All sessions are Central Time. All Thursday and Friday sessions are at the DePaul Conference Center, 8th Floor, 1 E. Jackson Blvd.
Continental breakfast with beverages and bakery items will be available beginning at 8:00 a.m.
9:00-10:15 a.m. – Breakout Sessions
All About the Pipeline: A Leadership Annual Giving Forum (Part 1)
Samantha Sanchez, University of Missouri, Justin Pusczykowski, Griffin Museum of Science and Industry and Charles Audino, Wheaton College
Room 8005
Our Leadership Annual Giving Forum will provide an opportunity to exchange ideas, challenges, and successes related to identifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding leadership annual giving donors. Topics will include portfolio management, donor qualification, multi-channel engagement, pipeline development, digital engagement officers, volunteer involvement, collaboration with major gift teams, and strategies for upgrading and retaining donors. Participants are encouraged to bring questions and examples as the group explores evolving trends and practical approaches for strengthening leadership annual giving programs at institutions of all sizes. Samantha will provide an overview of the structure and work of the program she leads at the University of Missouri. Justin began his career in annual giving and will talk about his transition into managing a prospect portfolio as a Major Gift Officer at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.
Recurring Giving
Tony Difilippo, Mount Carmel High School and Elizabeth Tavares, UNICEF USA
Room 8012
Recurring giving programs continue to be one of the most effective ways to build sustainable donor support, increase retention, and strengthen long-term engagement. We’ll hear about the recurring giving success they’ve achieved at Mount Carmel High School (and how they did it). Other topics include the mechanics of receiving and processing regular gifts, branding and naming societies, digital giving optimization, recurring donor stewardship, integrating recurring giving into Giving Days and annual campaigns, and measuring long-term value.
High-Performance Reporting: Lessons from Both Sides of the Fence
Ernest Olivier, DePaul University
Room 8204
What separates a high-performing reporting operation from a hair-on-fire shop where no-one trusts the numbers? Drawing on fifteen years of developing reports and managing reporting operations across major institutions, this session offers practical lessons for both sides of the fence: report developers and report consumers alike. We’ll examine the key factors at both the operational level and the report level that can make or break, and leave you with frameworks and tools to transform your reporting.
Trendy with a Chance of Impact: Data-Driven Trends Shaping the Future of Giving—and What They Mean for You
Vickie Woodhead, GiveCampus
Room 8002
Discover the key annual giving trends shaping advancement strategy and execution–and how they apply to your institution. This session will share insights from a meta analysis of philanthropy research, GiveCampus data, and real-world examples. You’ll leave with actionable tools and data to evaluate your performance, understand how peers are adapting, and identify opportunities for meaningful impact.
In this session, you’ll…
▪️Understand the most significant trends currently influencing advancement strategy, execution, and annual giving performance.
▪️Connect these trends to your institution’s specific goals and challenges.
▪️Gain insight from aggregated data, including patterns emerging from annual giving programs.
▪️See real-world examples of how peers are responding to these trends—at both macro and programmatic levels.
▪️Identify where your institution can take action to drive measurable impact across your advancement efforts.
A Day In the Life With Bad Data
Cindy Novak, AccurateAppend
Room 8206
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?
10:30-11:45 a.m. – Breakout Sessions
All About the Pipeline: A Leadership Annual Giving Forum (Part 2)
Samantha Sanchez, University of Missouri, Justin Pusczykowski, Griffin Museum of Science and Industry and Charles Audino, Wheaton College
Room 8005
Our Leadership Annual Giving Forum will provide an opportunity to exchange ideas, challenges, and successes related to identifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding leadership annual giving donors. Topics will include portfolio management, donor qualification, multi-channel engagement, pipeline development, digital engagement officers, volunteer involvement, collaboration with major gift teams, and strategies for upgrading and retaining donors. Participants are encouraged to bring questions and examples as the group explores evolving trends and practical approaches for strengthening leadership annual giving programs at institutions of all sizes. Samantha will provide an overview of the structure and work of the program she leads at the University of Missouri. Justin began his career in annual giving and will talk about his transition into managing a prospect portfolio as a Major Gift Officer at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.
Small Shop Strategies for Getting Things Done
Jen Davis, Joliet Junior College, Michelle Williams, John Carroll University
Room 8012
Small fundraising teams are often expected to deliver big results with limited staff, time, and resources. This interactive session will explore practical strategies for prioritizing work, maximizing efficiency, and building momentum in lean advancement operations. We’ll discuss managing competing priorities, leveraging volunteers and campus partners, using technology wisely, creating scalable stewardship and engagement efforts, and identifying high-impact activities that move the needle. Join your colleagues from small shops to share real-world solutions, creative ideas, and lessons learned about how to stay nimble, collaborative, and effective while doing more with less.
