The Georgetown Discovery Initiative: Using Students to Uncover New Prospects

July 10 - 11, 2008 :: Philadelphia, PA

Georgetown University's Discovery Initiative has identified and interviewed more than 3,000 alumni in 2 years by connecting them with current students and recent graduates through face-to-face interviews. Beyond building the institution's major gift pipeline, these interviews have helped align the passions of Georgetown alumni with current institutional goals and developed new opportunities for engagement. The interviews have improved Georgetown's entire advancement effort, including its annual fund, alumni relations, major gifts, communications, donor relations, and market research performance.

Join us and learn how the Discovery Initiative operates and how to start one at your institution. This event will teach you:

• Each key component of the discovery initiative, including:
  • The workings of the discovery interview itself
  • Recruitment, training, and managing ambassadors
  • Creation of engagement plans for each discovered individual based upon interview feedback
  • Integration of interview insight across an advancement operation and whole institution
• How to start a discovery initiative at your institution, including:
  • Gaining upper-level buy-in
  • Designing an implementation timeline
  • Scaling the program for a small or regional institution

Outcomes-Based Assessment for Career Services

July 23 - 25, 2008 :: Memphis, TN

Increased pressure to measure results and stringent accreditation standards are making it necessary for career services officers to move beyond counting office visits, job postings, and placements. A more sophisticated assessment methodology can help you align programming with your goals and justify departmental expenditures.

Join us to learn the theoretical perspective behind outcomes-based assessment and apply it as you develop a plan to take back to your institution. We will discuss key elements of an outcomes-based assessment plan, including:

• Connecting theory to professional and accreditation standards
• Using long-term objectives to help guide decision-making
• Developing outcomes
• Choosing a method for collecting data
• Analyzing data
• Making decisions about programmatic changes
• Closing the assessment loop by connecting the changes to long-term objectives

Building a Student Intervention Team to Prevent Campus Violence

July 28 - 30, 2008 :: Memphis, TN

Since the Virginia Tech tragedy, institutions are struggling with how best to prevent similar tragedies from occurring on their campuses. While the vast majority of institutions have begun creating student intervention teams, there is still confusion about how best to coordinate campus resources and define appropriate procedures for intervention and dismissal.

Join us for the detailed examination of three unique, nationally-recognized models of campus response teams that will help you:

• Identify the ideal members of your team
• Define policies and procedures for student intervention and student dismissal
• Clarify confidentiality limits and identify ways to work within them
• Outline ways to support your faculty in the classroom

You will leave with a framework for creating a student intervention team that is unique to your institutional structure and helps you prevent potentially violent or disturbing student behavior.

ePhilanthropy for Fundraising Professionals

July 30 - August 1, 2008 :: Charlotte, NC

ePhilanthropy is more than just having a website or sending email, it's about being donor-centered and communicating in relevant ways to increase your returns. Most institutions have online giving forms set up and use various e-outreach vehicles to reach donors, but many institutions stumble at multiple points in the ephilanthropic process. Things like complicated giving pages, lack of integration with other communications and outreach, and little to no metrics or ROI planning are commonplace.

This conference will offer a comprehensive approach to strengthening ephilanthropy efforts by:

• Showing you how to assess and integrate your ephilanthropy practices
• Applying ephilanthropy principles to websites, email, and non-electronic vehicles
• Taking your email practices to the next level by tackling common issues with list-building and messaging
• Creating a plan to identify, measure, and improve your ephilanthropy programs

Instructional Strategies for Blended & Online Learning

July 30 - August 1, 2008 :: Park City, UT

To teach well in the online environment, instructors need to explore new pedagogical options and craft learning activities that fit the medium. Instructional strategies that have evolved in classrooms and lecture halls typically have minimal success in online instruction.

Come explore a new perspective for online strategies and the evolving role of the instructor. We will review creative learning experience designs that reflect sound instructional principles and technological innovations.

Enhancing and Assessing Student Learning Using ePortfolios

August 11 - 13, 2008 :: Park City, UT

Implementing eportfolios can be challenging for faculty, administrators, and IT professionals. Creating measurable learning outcomes is only part of the process - you must consider choice of technology, campus culture, and accreditation in order to integrate eportfolios and demonstrate student learning at your institution.

Join Trent Baston, Helen Chen, Darren Cambridge, and Tracy Penny Light for a highly-focused conference about the latest trends, questions, and approaches for eportfolios to support learning and assessment.

