Noon - 1 p.m.
Conference Check-In

1 - 2:30 
Welcome and Opening Conversation
Join conference chair Rebecca Weitz and the conference faculty to kick off the program, meet your fellow workshop attendees, and set the stage to make the most of our time together. 

2:45 - 4
Faculty TEN Talks
Join the faculty as each gives a 10-minute TED-style talk to kick off the conference with thought provoking and creative ideas.

4:15 - 5:30 
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• Gift Management Track: Weird Gifts
  Let's talk weird gifts: the 20 percent of gifts that seem to occupy 80 percent of your time. We'll discuss how to accept, process, and receipt challenging gifts like conditional pledges, gifts from donor-advised funds, in-kind donations, gifts with premiums/quid pro quo, tribute gifts, anonymous gifts, stock gifts, and planned gifts. Bring your weird gift questions and weird gift stories, and compete in the "weirdest in-kind gift" contest.

• Records Management Track: How to Deal with the Dreaded Dupe
  Those who work with advancement data know all-too-well how it feels to discover that there is not one, but many entities who have nearly identical biographical data. Those dreaded duplicates (dupes) can cause so much confusion, especially when gifts, events, and/or memberships are spread across separate records. Dealing with these dupes can feel a lot like weeding a garden. No matter what you do, they just keep popping up over and over again. If you can relate to the not-so-sweet experience of dealing with dupes, please join this session to discover some proven strategies to combat this data issue. We will explore how to formulate a project plan to find, fix, and prevent duplicates as well as ways to keep your data garden as dupe-free as possible.

• General Elective Track: Managing Up
  Let's face it: you rarely (if ever) get to choose your supervisor. Philosophical differences, personality clashes, power struggles and interoffice drama can all contribute to a detrimental relationship between an employee and their boss. Maybe you and your boss aren't quite seeing eye to eye. You can change that! Managing up is better for you, better for your boss and better for your organization. Learn valuable techniques to turn your relationship-and your career- into a great success story.

5:30 - 6:30 
Networking Reception
Join conference speakers and your colleagues to network and socialize after the first day of the conference. Drink tickets and hors d'oeuvres will be provided.

6:30
Conference Adjourns for the Day
Dinner on your own. Small group dine-around sign-ups will be available earlier in the day at the registration desk for attendees looking to join a group for dinner at nearby restaurants.

8 - 9 a.m.
Breakfast/Roundtables
Join your peers for optional small-group discussions during breakfast. Share your biggest challenges, review hot topics, and discuss solutions with your peers. 

9 - 10:15 
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• Gift Management Track: Gift Receipts and Pledge Reminders
  Does everything else in your office screech to a halt when it's time to send pledge reminders? Are you thinking there must be a better way to receipt your donors efficiently and accurately without sacrificing stewardship? Do you have delinquent pledges gathering dust in the corner? Discover best practices in gift receipts and pledge reminders, and boost your department's role in that critical donor engagement continuum.

• Records Management Track: Multi-factor Identity Verification
  In today's environment, how do you know who is communicating with you by phone or email? Identity theft is one of the most common outcomes from data breaches and higher education institutions are not immune to this threat. How do you balance the expectations of concierge service and protect the privacy of your constituent data? This session will explore different options for verification and poll the audience for their experience and insight to share with the group.

• General Elective Track: Command Central Huddle: Knowing What You Don't Know
  Join us as we walk through the important aspects to consider as you prepare to launch a single giving day or the next capital campaign. We will take a gifts and records view of what questions need to be asked to ensure a successful launch and to ensure your unit is asking the questions that will catapult you towards the successful completion of tasks related to your office.

