Search Results for: meeting

Fundraising Essentials: Perfecting Moves Management Webcast Recording

Get practical ideas and advice on the “art” associated with the science of moves management. Gain the knowledge you need to smoothly move prospects through the donor cycle and upgrade them to the next giving level. Throughout this training, you will learn: The right questions to ask and when to ask them Identifying prospects who need to be upgraded or downgraded How to effectively manage donor meetings to ensure outcomes are met Tactics for moving donors through each stage of the solicitation cycle Considerations for using data to guide strategy

Stewardship and Donor Relations: How to Crash the Party

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

For years, stewardship and donor relations professionals have talked about ways in which to develop a presence at the leadership table. This may mean a standing invitation to sit in at prospect development meetings, event planning meetings, executive briefings or leadership planning meetings. Participating in all of these types of meetings are helpful for several reasons: Whether you are new to the field or a seasoned veteran in the industry, your role as a donor relations and stewardship officer will be viewed very differently across institutions. No matter where your position falls in the overall hierarchy, the reality is that all productive members of a foundation or university advancement team are highly valued, and your executive leadership will respect you and invite to the table if you are able to appropriately demonstrate your value to the organization. So I encourage you to consider how best you and your talents, knowledge and relationships can make an immediate, positive impact on the institution’s stated goals. Be Present It sounds obvious, but make sure you attend and participate in optional team meetings. Know what you have to offer to various conversations and do not hesitate to be vocal when your strengths will be […]

Reaching out to the Town During Campus Expansion

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

There have been several stories in the news lately about colleges with growing enrollments that are planning for campus expansion (including Loyola and New York University), and these stories have highlighted both the importance and challenges of strong town-gown relations during the capital planning process. We asked Mark Beck, director of capital planning at the University System of Maryland for insights into how institutions can more effectively invite town participation in a campus expansion planning effort. Engage Your Community Early and Often “It’s not so much what you do to engage your community, but how you do it.”Mark Beck, U System of Maryland The most important investment you can make is to engage your community as often as possible. Beck suggests that you can’t simply go through the motion of holding meetings and communicating via the web and newsletters. You have to actually listen and engage your community in the planning process. He points to examples of public meetings that he convened early in his career that weren’t successful because the university approached the discussion as an announcement of their plans rather than as a listening opportunity. Beck suggests making the meetings more regular, less formal, and more focused on dialogue. Equally […]

What Does Collaborative Strategic Planning Actually Look Like? An Informal Case Study

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

A PROCESS THAT WORKSIf the case study below intrigues you, you can learn the 5-phase Collaborative Strategic Planning process that Anoka Ramsey Community College undertook in Pat Sanaghan’s book Strategic Planning: 5 Tough Questions, 5 Proven Answers.Case Study: Anoka Technical College & Anoka Ramsey Community College by Andrew Aspaas, Patrick Sanaghan, Donald Lewis, and Kent Hanson “Collaborative” Strategic Planning (CSP) has a nice ring to it, sounds a little like mom and apple pie, inclusion, and lots of participation. Who wouldn’t want that? In reality, authentic collaboration is a difficult process for leaders to undertake and do well. The challenges of conducting a collaborative planning process are many: you can get lost in too much process, where seemingly endless loops of engagement become confusing and exhausting for stakeholders; in an attempt to be inclusive, way too many people are informally involved in the planning effort, with no real ownership for the outcomes; the process can lose focus quickly, or people become overwhelmed by all the data that is gathered, and sense making becomes almost impossible. In this informal case study we want to show how you can actually conduct a large group collaborative planning meeting with 200+ faculty and ensure […]

The Skills Higher-Ed Leaders Need to Succeed

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

2017 Update: Following up on this research, we have published our findings and our best current thinking in the paper “The Skills Future Higher-Ed Leaders Need to Succeed.” In Denver, CO this March, Academic Impressions convened a select group of forty academic and administrative leaders from diverse colleges and universities to address the question: What are the skills and qualities that leaders in the future need to have in order to thrive? Why this Conversation is So Critical Now Leadership matters. As program facilitator Pat Sanaghan remarked, an institution “cannot rise above its leadership.” The circumstances colleges find themselves in today — whether those circumstances are productive or disastrous — are a product of the decisions and actions (or inaction) of past leaders. If your own institution’s outlook isn’t bright, that’s a leadership issue. In a time of significant change and stress in the industry, we need to rethink the kind of leadership we need. How We Pursued this Conversation No one sage has the answers to this complex question. That’s why we called together 40 people from all across an institution’s organizational chart and from diverse types of institutions. We had presidents, chiefs of staff, chief academic officers. We also had several […]

