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Encore and Live Q&A: Developing a Principal Gifts Program that Supports Transformational Priorities

Principal gifts, defined differently at different institutions, can bring high-level success to your institutional priorities—especially those advocated by your president and academic leaders. By building out a disciplined principal gifts program, regardless of its current maturity, you can bring clarity to how your team and institutional stakeholders advance transformational ideas in partnership with your top donors. Challenges to this endeavor, however, can prevent teams from building out the program they want. Whether it’s lack of confidence speaking to and managing prospect relationships, managing donor fatigue, or having budget shortfalls with capital projects without donors in your pipeline to finish the job, developing an effective principal gifts program can help you prepare viable prospects who are poised and ready to give when the moment is right. Join us for this conversation on developing a disciplined principal gifts program, and preparing your institution for sustained success both now and into the future.

Creating a Sustainable Culture of Service Excellence (Cancelled)

Many institutions seek to enhance service excellence on campus as a means of improving student and employee retention, however creating a sustained culture change in any setting can be challenging. This conference is designed to review the principles of service excellence and provide you with tools and strategies for making lasting long-term change on your campus or in your unit. You will also spend time individually with subject matter experts to discuss and strategize your specific needs, and to plan for implementation. 

Where Two or Three Gather Together: A New Perspective on Effective Team Collaboration

Team, committee, and group-based work abounds in higher education. But many struggle to collaborate effectively in these settings because not everyone comes to the table with the same understanding, expectation, and collaboration style. While teams are often designed to bring together different voices and perspectives, most leaders default to a singular approach to teamwork that works well for some, but that also causes frustration, withdrawal, or conflict for others.   In this event, we’ll use the Five Paths to Leadership℠ as a framework to introduce the four different collaboration styles that are at play within any given team. We’ll walk you through a detailed explanation of each path and provide tactics that leaders and team members alike can use to approach collaboration and group-based work more effectively. You will leave with a more nuanced understanding of the collaboration types that yield the best results based on the outcomes you are trying to achieve, rather than defaulting to one style based on comfort or personal preference.  

Respectfully and Confidently Engage in Difficult Conversations: A Dialogue Workshop Series for Advancement Professionals  

As an advancement professional, you engage with alumni, volunteers, donors, and colleagues from different backgrounds, lived experiences, and perspectives. At times, you may receive unsolicited or angry opinions about institutional decisions, or inquiries about national and global news or events as they unfold. These comments or questions can sometimes be polarizing and catch you off guard. For some of us, our natural tendency in these situations is to shut down, disengage, and become defensive. However, a critical requirement of the relationship cultivation process with internal and external constituents is staying present in these challenging moments and allowing the conversation to continue despite political, religious, or social differences. It is also just as critical to know when to exit these conversations safely and professionally, depending on the intensity of the situation and/or other factors.  Join us for this four-part online workshop series, where you’ll learn how to respond professionally to difficult conversations with alumni, volunteers, donors, and colleagues. In community with other Advancement professionals across the nation, you will learn simple yet powerful techniques and practices to help you to stay present in difficult dialogues. The workshop series will also give you an opportunity to practice having difficult conversations through a variety of […]

Building a Culture of Mentoring at Your Institution

Increasingly, higher ed understands the institutional benefits of mentoring to students, staff, and faculty, but creating the conditions for mentoring to flourish remains challenging. Join us for a unique in-person experience where you will learn:   Whether attending individually or as a team, you will have the opportunity to directly engage with our experts, connect with higher education professionals across the country doing similar work, and apply your learning to kickstart your work after the conference.  

