Target Audience: New Professionals, career transitions

Are you new to the world of Advancement? Whether you are a young professional just starting out or have lots of career experience but recently moved to the advancement profession, we can’t wait to have you join us for this pre-conference. Join your peers as we dive into the importance of alumni engagement and how you play a vital role in the success of your institution.

Attendees will benefit from interacting with seasoned professionals who will share their wisdom as it relates to navigating the world of Advancement and the opportunities for growth in the career. Discussions around goal setting, supervising and/or being part of a team, and getting the most out of the conference will have you walking away with fresh ideas and an expanded network of others in the field. 

Target Audience: Mid-level management, those interested in stepping into top leadership roles

Are you looking to grow your career? Have your eyes set on a corner office and doing big things in support of education? Then this pre-conference is for you! Join other emerging leaders as we learn more about how to move beyond mid-level management.

This track emphasizes the importance of being able to move up in your career and acquiring the necessary tools to do so. Engage with industry leaders and partners on ways to maximize talent to reach your goals, priorities, and career aspirations.

First Session:

Thriving and Succeeding in Leadership: Are You (Really) Ready for the Next Level?
Develop your pathway to a senior management role. This VP-led session guides you in successfully navigating the next strategic steps in your career progression.

Brigette A. Bryant, Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations, Arcadia University; Rob Henry, Vice President, Education, CASE (formerly Director of Individual Giving at Yale University); and Darrell Bell, Vice President, Institutional Advancement, Roberts Wesleyan University
Moderator: Shawna Rodgers, Director of Development for Rutgers University

Second Session:

Winning the War for Talent with a Fundraising-Positive Mindset
Many of today’s new fundraisers are questioning whether what they’re inheriting is best practice or simply what made the most sense at the time. Combine their skepticism of the boss’ approach to fundraising with the advantages of timing and perception and you have a new generation of fundraising professionals who will have distinctly different careers than those who preceded them. Today’s young professionals are looking for places where they can think more critically about what it is they are doing; pursue mastery rather performance-based goals; and, most importantly, be recognized and admired for meaningful work.

Learn how to develop successful strategies for opening doors for increased engagement within organizations that employ large numbers of alumni. Discuss best practices that can identify new alumni leaders for increased involvement with your institution. Explore an array of partnership opportunities between your institution and these organizations. By using a consultative best-practice approach, you'll be able to build that bridge between companies and your institution for increased individual and corporate engagement/philanthropy, while driving home the importance of true collaboration.

Are you worried that your #GivingTuesday campaign gets lost? Is your fall already packed with asks and events? If you feel that riding that wave isn’t the path for you, don’t give up on giving days. Donors are now embracing the concept of an online giving event, but with 364 other days available, maybe it’s time to find one that’s just for you. Hear the back story of collaboration, strategy, tough choices, and effort behind launching a first giving day.

Learn how to grow your faculty and staff giving campaigns by simply using some tried and true techniques. Towson University had an historic FY19 with more than 1,000 faculty and staff donors, and all it took was some fine tuning and strategic implementation of various techniques. Find out how they did it.

Two years ago, Syracuse University launched its Development Associate program — a team of frontline fundraisers focused on securing leadership gifts and delivering a customized, one-on-one experience to hundreds of prospects with potential. Find out how this team taps into social insights and donors’ digital footprint to personalize outreach, connect with people to renew or increase gifts, and then refer qualified prospects to major gift officers. After connecting with hundreds of Orange alumni and parents, these DOs doubled giving from their prospect pool and made dozens of major gift referrals.

This program is designed to address the realities of living and working in an increasingly global society where understanding other cultures is often an essential component of organizational success. Participants are encouraged to explore their feelings and perceptions about non-U.S. cultures in an effort to develop effective strategies to promote intercultural awareness and acceptance. This session is the first in a series on developing intercultural competence and focuses on awareness of personal cultural lenses.

Launching a brand is not a departmental function. It is an institutional movement. How do communications professionals gain support and ownership for brand management from all university stakeholders, internally and externally? Consider new and different strategies designed to develop a strong brand that not only withstands institutional challenges, but also becomes stronger as the organization changes and grows. Through a combination of theory and practice, lessons learned from failed launches become the foundation for successful brands owned by the university, not just the marketing department.