A Gift Administration Forum
Karen Latora, aasp and Advance Data Solutions, Andy Leeson, Loyola University Chicago
Room 8204
This “audience participation” session will attempt to answer fundamental gift processing and entry questions that have raised concerns for decades! We will begin by asking the audience to list the gift processing issues rearing their ugly heads in day-to-day gift processing. The panel will try to suggest solutions to those problems and reflect on national best practices. The panel will also come prepared to discuss various topics, including gift dates, receipt requirements, gift processing metrics, copying/scanning requirements, and recurring giving issues.
The Fundraising Trifecta: Engaging Donors In Person, By Mail, and Online
Theresa Aide and Kate Cominsky, CFRE, Suttle-Straus
Room 8002
Join the non-profit team from Suttle-Straus as we introduce the fundraiser trifecta, campaigns that are engaging donors in person, by mail, and online. We’ll walk through a showcase of creative campaigns from multiple universities and non-profits that focus on engagement of their donors in all 3 areas as the key to their success.
An Independent Schools Fundraising Forum
Tony DiFilippo, Mount Carmel High School, Kristine Petroshius, Lake Forest Academy
Bring your questions, answers, challenges and solutions to this open discussion session on the unique opportunities and challenges facing fundraising programs at independent schools. From annual giving and parent participation to alumni engagement, stewardship, volunteer management and events, this session will encourage the sharing of ideas, lessons learned, and practical solutions. We’ll exchange successful strategies, discuss emerging trends, and collaborate on ways to strengthen donor relationships and build a culture of philanthropy within our school communities.
11:45-1:15 p.m. – Lunch on Your Own
1:15-2:30 p.m. – Breakout Sessions
A Digital Fundraising Forum
Hugh Vandivier, Wabash College and Ramona Maza, UIC Health
Room 8005
There’s more to digital fundraising than your giving day! Join a terrific team of hosts for a chat about all things digital fundraising. What’s actually working right now—and why? From email and social media to giving days, automation, personalization, and donor journeys, participants will explore practical strategies that drive engagement and inspire giving across online platforms. Come ready to discuss lessons learned, compare tools and tactics, and exchange ideas you can immediately apply to strengthen your digital fundraising results.
Behind the Mic: Multimedia Storytelling Strategies That Spark Giving
Jen Davis, Joliet Junior College
Room 8012
Discover how storytelling can elevate your institution’s impact in this engaging session centered on Joliet Junior College’s innovative “Roots & Branches” initiative. Blending podcasts, video interviews, and a biannual print magazine, JJC has created a dynamic, multi-format approach that connects with diverse audiences while celebrating more than a century of shared history. This session will demonstrate how authentic stories of students and alumni can powerfully support alumni engagement, fundraising, enrollment, and broader campus initiatives, while fostering a deeper sense of belonging and pride across the college community. Through real-world examples and practical insights, you’ll gain strategies for aligning content across platforms, collaborating across departments, and building a cohesive narrative that strengthens your institution’s brand and long-term relationships. Whether you’re in advancement, marketing, or leadership, you’ll leave inspired and equipped with adaptable ideas to bring meaningful, results-driven storytelling to your own campus.
Teaching and Training the Team
Dania Calandrino, Art Institute of Chicago
Room 8204
Investing in your team’s growth is one of the most effective ways to strengthen performance, improve retention, and build long-term success. This session will focus on the importance of intentional teaching, training, and professional development within the workplace. We’ll explore strategies for onboarding new staff, developing skills across experience levels, creating a culture of continuous learning, and empowering employees to take ownership of their work. Learn ideas for coaching team members, transferring institutional knowledge, and building stronger, more confident teams that are prepared to adapt and thrive in an evolving environment.
Personalization at Scale: How Advancement Teams Meet Donor Expectations Without Adding Work
Jen Lesshafft, Evertrue
Room 8002
Personalization is no longer optional, it’s the expectation. Donors want outreach that reflects who they are, what they care about, and their capacity to give. The challenge for advancement teams is delivering that level of relevance at scale without increasing workload or operational complexity. In this session, we’ll explore how advancement teams are connecting donor intelligence with personalized outreach across channels, including direct mail and video, to create experiences that feel one-to-one while remaining efficient. Learn how philanthropic and capacity insights can drive smarter segmentation, how personalized messaging can be automated without feeling generic, and how intentional data flow between systems allows teams to meet modern donor expectations without burning out staff. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for turning insight into action — aligning data, messaging, and execution to deliver personalization at scale.