Hiring and Training Major Gift Officers

August 11 - 12, 2008 :: Fairfax, VA

The market is short on qualified major gift officers, and the demand for fundraisers is at an all-time high. Meanwhile, outside search costs are rising. By hiring and training major gift officers in house, you can insulate your shop from these forces, achieve a more stable operation, and better maintain your most valued donor relationships.

Join us in Fairfax to learn how to hire and train major gift officers beyond traditional methods. This event will help you:

• Learn how to convert your periodic recruitment efforts into systematic talent management
• Critically examine current major gift officer training solutions
• Design an effective training solution appropriate for your institution
• Avoid major gift officer performance issues

Measuring and Evaluating Major Gift Officers

August 12 - 13, 2008 :: Fairfax, VA

Each year, major gift officers are expected to attain certain financial objectives while continuing to build long-term donor relationships. Whether a fundraiser meets a dollar goal is relatively easy to measure, but no traditional units exist to gauge relationship development, leaving many shop managers to struggle with assessing their officers' overall performance.

This event provides solutions to that struggle. Join us in Fairfax for a comprehensive planning workshop to maximize your fundraisers' results by incentivizing their performance beyond dollars raised. This event will help you:

• Critically examine current major gift officer measurement and evaluation solutions
• Design an effective measurement and evaluation solution
• Implement the solution upon returning to campus

Developing a Leadership Giving Program to Elevate Your Annual Fund

August 20 - 22, 2008 :: Providence, RI

Join us to create or refine a structure for your leadership giving program that elevates annual giving. We'll take an in-depth look at your unique program to:

• Set the structure for your leadership giving program
• Make a plan for managing the program and bringing in new donors
• Develop partnerships with major giving to coordinate your efforts and cultivate donors

You'll be given tools and worksheets prior to the conference so that we can spend time on site looking at the specifics of your program. We'll analyze your past giving trends and discuss leadership levels most appropriate for your school. After setting the structure, we'll spend time talking about building your pipeline with young alumni, growing leadership gifts, and identifying major gift prospects.

Building a Donor-Centered Stewardship Effort

September 22 - 24, 2008 :: Charlotte, NC

Good stewardship grows donor relationships by expressing personalized appreciation and demonstrating that a gift is being used for its intended purpose. Centering your stewardship around donor needs creates the best opportunity for this personalized attention. However, with shop turnover at an all-time high and more personnel taking on relationship-building responsibilities, your staff is increasingly hard-pressed to maintain consistent, donor-centered stewardship.

Join us for the Building a Donor-Centered Stewardship Effort conference to learn how to develop strategic, personalized donor relations at your institution. This event will help you:

• Determine donor intent and the essential motivations of donations
• Track, warehouse, and retrieve donor intent information
• Communicate donor intent across development stakeholder generations
• Measure your effort's successes and shortcomings
• Overcome implementation obstacles

Planning, Managing, and Leading a Successful Campaign

October 14 - 16, 2008 :: Fairfax, VA

Campaigns are transformative events that strengthen fundraising infrastructures and serve as springboards to future success. They are also monumental endeavors that comprise complex, distinct phases. When an institution implements each phase well, it achieves a result that sets up years of fundraising achievements and lays the groundwork for another successful campaign.

Join us to learn how to succeed in your institution's campaign. This event will help you:

• Set appropriate goals and timelines
• Build and manage information resources before, during, and after your campaign
• Obtain full board support and participation
• Integrate efforts throughout planned and annual giving programs
• Steward all donor groups appropriately
• Prepare for successful future fundraising ventures
• Understand what you absolutely need to begin and proceed through your effort

Enhancing Revenue, Service, and Image in Auxiliary Services

October 22 - 23, 2008 :: Charlotte, NC

Are you ready to break out of the typical silo approach to business planning that is so common at many institutions of higher education? For campus auxiliary services to thrive, increase revenue, and have positive impacts on the greater university, auxiliary service leaders must challenge traditional thinking. Join us and learn how to revitalize your business planning for auxiliary services.

You will learn guidelines for:

• Finding and assessing opportunities for innovation
• Establishing meaningful operational performance measures
• Creating an institutional culture of evaluation and self-assessment
• Creating and implementing the necessary incentives for operational improvement
• Evaluating your management team
• Deciding what and when to outsource and self-operate

You will leave with a template of a decision-making model that addresses the complex effects particular investments will have on service, revenue, and image.