Good onboarding welcomes new colleagues into a team—like a welcome mat for the organization. That philosophy helps the University of California, Davis, U.S., start its newcomers in advancement off on the right foot. In 2021, the development and alumni relations division there launched The Learning DO–Development Officer Boot Camp. It’s a comprehensive, centralized, nine-week academy for fundraisers.

When it comes to educational marketing, universities and independent schools can seem worlds apart. But today they face similar challenges—competition for students, the need to demonstrate value, and the pressure to stand out in a crowded market. By recognizing each other’s strengths and learning from different approaches, universities and independent schools can enhance their marketing strategies, create stronger student connections, and remain competitive in an evolving, and often challenging, educational landscape. 

The average tenure for an advancement professional today is just five years. To keep staff on board, our workplaces need to be flexible, empathetic, inclusive, and transparent. Here, two researchers share what they’ve discovered about human-centered talent management and the key steps to retain staff: align talent to mission and values; engage the whole person; and recognize colleagues’ impact.  

What kind of philanthropist are you? That’s what McGill University’s annual giving team invited its community to discover through a fun, Buzzfeed-style quiz for Giving Tuesday 2023.

CASE’s 50th anniversary is also a time to look to the future. Five advancement leaders share thoughts on the challenges ahead, along with what makes them optimistic in this roundtable discussion.

University recruitment videos tend to follow a similar formula—but Leeds Beckett University had other ideas. In 2022, the institution took a different, cinematic approach to capture arts students and alumni performing original pieces in a newly opened arts facility on the U.K. university’s campus.

Six 2023 Circle of Excellence Awards went to end-of-year video holiday messages, including the Dragon School’s “A Present from the Past.” Find out more about this Grand Gold Award-winning film here and watch the other five award-winning videos.

Tufts University used a drone and a special camera lens to create a film that downsized its campus and showed tiny versions of its community moving about at high speed.

For its 75th anniversary celebrations, The Australian National University launched 75 Features, a storytelling project highlighting alumni connections. Learn more about the stories featured and how they were shared here.

Read what members have to say regarding dollar-level thresholds for publicizing gifts and reworking alumni newsletters in the increasingly digital world.