All sessions are Central Time.
All Friday sessions are at the DePaul Conference Center, 8th Floor, 1 E. Jackson Blvd.
8:30-9:30 a.m. – Breakfast Roundtable Discussions
Enjoy complimentary continental breakfast and join your peers for an informal discussion on one of several current topics. Roundtable discussions will include:
✔ Student Engagement Centers and Telemarketing Programs
✔ Social Media Fundraising Strategies
✔ Digital Engagement Officers
✔ TBA
9:45-10:45 a.m. – Breakout Sessions
You’ve Been Using Persuasion Science All Along
Liz Sullivan, Northwestern University
This presentation explores the psychology behind donor decision-making, using insights from persuasion science. With real-world examples and practical applications, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of your work—and learn how to make an even greater impact.”
A Healthcare Annual Giving Forum (Part 1)
Patients, Physicians, Providers, Policies, and Pipelines
Meredith Howell, UChicago Medicine, Ann Fisher, Michigan Medicine, Ally Campbell, WashU Medicine, and Ric Stewart, AORN
Healthcare institutions offer their own challenges (HIPAA) and opportunities (grateful patients, healthcare professionals, companies and the community) for annual giving fundraising. Join us for a special annual giving forum all about healthcare. Join us for a two-part forum that will share group information and discuss topics including:
✔ What does the prospect journey look like: from acquisition to renewal to major giving prospect?
✔ Using digital options to the fullest: emails, unique web landing page, ongoing impact updates;
✔ Tribute and 3rd-party giving-making the process easy and meaningful;
✔ What’s new in stewardship;
✔ Valuable vendors – Who are you using? Email vendors? Print? Business Associate Agreements?
✔ Giving initiatives: Doctor’s Day, Giving Day, Nurses Week? Do these help?
Mastering the Art of Donor Intent
Heather Johnson, UNICEF, USA
This session will explore creating crystal-clear, legally sound gift agreements and using gift transmittal forms to further your mission! Take home actionable insights into workflows to document donor intent, partner with your legal and finance teams, navigate compliance requirements, and ensure rewarding relationships. This will include a discussion of pledge and pledge payment gift administration, revenue considerations, multi-year commitments, split designations, audit concerns, and stewardship of these crucial donors!
A Day in the Life with Bad Data
Cindy Novak, Accurate Append
Imagine launching the perfect campaign — only to hear crickets. Emails bounce, phones are disconnected, and direct mail goes nowhere. The culprit? Bad data. Did you know 42% of email addresses go inactive each year and 35 million phone numbers are reassigned annually? Outdated data can turn a winning strategy into a losing effort. Join us to discover how data appending and enrichment can transform outdated contact lists into powerful assets. Learn how to turn your data from a black hole into a goldmine — and make every campaign count. Data is the new superpower. Are you ready to harness it?
11:00-Noon – Breakout Sessions
Favorites From the 26th Annual Giving Appeal and Idea Exchange
Bob Burdenski
For 26 years, Bob Burdenski has hosted an annual exchange where hundreds of institutions share thousands of annual giving innovations, ideas and success stories. Awesome appeals, terrific technologies, dynamic discoveries and marvelous messages. It was a great year of pushing the envelope in direct mail, digital and beyond. Come and see 3-time CASE Innovations in Annual Giving author Bob Burdenski dump out his bag of BOB (Best of the Bunch) favorites for some of the clever fundraising ideas of the year.
A Healthcare Annual Giving Forum (Part Two)
Patients, Physicians, Providers, Policies, and Pipelines
Meredith Howell, UChicago Medicine, Ann Fisher, Michigan Medicine, Ally Campbell, WashU Medicine, and Ric Stewart, AORN
Healthcare institutions offer their own challenges (HIPAA) and opportunities (grateful patients, healthcare professionals, companies and the community) for annual giving fundraising. Join us for a special annual giving forum all about healthcare. Join us for a two-part forum that will share group information and discuss topics including:
✔ What does the prospect journey look like: from acquisition to renewal to major giving prospect?
✔ Using digital options to the fullest: emails, unique web landing page, ongoing impact updates;
✔ Tribute and 3rd-party giving-making the process easy and meaningful;
✔ What’s new in stewardship;
✔ Valuable vendors – Who are you using? Email vendors? Print? Business Associate Agreements?
✔ Giving initiatives: Doctor’s Day, Giving Day, Nurses Week? Do these help?
Giving THROUGH: Cause-Based Fundraising in Annual Giving
Danielle Hupp, Kent State University
Today’s annual giving landscape is evolving rapidly. As generational shifts, digital engagement, and changing donor expectations reshape how people give, annual giving professionals must rethink traditional appeals and strategies. This session will explore how cause-based fundraising offers a powerful framework for engaging modern donors, particularly Millennials and Gen Z, who prioritize impact, transparency, and alignment with personal values. Attendees will learn how to infuse annual giving campaigns with compelling storytelling, leverage donor segmentation and behavioral data, and integrate cross-channel tactics to inspire gifts through their institution, not just to it. Whether you’re running giving days, digital campaigns, or direct mail, you’ll leave with practical tools to reframe your annual giving efforts around causes that resonate—and build stronger, longer-lasting donor relationships as a result.
What We’ve Learned From Fully Autonomous AI Fundraising & Where We’re Going Next
Renee Quinn, Version2.ai
It’s been almost a year since the world’s first fully autonomous fundraiser interacted with its first assigned donor. It started with a cohort of 13 organizations, led by 11 higher education institutions, who joined together as the first cohort to engage donors with an AI-powered Virtual Engagement Officer (VEO), but more importantly research, develop, and accelerate the deployment of autonomous fundraising for our entire industry. Since then, two additional cohorts have brought a total of 40 organizations the opportunity to add a digital workforce to complement their human fundraising teams and address a labor shortage preventing them from managing more of their donors in 1:1 engagements. Renee Quinn will share overall results across autonomous fundraising – donors engaged, dollars raised, and pipeline built – in addition to use cases, successes, and where course corrections were needed, and how we navigated AI in a field defined by relationships. We’ll share all of our findings including portfolios for autonomous fundraisers, sourcing engagement content independently, and the future of digital labor in advancement. Finally, we’ll conclude by looking at where we are going in 2025, what we can continue to learn, how we can continue to further personalize donor journeys led by donor engagement data, how to push the outer limits of technology, and more. Learning objectives will include:
● See firsthand results as well as the future of a digital workforce to enhance human fundraising efforts.
● Understand what autonomous fundraising is and where it fits into donor engagement and overall fundraising strategy.
● Evaluate key lessons from the deployment of AI-powered Virtual Engagement Officers, including successes, challenges, and necessary course corrections in AI-driven donor management.
Noon – 12:45 p.m. – Closing Session
AI, USN&WR, DAFs, VSE, DXOs, VEOs, LAG and More:
Reviewing the 2024 MMOTM Alphabet Soup
Closing Session with Conference Faculty
Join us for a grand finale review of conference sessions, as we share some favorite take-aways, words of wisdom and inspired ideas from this year’s conference. Ask your final questions, and hear some final thoughts.