Adapting Non-Profit Strategies for Higher Ed Fundraising Success

What can you apply from the non-profit world to improve your own fundraising strategies? Non-profit organizations outside of higher ed are typically seen as lean, cross-functional, and adaptive. As such, they have many creative ideas for proposals, events, and volunteers that gift officers can use to grow their own fundraising abilities and success. Join us to learn how higher ed can better compete philanthropically.

Communicating Financial Aid and Affordability to Admitted Students Webcast Recording

Do you need a more concise and streamlined approach for communicating financial aid to admitted students and their parents? This example-based online training walks through considerations for proactive and effective financial aid communication during the narrow window of time between admittance and enrollment. Included will be expert approaches from two diverse case-study institutions and many examples of impactful communication tactics.

Using Data to Inform Your Annual Giving Strategy

Are you properly leveraging your annual giving data?   Overview Properly analyzing your annual giving data is essential to make sound decisions about growing your annual fund. Knowing what data to gather and how to mine it to craft your strategy can be intimidating if you are not sure where to start. This self-paced training will assist you in regaining your shop’s competitive advantage by considering a fresh perspective for preparing and analyzing donor data. No matter what software you use or how sophisticated your current level of data analysis, our experienced instructor will share ideas that you will easily be able to implement.  

Customizing Your Peer Mentor Program: Best Practices in Developing a Peer Mentoring Framework

This online course will help you design targeted peer mentor programs to improve the success of specific student populations. Using best practices, this course will help you design a peer mentor model, train your mentors, and address important challenges of your mentee population. You will leave with a plan to improve your peer mentor program for one or more of these populations:

Prioritizing Academic and Administrative Programs 101

Learn the basic concepts of academic and administrative program prioritization as you hear advice from two of higher ed’s experts.   Overview The current and foreseeable fiscal challenges in higher education require institutions to move beyond short-term measures like temporary cuts and sharp increases in tuition revenue, and fundamentally revisit their mission to ensure their programs and cost structure are aligned.  

What Every Academic Chair Needs to Know

Learn to help raise needed funds, develop precise budgets, and develop and evaluate faculty more effectively.   Overview Join us for this three-part online training series to learn the essentials for serving as an effective department chair. Whether you are a faculty member with a desire to advance your career towards academic administration or you are an experienced academic leader, this series will help you to manage faculty more effectively, develop precise budgets, and raise needed funds.

Foundations of Auditing Endowed Funds

Knowing and communicating the financial health of your endowed funds will show your donors that their gift remains in good hands, which increases the potential for further giving. Now is the perfect time to review your endowed funds to ensure they remain: Legal: In compliance with rules and regulations Possible: To be rewarded according to fund criteria Practical: Able to be administered within reasonable limits Join us for a three-hour virtual training to develop a plan of action for your next endowed funds audit. You will learn a step-by-step process to help you confirm whether your endowed funds are meeting both institutional compliance and donor intent. You will also identify potential risks and communication strategies for donors whose funds have been misspent, unspent, or are underwater. You’ll walk away with clearly defined next steps that will help you move your endowed fund audit forward.

Building a Comprehensive Sophomore-Year-Experience Program

“This was a great program to help me take my ideas to the next step and figure out how to begin to implement them. I felt like the instructors had a personal interest in my progress, and connecting with personnel at other institutions was extremely helpful.” -Adrienne Fraaza, Fall Welcome Coordinator, Western Michigan University   Overview Join us for an online course in which you will build a project proposal to create or expand the sophomore year experience (SYE) programs at your institution. In your proposal, we’ll help you apply student development theory to foster second-year engagement, increase interactions with faculty and staff, and help develop a sense of purposefulness in students’ degree paths. You will receive feedback on your proposal from our expert instructors as well as your course colleagues, and you will leave with a finished proposal to use on campus. By the end of this course you will be able to: Set SYE goals that support your institutional mission Apply student development theory to sophomores Draw on current campus resources for SYE programming Develop curricular and co-curricular programming Propose an appropriate evaluation plan for measuring your SYE success   Watch this pre-webcast recording that features the webcast’s […]

Moving to a Strategic Sourcing Model

With nearly 25% of institutional costs coming from purchasing, institutions across the sector are looking for ways to push beyond transactional approaches to procurement. In response, strategic sourcing is emerging as a valuable method for lowering procurement costs by leveraging spending patterns and optimizing supplier relationships. Join us for these two online trainings that walk through necessary infrastructural elements to any strategic sourcing effort and identify key areas of focus for successful implementation on your campus. Our expert facilitator brings firsthand experience of this approach, and a keen understanding of how to achieve success with this model. This online training will have a particular focus on: Garnering stakeholder support for strategic sourcing shifts Addressing staffing and technology considerations for your model Conducting a comprehensive spend analysis Establishing a commodity strategy Discussing tactics for sound relationship management

Using Social Media Creatively to Increase Donor and Alumni Engagement

Gain new ideas for creating engaging content on each social media platform.   Overview Learn how to keep social content and ideas fresh and exciting across multiple platforms. Join Lynne Wester as she shares the latest and greatest ideas for incorporating social media as an important part of your donor and alumni communication strategy. You will examine: Examples of successful engagement opportunities through various social media channels Practical considerations for calendering, managing, and monitoring social media activity New ways to engage and thank donors, as well as integrating social media at events