8:00-9:00 a.m. Breakfast Roundtables and Networking
Continental breakfast and networking in the sponsor lounge.
9:00-10:15 a.m. Breakout Sessions
A Big Giving Day Forum
Greg Carlson, University of Southern California and Alexa Finn, Claremont McKenna College
Auditorium Room
This forum is an interactive, discussion-based session for advancement professionals who are (somehow) new to giving days or want to revisit their goals, objectives and strategies with peers. Rather than a one-way presentation, this session centers on shared experiences, questions, and real-giving-day challenges. We’ll explore the core elements of a successful giving day—goal setting, project selection, timelines, campus engagement, and multi-channel outreach—through conversation and shared examples. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own ideas, obstacles, and lessons learned, making this session a collaborative space to exchange insights, identify best practices, therapy, and actionable next steps for their institution.
Leadership Annual Giving – Fundamentals of Personal Solicitation and (More-or-Less)
Face-to-Face Fundraising
Ray Watts, CSU San Bernardino
Mountain Vista Room
Annual Giving is a dynamic and changing field, no longer solely focused on mass marketing through direct mail and student phonathons. The “new normal” for annual giving is a team-centered approach with a group of individuals who have personal prospect portfolios and expectations of much more face-to-face identification, cultivation and solicitation work. This workshop will be structured in an interactive format, with a focus on real-time learning and specific coaching. Come prepared to share experiences and learn strategies and tactics to make you a better development professional as you get on the road and work with donors one-on-one.
The Value of Good Data in Developing Dashboard and Reporting Solutions
Zac Spurlin, University of the Pacific
Valley Vista Room
In today’s fast-moving higher-education advancement environment, data is no longer just a back-office asset—it’s a strategic enabler of insightful dashboards, accurate reporting, and confident decision-making. In this session, advancement services professionals will walk away with a real-world, actionable roadmap for turning raw data into reliable dashboards and reports that drive fundraising performance and donor engagement.
Don’t Blame the Donors—It Was Us All Along.
Fixing Our Favorite Direct Response Bad Habits
Donna Daly and Lia Miller, C.I. Partners Direct
Campus Vista Room
Let’s be honest: When a “best practice” doesn’t feel right, it’s usually because it isn’t. This session calls out six common direct response habits that quietly drain revenue, suppress results, and leave money on the table. These habits survive not because they work, but because they feel safe to leadership, boards, and committees who don’t live in the data. You’ll get the data, tools, and practical scripts you need to challenge those “safe” decisions and push back. We’ll break down what these habits can cost, discuss how to calculate the impact at your own institution, and help you build a case for doing it differently. Built for professionals navigating pressure from above, entrenched norms, or the dreaded “we’ve always done it this way” committee, this session gives you permission and proof to challenge assumptions. Bring your questions, your frustrations, and your toughest pushback scenarios.
3 Tales of Complex Assets, or How I Learned to Thrive in the Uncertainty
Derrick Fang, Cal Poly Pomona
Hillside West Room
Atypical and complex gifts can unlock significant philanthropic potential—if you know how to manage them. Learn how Cal Poly Pomona successfully built a resilient framework for navigating these bespoke opportunities, turning uncertainty into a sustainable advantage. This session will share our top lessons learned, providing you with actionable insights to incorporate into your organization’s own complex asset strategy.
10:15-10:30 a.m. Break in the Sponsor Lounge
10:30-11:45 a.m. Breakout Sessions
Outwit. Outplay. Outlast. Surviving Multiple Giving Days
Ryan Lawrence, UC Berkeley
Auditorium Room
Join us at Tribal Council to discover how a multiple Giving Days strategy can attract and help retain new donors. Just like the best Survivor players, success requires strategy, alliances, and contingencies. We’ll reveal our approach to running three distinct Giving Days per year, each with a unique focus and goal. This session will guide you through how to form your alliance, prepare for challenges, and earn advantages to make your campaigns successful. Come learn how to outwit the competition, outplay donor fatigue, and outlast the fundraising season—then cast your vote—are you ready for multiple giving days?
Leadership Annual Giving – Key Components to Building your Program
Karina Chappell, Megan Hast & Jennifer Pizzolo, Scripps College
Mountain Vista Room
This presentation will provide an overview of how Scripps College has operationalized its Leadership Annual Giving Program using a play sequence of diverse communications. During the presentation, we will discuss how Scripps identifies leadership annual giving prospects, break down how Scripps specifically applies a multi-channel approach that includes email, phone, text and mail to reach donors and explore the program methodology that has helped shape pipeline development at Scripps. After hearing this presentation, attendees will be able to apply these methods in their advancement teams, so that they too can maximize prospective leadership annual giving donors and operationalize Leadership Annual Giving programs to be both efficient and effective.
Order from Chaos: A Change Management Survival Guide for Advancement
Laurel Brenner, UC Irvine
Valley Vista Room
Working in advancement can sometimes feel like juggling chainsaws while herding cats, all during a CRM rollout. This session offers a practical survival guide for leading and navigating through that kind of chaos – no matter where you sit on the org chart.
Blending established change management principles with humor, empathy, and real-world examples, participants will gain strategies to build buy-in, reduce resistance, and turn disruption into a path forward. You’ll leave feeling more confident and empowered to navigate the winds of change with clarity and confidence. (No cats or chainsaws were hurt in the composition of this session description.)
Trendy with a Chance of Impact: A Practical Guide to the Big Picture
Felicity Meu, GiveCampus
Campus Vista Room
Discover the key annual giving trends shaping advancement strategy and execution—and how they apply to your institution. This session will share insights from a meta analysis of philanthropy research, GiveCampus data, and real-world examples. You’ll leave with actionable tools and data to evaluate your performance, understand how peers are adapting, and identify opportunities for meaningful impact.
Key Learnings:
◾ Understand the most significant trends currently influencing advancement strategy, execution and annual giving performance.
◾ Connect these trends to your institution’s specific goals and challenges.
◾ Gain insight from aggregated data, including patterns emerging from annual giving programs.
◾ See real-world examples of how peers are responding to these trends — at both macro and programmatic levels.
◾ Identify where your institution can take action to drive measurable impact across your advancement efforts.
A Healthcare Fundraising Forum: Patients, Physicians, Providers, Policies, and Pipelines
Dr. Wayne Combs, CHOC Children’s, and Catherine Quirk-Hanneke, Lucile Packard Foundation for Children‘s Health, Moderators
Healthcare institutions offer their own challenges (HIPAA) and opportunities (grateful patients, healthcare professionals, companies and the community) for annual giving fundraising. Join us for a special annual giving forum all about healthcare. Join us for a two-part forum that will share group information and discuss topics including:
◾ What does the prospect journey look like: from acquisition to renewal to major giving prospect?
◾ Using digital options to the fullest: emails, unique web landing page, ongoing impact updates;
◾ Tribute and 3rd-party giving-making the process easy and meaningful;
◾ What’s new in stewardship;
◾ Valuable vendors – