Securing a principal gift can have an immense impact on the way an institution is able to meet its mission and serve students effectively. However, identifying and cultivating relationships with potential principal gift donors takes patience, intentionality, and compromise. In this useful question-and-answer virtual webcast, our expert instructor, Mitchell Spearman, will call upon his experiences working with philanthropic families who shared transformational gifts with institutions across the country. By engaging with participants and sharing his own insight and advice, Spearman will help advancement professionals to understand how to more effectively approach engaging principal gift donors and their families to secure transformational gifts. As a participant, you will have the opportunity to submit your questions in advance and we will do our best to incorporate these questions into the live event.
Providing a pathway for talent development can help ease the staffing constraints that advancement shops are currently facing. With a shortage of talent available due to competitive salaries and aggressive recruiting, one solution you can implement now is developing an undergraduate internship program for your shop. Your institution likely has many students interested in joining the non-profit sector upon graduation. There’s no better place to introduce them to non-profit operations such as fundraising, donor engagement, and data analytics than in your institutional advancement shop. Introducing interns to this work connects the student intern’s career aspirations to a non-profit culture, while also providing techniques for cultivating relationships and managing projects. Join us for this highly valuable program to learn how Trajan Dubiel, Director of Development, leads and continues to grow the Advance-U Internship Program at Michigan State University.
Good development professionals are hard to find—and even harder to retain. This challenge becomes greater if you’re at a smaller institution with a tighter budget that is competing against larger institutions, as well as the non-profit sector, for top fundraising talent. To improve your results in recruiting and retaining the fundraising talent you want, and, on a budget, you may want to consider a non-traditional strategy and approach to identifying new talent. To retain your new development team members for at least three years, you’ll need to adopt a thoughtful six-month onboarding strategy that inspires ownership, autonomy, and recognition. In order to do this well, you must first lean into these individuals’ specific personality traits, from internal drive to problem-solving, professionalism, and accountability. Join us in this webcast to learn how Nichole Fannin, Executive Director of Development and Annual Giving at the University of West Georgia, leads their department’s efforts in a high return-on-talent-investment for their recruitment and retention efforts.
As the number of first-generation college students increases at the undergraduate level, it is more important than ever to have support systems and resources in place. As you try out new interventions for your first-generation students, having feedback and hearing from others in similar positions will help you to assess and refine your approach. Join us for a one-hour discussion on both what has worked and what challenges you have encountered in working with first-generation students. Our expert—Daphne Rankin, PhD—will guide you through conversation about what interventions have worked for you in the past, what interventions you are looking to stage next, and what challenges you yourself have encountered in your work with first-generation students. You will also have the opportunity to share resources and connections with your peers and brainstorm next steps for overcoming current or future roadblocks.
Donor participation has been decreasing over the previous two decades. Identifying a strategy that reverses this trend has been a challenge for many institutions. This problem is complicated and not easily defined; yet evidence points to root causes such as a decrease in trust of higher education or how communication practices have fundamentally changed over this time, resulting in how institutional information is consumed by alumni. By focusing on deep engagement that is participatory, purposeful, and recurring, Muhlenberg College has developed a model that has improved their donor participation rate, moving them into the top 100 institutions for alumni giving. Join us online to learn the steps you can take to improve your alumni participation rate by focusing on the quality of your communication efforts, the essence of your alumni community, and the systemic changes you can make in your annual fundraising strategy.
Teams often have members from many different backgrounds, and leaders with empathy and humility are better able to bridge cultural divides and create a shared sense of community. Join us for a 1-hour discussion to strategize how to develop that sense of community on your team, regardless of each team member’s background. You’ll have the opportunity to further explore themes from Building Stronger Teams with Empathy and Humility for Leaders and to connect with leaders across higher education who are facing similar challenges.
Many leaders encounter team members with toxic or narcissistic traits, and those team members can wreck a team dynamic if left unchecked. Join us for a 1-hour discussion to strategize how to address difficult team members from a place of humility and empathy. You’ll have the opportunity to further explore themes from Building Stronger Teams with Empathy and Humility for Leaders and to connect with leaders across higher education who are facing similar challenges.
Leaders with empathy and humility have a better understanding of self and are able to cultivate those traits in others. Join us for a 1-hour discussion session where we will talk about how empathy and humility can help you be a confident leader, and how you can avoid being too empathic or humble as a leader. You’ll have the opportunity to further explore themes from Building Stronger Teams with Empathy and Humility for Leaders and to connect with leaders across higher education who are facing similar challenges.
The internal barriers new leaders face when starting a new role or project can hold them back from being successful. Negative self-talk, the inability to accept praise, and feedback that is based on your identity rather than your actions can all hinder your ability to make decisions and lead others. Join us for a one-hour discussion where we’ll strategize ways to work through your fears and difficulties with leadership.
The internal barriers new leaders face when starting a new role or project can hold them back from being successful. Negative self-talk, the inability to accept praise, and feedback that is based on your identity rather than your actions can all hinder your ability to make decisions and lead others. Join us for a one-hour discussion where we’ll strategize ways to work through your fears and difficulties with leadership.