It Takes a Campus: Building Partnerships That Power Annual Giving
Laurel Palmer, Western Michigan University and Bailey Daily, Purdue University
Room 8206
Successful annual giving initiatives rarely happen in a silo—they’re the result of intentional, sustained relationships built across campus. In this panel discussion, annual giving leaders from across the field share how they’ve cultivated meaningful partnerships with academic units, student organizations, faculty, athletics, alumni relations, communications, and more to amplify participation, deepen donor engagement, and drive results. These are the stories of partnerships that started small and grew into something bigger—from making the ask internally, to co-creating goals that resonate with partners, to keeping momentum alive long after your initiatives wrap. Whether you’re building your first campus coalition or deepening partnerships you’ve cultivated for years, this conversation will remind you why the work matters—and send you home with practical ideas, fresh perspective, and some motivation to pick up the phone on Monday morning.
2:45-3:45 p.m. – Breakout Sessions
A Giving Day Forum (Part 1)
Logan Heggemann, University of Chicago, Emily Vetne, Wabash College, Bailey Daily, Purdue for Life Foundation
Whether you’re launching your first Giving Day or refreshing a long-standing tradition, this discussion forum will share ideas, challenges, and success stories from the front lines of Giving Day planning and execution. Topics will include volunteer and ambassador engagement, digital strategy, stewardship, matching gifts, athletics and student participation, campaign branding, and post-event follow-up. Participants are encouraged to bring questions, examples, and lessons learned as we explore what’s working, what’s changing, and how institutions of all sizes can create meaningful donor engagement and fundraising momentum through Giving Days.
An Engagement Center Forum
Alexis Allen and Nick Evans, University of Louisville
Room 8012
Engagement centers can be an important part of modern advancement strategy, blending technology, student talent, and personalized outreach to build stronger donor relationships. This session will share ideas on how institutions are evolving their engagement center models beyond traditional phonathon approaches to include omni-channel communication, data-driven segmentation, and meaningful student employment experiences. We’ll discuss staffing structures, training practices, technology platforms, and metrics for success, as well as how engagement centers can support pipeline development and long-term donor engagement. Bring your questions and insights to this conversation designed to spark new ideas and practical takeaways.
Predictive Modeling for Annual Giving 101
Andrew Gutierrez, Philanthropy Data Scientist
Room 8204
You don’t need a data scientist on staff (or a statistics background at all) to start using your annual giving data more strategically! Presented by self-proclaimed “Philanthropy Data Scientist” Andrew Gutierrez, this Meeting of the Minds session will cover the core concepts of predictive modeling as applied to annual giving. Ideal for annual giving officers, development associates, and generalists at small-to-mid-size institutions, this session will demystify common statistical approaches such as correlation analysis, cluster segmentation, time forecasting, and more for a non-technical audience. Along the way, attendees will learn ways they can leverage their data to identify which donors are most likely to respond to a specific appeal, spot lapsed donors worth a reactivation ask, and set realistic revenue projections before a campaign goes out the door. No coding background required. If you or your organization is looking to get more out of your annual giving data, this session is for you!
Unlocking Advancement Insights Through Dynamic Dashboards
Joe Lanasa, Karen Latora, Advance Data Strategy
Room 8002
In this engaging session, the Advance Data Strategy team will walk through how advancement organizations can build a modern data strategy and technology roadmap to support more powerful reporting, analytics, and decision-making, culminating in a live demonstration of a dynamic advancement dashboard experience. Join us to see our launch of the ADS Advancement Insights Dashboard, designed to provide advancement leaders with clearer visibility into engagement trends, donor activity, campaign performance, pipeline health, and institutional impact. Learn how institutions are building the data, governance, reporting, and CRM foundations necessary to deliver meaningful executive insight through modern dashboarding and analytics. Attendees will gain practical insights into:
Preparing advancement data for modern analytics and reporting
▪️Aligning technology, governance, and reporting strategies
▪️Defining meaningful alumni engagement and fundraising metrics
▪️Building dashboards users trust and will actually use
▪️Supporting AI readiness and future analytics capabilities
▪️Turning advancement data into strategic insight and action
Whether your organization is beginning its analytics journey or looking to elevate existing reporting capabilities, this session will provide a practical framework for transforming advancement data into a strategic asset.
