records Workshop multiple times. Rebecca holds a bachelor’s degree from Franklin & Marshall College and a certificate in professional management from Employers Council.

Emilio Caballero currently serves as the director of gift and records services at Yale University. He brings more than 25 years of experience in fundraising operations, data security and analysis through various data-related positions in his career.

In his current role, he manages the daily operations for biographical, geographical and financial information processing. He has developed several key integrations to synchronize data from external student information systems and online giving and directory systems. He established cross functional workflows and data integrity focused improvements through automation of standard business rules for batch processing.

Prior to Yale, he served as the Deputy Chief Membership Officer for Information Systems at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he oversaw gift processing, financial reconciliation, records management and data security compliance requirements. He helped establish training programs and other diversity initiatives for future leaders at the Met.

He holds a bachelor's degree in Public Administration from John Jay College and a master's degree in Technology Management from Columbia University.

Dawn Roarty brings more than 30 years of project and change management experience to her role as executive director of gift and data services at the University of California, Davis. She led the design and implementation of business intelligence solutions in support of UC Davis' first comprehensive fundraising campaign, and is poised to lead her team through the next campaign. She has driven the adoption of many innovative approaches to the business of advancement services, including the implementation of Agile and KANBAN to gift and donor record processing.

Roarty served as project manager for the centralized gift processing system (GREAT) which earned four CASE Circle of Excellence awards in a single year, including Grand Gold and Platinum. She brings this passion for efficiency to her gift processing team and fosters an environment that encourages openness and continuous improvement. She has served on the faculty for several of CASE's Gift Processing and Donor Records Workshops.

She holds a bachelor's degree from UC Davis, a master's degree in business administration from San Francisco State, and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and SCRUM master.

Karen A. Sims-Harrell currently serves as director gifts and records management at NC State University. Sims-Harrell brings over 20 years of experience within gift processing and donor records management. She is an experienced advancement professional with proven skills in fundraising and financial management, gift administration, policy creation, leadership and staff development. She is skilled in the use of consultative approaches to increase efficiency in integration of industry best practices for gift acceptance and data standards.

Sims-Harrell has served as a board member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals-Eastern PA Chapter for seven years and served as the Ethics and Accountability chair for two years. She has also served as a conference presenter and volunteer with CASE in varying capacities during her membership over the last 15 years. Sims has received the distinction as being a CASE district faculty stellar speaker for multiple years and was awarded the CASE 2021 District III Opportunity and Inclusion Award for her work in promoting diversity and inclusion industry best practices.

She holds a bachelor's degree from DeSales University in management and marketing and a master's degree in educational leadership from Lehigh University.

Kenny Howard serves as the Director of Gift Management for the University of Colorado Foundation. There, he manages gifts processing for all four campuses of the University of Colorado system.  Over the last four years, he’s worked extensively to help develop, build, implement and improve a Salesforce based donor database. His team of five processes more than 78,000 gifts each year.

Kenny holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in nonprofit management from Regis University in Denver, CO.

Jeff Tandberg is a senior gift administrator at the University of Colorado Foundation, serving all four campuses of the University of Colorado. Prior to joining the foundation, he worked in IT, business management and customer relations. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado.