Creating Positive Experiences Throughout Admissions
Tina Herman, Director of Admissions, International School of Beijing

The process of finding a prospective school and going through the admission process can be daunting: especially for first-time parents. In what ways, we can streamline our admission processes to make it more efficient and convenient for prospective parents and students? How can we create a positive experience throughout the family's admissions journey, regardless of the eventual outcome? How do we positively manage unsuccessful applicants?

Measuring Engagement in a More Meaningful Way
Julianne Brandon, Director of Community Engagement, Carey Baptist Grammar School

Engagement of our community and alumni is integral to institutional success, but how do we know if we were truly engaging our constituents in a meaningful way? How do we define the measures of success and demonstrate the positive impact of our engagement strategy?

We're on Social: Using Digital Platforms for Engaging our Community 
Matt Wilce, Director of Communications, The American School in Japan

Social and digital platforms continue to evolve exponentially. New platforms are being introduced while well-established ones like Facebook, Instagram and LindkedIn, among others, constantly add on new features. How do we best use these tools to increase professional connections and create value for our alumni and the rest of our school community? How do we promote such tools to increase participation?

From a First Milestone Gift to Another
Sharon Roux, Director of Advancement, St Peter's School Foundation

Securing gifts from first-time donors is always encouraging and inspiring. How can we cultivate such donors and inspire them to support the institution again? What are the kind of processes and structures we should put in place to steward and encourage them to make their next milestone gift?

In a Small Shop: Optimising Advancement Operations to Address Competing Priorities
Maria Ciola, Director of Advancement, Communications and Admissions, SJI International School

Running an advancement office with a lean team and resources requires an entrepreneurial outlook and commitment. Despite operating a small shop, achieving your advancement goals for different institutional priorities is imperative. What strategies can we employ to prioritise those goals and achieve success?

The Importance of Saying No and Handling it Respectfully
John Groom, Director of Advancement, The Hutchins School

At times, we have to negotiate difficult conversations with donors, either finally closing a gift or having to turn it down. How do you manage the conversation when it becomes clear that there may be dissonance between the philanthropic intention and the best interests of the school? How do you decline a gift in a respectful way and still keep the door open for future opportunities?

Strategy is Dead, Long Live Strategic Thinking! The Role of Marketing and Communications in Building a School's Strategic Plan
Rebecca Curran, Development Manager, St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill
Ben McCloghry, Marketing and Communications Manager, St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill

In schools, strategy is most often led by educational leadership and the Board. But the marketing and communications team can have a key role to play, as long as we see ourselves as engagement professionals. How do we elicit leadership support and make marketing and communications a critical part of the school's strategic planning process?

All on Board: Making the Most Out of School Open Days
Judy Reid, Director of Engagement, Loreto Mandeville Hall

An open day is incredibly important for a school. This is an opportunity for the school to engage prospective students and parents. While there is already a captive audience of people who are keen to get to know the school, this is also a perfect moment to engage your entire school community, including alumni and donors. What are some innovative approaches or activities that our schools could adopt to bring stakeholders all together? How can we build an ‘ecosystem' whereby different interest groups could interact in a more intentional way?

Providing Comparative Metrics to Senior Management and Volunteers
Fred Weiss, Chief Research and Data Officer, Council for Advancement and Support of Education

You recognise that there's an opportunity to deliver comparative metrics for your peer or aspirational peer institutions to senior management and/or senior volunteers. Come to a roundtable discussion to talk about how best to do that, bringing samples you want to share, and the chance to get samples from other participating institutions (please bring print-outs of those you're willing to share).

Rethinking Prospect Research and Donor Relations amidst Increasing Concerns on Privacy
Anneke Burlinson, Manager, Advancement Operations, Murdoch University
Robin Sharp, Director of Advancement, Murdoch University

Prospect research and management is the foundation of building strong and sustainable relationships with our donors. As concerns over privacy continues to increase, how does this impact the way we engage our current and prospective donors? How can we safeguard data even more carefully and ensure respectful use of information?

Investing in Data: Making your case
Jenny Pattison, Director, Advancement Services, The University of Queensland

Data-driven strategy and decisions have become increasingly more important than ever, yet many institutions are still underinvested in this area. Where do we begin and how can we make a compelling case for our institution to start investing or increase investment in data to strengthen and achieve our advancement goals?