Driving Alumni Engagement and Annual Giving with Data-Informed Communication
David Tulkoff, Mongoose and KellyAnn McGowan, Northwestern University
Room 8206
Northwestern University’s Annual Giving team has built one of the most thoughtful texting programs in higher education — starting slowly, scaling deliberately, and now running their highest-volume texting year ever. In this session, Northwestern’s Kellyann McGowan joins Mongoose to pull back the curtain on what actually works. Whether your team is brand new to texting or looking to grow an existing program, this session meets you where you are. You’ll leave with a practical framework for using conversational texting to build donor relationships year-round — not just on Giving Day — and hear directly from a practitioner who has navigated the real challenges: cadence discipline, copywriting consistency, opt-in compliance, and earning donor trust over time. We’ll also share data on what drives donor likelihood — and why the institutions raising the most aren’t necessarily sending the most messages. You’ll walk away with:
▪️A repeatable engagement model that works between the big asks
▪️Best practices on personalization, cadence, and message tone from a peer institution
▪️An honest look at ROI, attribution, and what the numbers actually show
4:00-5:00 p.m. – Breakout Sessions
A Giving Day Forum (Part 2)
Logan Heggemann, University of Chicago, Emily Vetne, Wabash College, Bailey Daily, Purdue for Life Foundation
Room 8005
Whether you’re launching your first Giving Day or refreshing a long-standing tradition, this discussion forum will share ideas, challenges, and success stories from the front lines of Giving Day planning and execution. Topics will include volunteer and ambassador engagement, digital strategy, stewardship, matching gifts, athletics and student participation, campaign branding, and post-event follow-up. Participants are encouraged to bring questions, examples, and lessons learned as we explore what’s working, what’s changing, and how institutions of all sizes can create meaningful donor engagement and fundraising momentum through Giving Days.
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising – Recruiting, Readying and Retaining
Your Volunteer Rainmakers
Bob Burdenski
Room 8012
You’re a first-rate frontline fundraiser, but you may be mismatched when a peer voice is more productive. Peers can provide a “join me” testimonial, a pre-existing relationship, some prospect research, and an important extra set of hands. Whether it’s alumni agents, parent class chairs, giving day advocates, crowdfunding champions, board and committee lead donor partners and more, “handing the microphone to someone else” can leverage time, resources, relationships, emotional attachments and institutional knowledge. Join CASE Laureate Bob Burdenski for a participatory best practice review.
From Phones to Portfolios: Modernizing Student Outreach with AI
Sylvia Vandever, Gravyty and Sara Eldridge, St. Olaf College
Room 8204
Alumni and donor expectations have changed. The transactional, phonathon model that defined student outreach for a generation is giving way to something more relationship-driven, and organizations that make that shift early are seeing the difference.
St. Olaf College reimagined their model entirely. By replacing cold calls with a student-driven portfolio program powered by Raise from Gravyty, they built genuine alumni relationships at scale. The results: student emails outperformed mass emails by 3x, donor retention reached 57%, and more than $898,000 was raised following student outreach. In this session, we’ll discuss how St. Olaf’s team structured a sustainable student engagement program, trained and empowered student fundraisers, and used AI to scale personalized outreach without overburdening staff. We’ll also examine how this model creates a natural pathway toward leadership giving, positioning student-led engagement as a long-term pipeline strategy, not just an annual fund tactic. Attendees will leave with actionable frameworks for modernizing student outreach, leveraging AI tools like Raise, and cultivating the kind of authentic alumni relationships that drive meaningful, lasting results.
A Records Management Forum
Dania Calandrino, Art Institute of Chicago, Kristine Petroshius, Lake Forest Academy
Room 8002
Please join our group of industry experts who are prepared to discuss your records management concerns and conundrums! We will encourage audience participation as you are the experts, too! We will come prepared to discuss topics including data governance, deceasing best practices, common data entry errors, when – and when not – to create a spousal/partner record, matching gift company management, daily and weekly data integrity edits, and whether you really need to create a new record when you receive a gift from an existing donor’s estate. While we will be happy to discuss these topics with you, we also want to review what is most important to you! We will add your suggestions to our list at the session’s opening.
The YOUofL Class Gift – Student Philanthropy SuccessAlexis Allen and Nick Evans, University of Louisville
Room 8206
The YOUofL Class Gift program was created to build a stronger culture of philanthropy among students while connecting graduating seniors to the future of the university. This presentation will highlight the program’s growth from its launch in 2021 into a developing senior tradition, including the messaging, audience targeting, data, and incentives that helped increase participation and create an additional revenue stream. The session will also share key lessons learned, challenges faced, and strategies that helped make the initiative a more sustainable part of alumni engagement and annual giving at the University of Louisville.