Less than a year after the public launch of the first comprehensive fundraising campaign at the Community College of Beaver County (CCBC), the advancement and marketing leadership were faced with the departure of a highly-visible president who was being recruited for a different leadership position. Through an integrated and collaborative approach between marketing and public relations and advancement, CCBC was able to mitigate the loss of the public face of the institution, maintain relationships, successfully launch a new president and accelerate momentum in the campaign with seven-figure investments.

How did a small comprehensive college increase their social media profile visits by 130% and their engagement rates by 45% in one semester? State University of New York at Old Westbury gave its students--past, present, and future -the chance to hear the authentic voices of their peers through a student takeover program on social media. We've all heard the nightmares of how this can go. Learn the steps, missteps, and lessons learned from a school that successfully ran this type of hands off social media campaign.

At the University at Buffalo, we had to change the culture to accomplish our BOLD goal. With new leadership joining the team after the public launch of the "Boldly Buffalo" campaign, we needed to quickly realign our efforts to maximize outcomes. Alumni engagement needed strategies that supported development. Gift officers needed to focus on developing relationships. Staff needed to see how their work fit into the donor continuum. The outcome was a year of focused efforts and BOLD outcomes for our students, our faculty, and our world.

All institutions have a priority to focus on student and young alumni fundraising, knowing these donors will become our future major and principal gift donors. Cornell’s investment in using Venmo as a payment option shows the innovative approach we’ve taken to meeting these donors where they feel comfortable. Explore the strategic partnerships that had to happen to get the project off the ground, the technological choices made to ensure the security of the platform and data integrity, and the case for student giving.

Chief executives at universities, independent schools, nonprofits, and other organizations are busy and face many demands on their time. While development is a key area where executives should focus, effectively using his/her time is critical in order to maximize impact. Setting parameters for who your chief executive should be spending time with-- and what they should be doing with that time--will maximize results.

Learn the essentials of creating an impactful student ambassador group that supports and benefits alumni relations and the annual fund. The student group works with both offices to promote beloved college traditions and educate their peers about the impact of philanthropy. Learn how to start a student organization, how to create student on-campus programs and communications, how to engage students into alumni programs, and how to assess the success of how the group helps achieve aumni and annual fund goals.

Ever wondered WHY video is such a powerful engagement tool? Get to know your brain and learn the physiological reasons why video has the ability to create better open, click-through, and conversion rates than any other messages. Learn how to use this knowledge to create video content that is specifically designed to leverage the most compelling aspects of the medium. Spoiler alert: Effective video marketing and advancement communications can be cheap, easy, AND effective.

Higher education communications needs a “mixed-method” approach to strategic communications and content planning that brings together the best of public relations strategies with the best marketing strategies. This approach allows communication teams to make informed decisions while communicating purposefully with its varied audiences. The goal for communications professionals should be to make data-supported (not just data-driven) decisions in order to deliver personalized, honest, and altruistic content to which audiences can personally relate and use to make their own informed decisions.

In 2017, Villanova University reimagined its regional “Chapter Challenge” from a competition heavily influenced by major university donors to a competition run by the people, for the people. Meet “The Nova Challenge,” a four-day giving campaign where regional clubs appeal to their members and raise funds that go directly back to the local club community through operations and local student scholarships. Find out how a partnership between alumni relations and annual giving can increase donor participation, create a little competition, and fund your university’s regional club program.

Gifts of real estate can be complicated...and risky. In fact, 80% of real estate gifts are rejected by charitable organizations for those very reasons. With the average gift of real property being valued at more than  $400,000, this translates to a lot of missed opportunity for nonprofits who need that support. Review several unique and creative ways to navigate the complications, and manage and isolate the risks of real estate gifts.

Common issues at any institution include too many projects in need of private support, and not enough qualified prospects. Learn how to merge your big ideas with specific strategies for your best prospects. Refresh your experience in turning long lists of names into prioritized and qualified candidates ready for gift discussions. Discuss the critical importance of well-defined and consistent prospect strategy sessions, and leave with templates and ideas that can be implemented immediately.

President of the Community College of Baltimore County since 2005, Sandra L. Kurtinitis is an experienced and respected educator, administrator and author. Join us for her talk "New Year, New Decade, New Mindset: 21st Century Colleges for 21st Century Students for 21st Century 'Jobs'".