Advanced Leadership Development in Higher Education

Leading in higher education is a difficult task under the best of circumstances. Shared governance, structural barriers to change, and limited discretionary funding are just a few of the many reasons why making a meaningful impact can be hard to do. But it can be done, and the current and future challenges faced by the industry demand that we have leaders who can make substantive—and not just incremental—change.   Join us for a one-of-a-kind program that will help you to lead for the impact you desire. We’ll examine your leadership at a personal level with our Five Paths to Leadership℠ Assessment, and we’ll also share strategies for building high-performing teams with the hands-on, simulated activities to equip you with the tools that you can use to align large groups around a new direction or vision. You’ll also receive integrated coaching and industry feedback from peers in attendance, to help you to further refine and improve your leadership skills. Thanks to this valuable feedback, attendees will leave the event armed with a curated action plan to help them to thrive in their own programs, and with a wider potential pool of future accountability partners from fellow attendees and network contacts to help […]

Navigating Your Career Journey: An Online Course for Women Leaders in Higher Education

This six-week online program for women leaders is designed to help you manage conditions for career growth while gaining invaluable feedback on presenting and advocating for yourself both on paper and in person. This is a unique opportunity to learn from some of the best leaders in the industry in a supportive environment alongside other women leaders.  This program is intentionally designed to start with an opportunity to reflect on your leadership strengths through completion of the Five Paths to LeadershipSM Self-Assessment and a 360-degree review with feedback from your network, so that you can discover your authentic leadership style. You will identify the skill sets needed to navigate the current and future higher ed landscape, so that you can write a compelling career narrative that captures your strengths, goals, and values. You’ll incorporate these insights into your external-facing communications—such as your CV, résumé, and LinkedIn profile. Most importantly, you’ll leave with a tangible action plan for how to grow your career and the connections that support your goals—all of which will be informed with feedback from the cohort—a network we hope you’ll leverage and support far into the future. Highlights of the program include: 

Navigating Your Career Journey: An Online Course for Women Leaders in Higher Education

This six-week online program for women leaders is designed to help you manage conditions for career growth while gaining invaluable feedback on presenting and advocating for yourself both on paper and in person. This is a unique opportunity to learn from some of the best leaders in the industry in a supportive environment alongside other women leaders.  This program is intentionally designed to start with an opportunity to reflect on your leadership strengths through completion of the Five Paths to LeadershipSM Self-Assessment and a 360-degree review with feedback from your network, so that you can discover your authentic leadership style. You will identify the skill sets needed to navigate the current and future higher ed landscape, so that you can write a compelling career narrative that captures your strengths, goals, and values. You’ll incorporate these insights into your external-facing communications—such as your CV, résumé, and LinkedIn profile. Most importantly, you’ll leave with a tangible action plan for how to grow your career and the connections that support your goals—all of which will be informed with feedback from the cohort—a network we hope you’ll leverage and support far into the future. Highlights of the program include: 

Essential Leadership Skills for Deans

Leading as an academic Dean demands a specific and often diverse skillset that requires you to inspire those above, across, and below you in the organizational structure. If that’s not complex enough, you’re doing this work in the context of frequent leadership transitions, evolving student needs, increasing competitive pressures, scarce resources, and the highest levels of burnout seen in decades. It quickly becomes clear that being a leader in today’s current higher education environment can test even the most seasoned of leaders.  Join us for this highly interactive in-person conference to learn new strategies and approaches for how to address some of the most common challenges you currently face as a Dean. Special focus will be given to creating a unit culture that makes for a great place to work, and with the help of our expert speaker panel and a network of other deans, you will have the time, space, and support to discuss how to:  Through a variety of group activities and discussions, you’ll share your perspective on how to successfully navigate your role, and you’ll also walk away with useful insights from other academic Deans, as well. 

Recognizing and Celebrating Faculty and Staff:  A Panel Conversation

Faculty and staff morale is at an all-time low across most institutions in higher education, and this puts your department or unit at risk of increasing levels of burnout, decreased productivity and, ultimately, higher turnover. One way you can start to make a difference is by fostering a work environment where praise, appreciation, and gratitude are front and center. Join a panel of academic leaders and discover tips, strategies, and new methods for how you can provide praise and recognition that is meaningful, authentic, and consistent. We recognize that the needs of faculty and staff vary across disciplines and career levels, and we know that your team is likely working in a hybrid environment, so we’ll make sure you walk away with a variety of ways for you to better celebrate the accomplishments, effort, and energy of your faculty and staff.

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