Growing and Supporting Online
Programs Internationally

Pursuing international markets in online education can bring in new revenue and a more prestigious global image. However, efficiently expanding these programs to reach or meet an international need in education can be difficult. In order to capitalize on your programs’ competitive advantage, specific processes and support structures must be designed to target and align with the potential market. Join us for an online training where our experienced instructors will discuss the expansion of online programs for international audiences. Using a SWOT Analysis approach, we will discuss the competencies needed to find the right fit for your program and the building of an internal support model to meet the distinctive needs of an international audience.

The One Issue That’s Bigger than the Demographic Cliff

Posted on by Brady Stanton

At a workshop I ran recently, I asked the participants to answer the question, “What’s one thing I know about leadership?” when they were introducing themselves. One of the participants, a brilliant researcher who directs three different centers, stated very plainly: “In higher education, you are always promoted into a job for which you have no training.” His comment wasn’t delivered with any cynicism—he was at the training voluntarily for precisely that reason. He wanted to learn more about leadership.  Over the last three years, I’ve worked with more than 75 groups on various college campuses at all levels—from Chairs, all the way up to Presidents and their senior teams. And I find that this exact same phenomenon exists at every single level. There are only two differences: The higher up in the institution, the less likely leaders are to admit that they need help; and the consequences of ineffective leadership are exponentially greater—even greater than the demographic cliff.   Higher education is unique in this way—most other people-driven businesses invest heavily in leadership. Higher ed, instead, has been slow to see the value. Instead, we prefer to prioritize a narrow definition of success—with high-impact publications, grant development, starting new programs, […]

The Urgent Care Model as a Solution for Higher Ed Counseling Centers

Giving every student an assessment and 50-minute counseling session is no longer sustainable given the high volume of students needing mental health services. You are likely looking for new ways of delivering quality care to meet your students’ needs and manage your resources. Join us online to learn how the Urgent Care Model may be one possible solution for your counseling center. Dr. Will Meek from Brown University, creator of the model, will guide you through its key components and share tips for how you can implement the model on your campus. We will share a counselor’s typical daily schedule in the Urgent Care Model to illustrate how quality care is delivered to various students.

Addressing a Changing Landscape in Higher Education Due to COVID-19: Lessons From One Institution for Academic Leaders

Posted on by Brady Stanton

ByAnand R. Marri, Dean and Professor, Teachers College, Ball State University Paaige K. Turner, Dean and Professor, College of Communication, Information, and Media, Ball State University Susana Rivera-Mills, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Ball State University While the COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous challenges for higher education institutions across the world, it also offers an opportunity to reflect upon how this moment can prepare academic leaders for a changing landscape. The lessons we learned at Ball State University are organized into three areas, those that can take higher education forward into the future, those that are applicable for that moment, and those that did not achieve the intended objectives. Ball State University serves over 22,000 undergraduate and graduate students both on campus and through our numerous online programs. Currently, over one-third of our undergraduate students receive Pell Grants and over 25 percent of our undergraduate students are first-generation college students. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a new set of challenges and exacerbated existing challenges across higher education while providing an opportunity to affirm commitments to institutional values. Beneficence is Ball State’s iconic statue that represents the beneficence and tenacity of the Ball Family and our community. Ball State […]

Tackling the Challenge (and the Stigma) of Student Food Insecurity

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

In 12 years, the number of food pantries on college campuses has grown from 1 to 700. However, due to the cultural stigma of facing hunger, the existence of a food pantry, by itself, does not solve the issue of student food insecurity. In early 2019, the Hope Center reported that up to 45% of today’s higher education students face food insecurity. Many colleges and universities are responding to this alarming number by creating on campus food pantries to meet students’ dietary needs. In 2007, the College and University Food Bank Alliance knew of only one food pantry operating on a college campus. As of October 2019, the Government Accountability Office estimated that this number had grown to more than 700! While this growth is remarkable, the existence of a food pantry does not guarantee that food-insecure students are receiving the assistance that they need. The cultural stigma associated with facing hunger in the United States, of being seen by their peers receiving free food, can discourage students from utilizing on-campus pantries. The fear of stigma leaves administrators tasked with pantry operation with some difficult logistical choices: While conducting research into the many challenges of addressing food insecurity in higher […]

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