Mike O'Neill, senior vice president for university advancement at Villanova University, discusses Villanova's most recent fundraising campaign and how the university boosted alumni participation and doubled the number of students who contributed to the senior class gift. 

Data. Everyone is collecting it—from small, independent schools to huge, public universities. As an advancement professional, you can expect to spend at least part of your day dealing with numbers or reporting in some capacity. Here, we tackle five red flags and misunderstandings that arise over and over again. 

With more and more universities embarking on record-breaking fundraising campaigns, grappling with stagnant enrollment, and defending their place amid seismic societal shifts, employees with institutional knowledge and deep-rooted relationships with faculty and staff are essential to communicating the values of an institution and connecting the public with stories that embody those values.
 

The CASE Europe Graduate Trainee Scheme, a yearlong program that immerses recent graduates in the fundamentals of fundraising, is now celebrating its 10th anniversary and has launched the advancement careers of nearly 100 young adults, who work primarily with host universities in the United Kingdom during their traineeships.

No longer can the college or university president be simply a learned extension of the academic enterprise itself; today’s president has to be chief fundraiser, spokesperson, alumni cajoler, and enrollment advocate. Today’s president, before everything else, is an advancement officer.
 

Cool comics, scholarships from Metallica, sign language at Starbucks coffee shop, and more. 

As we celebrate the first decade of our graduate trainee scheme in Europe, we also celebrate the fourth year of the CASE Advancement Internship Program in North America, an intensive summer program for current students and recent graduates. 

Members share their advice about when to send an annual report, how to nurture leaders, and why to keep a folder of your accomplishments and accolades.

Anniversary celebrations can dazzle at any budget. Scaling ideas to work at any institution, with any size staff, is a dance between dreaming big and drilling down to what’s doable. 

Informed by cognitive psychology research, Independent Sector recently commissioned research to test what values-based messages resonate with various audiences. Members of the Charitable Giving Coalition has been employing value-based messages in our Capitol Hill advocacy for a universal charitable deduction. This research examined these messages and provides insight into what works with who when it comes to advocating charitable giving tax incentives.