Truly Unforgettable: Creating an alumni experience that lives on
Lea Sublett, Manager, Alumni Affairs, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology 

Engaging alumni comes in many shapes and forms. From event participation, communications, volunteering to mentoring, we engage our alumni community across different touch points. But how do we continue to create unique and unforgettable experiences for them?

From Student to Alumni: Cultivating Young Alumni
Jason Tan, Senior Manager (Alumni Communities), Singapore Management University

Young alumni are a key group of our alumni community. Yet, engaging and retaining the interest of this discerning segment of our alumni population remains a challenge for many institutions. How do we create a unique value proposition to our young alumni? How can we engage them as early as possible while they are still on campus as students?

Your Pre-Exit Philanthropy Roadmap
Dee Dee Mendoza, Managing Director, West Coast Advancement, Dartmouth College

Educational institutions at all levels are increasing their focus on innovation and entrepreneurship. These activities represent significant investments of financial, capital and personnel resources. Universities can protect these investments by thoughtfully tying them to the Advancement team's work in alumni engagement and philanthropy. Some institutions have begun to explore a new model of engagement and giving-pre-exit philanthropy--to cultivate support from alumni whose wealth is built in the startup sector. This approach can generate powerful results from this unique constituency. What are the basics of the model, and how can your institution create a roadmap to launching and sustaining a pre-exit philanthropy program?

From Arranged Marriage to Online Dating: Matching the right cause to the right donor
Bianca Brownlow, Senior Manager, Donor Relations & Communications, The Australian National University

Though philanthropic relationships have traditionally been developed in-person, in the digital world of today online presence is an increasing focus. How do we maintain a personal connection with donors and prospects, either via a forward facing or public platform that aligns with and emphasises the strategic vision of a university?

Step by Step: Building Your Donor Pipeline
Margo Powell, Executive Director – Advancement, Queensland University of Technology

Sustaining a healthy donor pipeline can be challenging and resource-intensive. What are some scalable approaches to build your donor base from acquisition, reactivation to retention depending on the size of your advancement operations? How do you cultivate donors from being first-time givers to becoming lifetime supporters?

It Takes A Village - How do you Engage Academics?
Gillian French, Director of Development and Alumni, Griffith University

It is often said that fundraisers are choreographers but unless the dancers make the time to engage and see the opportunity that philanthropy provides - the show won't get beyond the opening night! Gillian will share with you insights and feedback from the Philanthropy and Role of Academic Leadership session on 9 April and would value discussion about your lived experience about what does and doesn't work in bringing academics on the journey.

Fundraising in Times of Economic Uncertainty
Joshua Birkholz, Principal, Bentz Whaley Flessner

Join Josh Birkholz to discuss strategies for fundraising in times of economic uncertainty. Share your ideas for growing when the markets may be telling a different story.

Telling Stories - Creating and Sourcing Compelling Content
Su Phing Yeap, Head, MarComms, Office of Alumni Relations, National University of Singapore

What types of human interest stories and institutional messages do you tell your audience (and what shouldn't you tell?) How do you most effectively create, source and repackage content to be communicated across your multiple channels to a very broad alumni base? What makes content compelling to your audience, and how do you know it works? And if you're still a believer in publishing magazines and newsletters, please bring a copy (digital or physical) to share and discuss.

Maintaining Reputation in the Era of Fake News
Mark Schroder, Manager, Marketing and Communications, The University of Queensland

The perception of our interest holders: students, parents, alumni, donors, board, staff and the wider community is crucial to the reputation of our institutions. Nonetheless, the amount and speed by which information is being shared has been so immense. Hence, it has been increasingly more challenging to discern what's true and what's not. How can we work with our stakeholders and community to prevent or mitigate potential falsehoods?

Recruitment and Retention - A Global Challenge
Drew Lamph, Senior Consultant, Richmond Associates
Judith Marks, Consultant, Richmond Associates

Recruiting advancement professionals for our institutions and their growing teams remains a significant challenge globally. How can we set ourselves up for success in the recruitment process and how do we retain our high-performing staff? Judith Marks and Drew Lamph of Richmond Associates invite delegates to join in an in-depth discussion on these issues, sharing experiences, thoughts and ideas to take back to our institutions.