10:30 - 11:45 
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• Gift  Management Track: Gift Receipts + CASE Guidelines

• Records Management Track: Diversity and Inclusion in Data Management
  Respectful and accurate data management is critical to building strong relationships with our constituents. As widespread cultural awareness of diverse identities increases, sometimes our biographical data management practices lag behind. Learn how to improve your data processes to ensure they are respectful and inclusive of all people, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, racial/ethnic background, and nationality. Examine a case study: How UC Davis incorporated the need for diversification and inclusion into their donor and alumni database, which was not built for this type of dynamic change. Learn the creative ideas and strategies used to include international data and new gender identities into a very old-fashioned data table structure, to meet the new and ongoing needs of the evolving university population.

• General Elective Track: Shall We Dance? How to Build Bridges with Your Advancement Partners

11:45 a.m. - 1:15 p.m. 
Lunch on your own

1:15 - 2:30 
How to Affect Change without Formal Authority
Have you ever felt frustrated or confused when you have a great idea that you know will make things better or you have been given an assignment where your success hinges on the cooperation of several people across your organization over whom you have no formal authority? If you can identify with this feeling, this session is for you. Join us as we explore ways to expand influence, implement lateral leadership and broaden professional any network, even if you are an introvert! We will discuss constructive persuasion and negotiation skills using specific examples with gift and records management so you will have real examples to refer to once you head home. Let us help you uncover your natural leadership abilities and innate personal power.

2:45 - 4 
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• Gift Management Track: Giving Tax Advice When You Can't Give Tax Advice: Making Your Donors AND Your Auditors Happy (and Other Impossibilities)

• Records Management Track: Keep It Clean: Take an Active Approach to Data Hygiene
  Dirty, outdated, or missing data keeping you awake at night? There's a lot you can do. Learn how to set, prioritize, and achieve data hygiene goals. We'll talk about solutions like data entry standards and documentation, user permissions, audits, and appends (data purchases). Find out how to use your data hygiene metrics to promote your advancement services team within your advancement team.

• General Elective Track: Stop the Revolving Door: How Great Onboarding and Cross-training Increases Productivity and Retention
  Picture this: Your organization has hired a great new employee. You and your coworkers train them and get them up to speed. Everything's going so well...until the employee leaves after nine months for another job that pays more. Now your team has to start all over again. Sound familiar? Let's dive right in to ways you can get over the endless rinse-and-repeat cycle. You'll receive templates for a comprehensive on-boarding process, explore how cross-training can make your team happy and more productive, and identify what you can do immediately to improve staff retention.

4:15 - 5 
Breakout Discussions

5
Conference Adjourns for the Day
Dinner on your own. Small group dine-around sign-ups will be available earlier in the day at the registration desk for attendees looking to join a group for dinner at nearby restaurants.

7:45 - 9 a.m.
Breakfast and Faculty Office Hours
Join your peers for optional small-group discussions during breakfast. Attendees who previously signed up for faculty one-on-one sessions will meet during their assigned appointment time.

9 - 10:15 
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• Gift Management Track: Matching Gift Magic
  Matching gifts can be an excellent way to add to your fundraising totals, but is often an area that is overlooked, reduced due to complexity and workload, or just plain loathed. This session provides ideas, tools, and techniques to help manage matching gifts. Explore portal management, verification follow up, donor follow up, new tools on tracking, gift information, and donor claim management to help make matching management easier. Examine matching gift recording and reporting, fee calculation, macros and so much more! This session provides something for everyone no matter where you are in the spectrum of matching gifts management.

• Records Management Track: Data Governance and Compliance Obligations 
  As the stewards of highly sensitive information we are obligated to follow many complex standards for privacy and data access. This session will discuss some of the most basic requirements of GDPR, PCI/PII, FERPA, and others. If you work with constituent data and these terms are not familiar to you, then this session is a must. 

• General Elective Track: Small (But Mighty) Shops Workshop
  Discuss the most exciting solutions you've learned here at the conference...which you are pretty sure will never work in your shop because of your size. We will use our collective brainpower to solve problems and share ideas that will work in small shops. Bring questions, current challenges, and creative solutions that have worked for you.

10:30 - 11:30 
Industry Trends: A Look Forward

11:30 a.m. - Noon
Conference Wrap-up and Final Q&A 

Noon
Conference Adjourns