"Disruptive" conversations can help teams explore new perspectives.

That's one lesson from this year's CASE Asia-Pacific Advancement Conference (APAC), held in Hong Kong in April. Two central foci were how to harness collective wisdom and create new perspectives. APAC's 400-plus attendees explored how to have disruptive dialogues with staff, donors, and the community at large.

Here are three of examples from APAC of disruptive thinking.

Technology. Technology can help teams be more efficient in communications, according to Simon Noakes, founder and CEO of Interactive Schools.

"Our children will be doing jobs that currently don't exist," said Noakes. Advancement teams, he suggested, should look at how they are communicating the real mission of their schools, and be forward-thinking. Rather than creating various channels to communicate, teams should create content once and "open content windows" in various ways, he advised.

Giving. Through philanthropy, donors can help universities explore new approaches. Take Australian National University, for example.

"Donors can help us to see things in ourselves that we never thought possible, said Marnie Hughes-Warrington, deputy vice-chancellor at ANU. "They can give us courage to change."

ANU received a transformational philanthropic gift that enabled the institution to think about how it might develop a radical new approach to admissions for students: ANU is working on a new model that would allow students in the top 10 percent of their class, regardless of where they attend school, to attend the university. This new model would never have emerged if that donor hadn't asked questions and believed the university could do more, Hughes-Warrington suggested.

Branding. When Western Sydney University embarked on a rebranding process, it took a different approach, said Angelo Kourtis, vice-president of people and advancement there.

"[Current branding strategies] at universities tend to default to a position of ‘We prepare people to get jobs,'" said Kourtis. "Instead, we wanted to present a powerful new way of looking at Western Sydney, that we prepare people for life." 

Rather than create an upbeat recruitment video (as many institutions do), Western Sydney created a think piece video called "Deng Thiak Adut Unlimited." The video followed a refugee through the institution and post-graduation. Many within the institution thought this was the wrong approach, said Kourtis, but he felt passionate about telling stories about students' journeys. 

The award-winning video has now been viewed more than 2 million times on YouTube.

To learn more about disruptive thinking, attend one of the upcoming conferences in the Asia-Pacific region:

• Asia-Pacific Institute in Educational Fundraising: 17-20 September, Melbourne, Australia
• Asia-Pacific Advancement Services Conference 2018: 10-12 October, Brisbane, Australia
• Asia-Pacific International Fundraising Study Tour: 29 October - 2 November, Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong

This article is from the May 2018 BriefCASE issue.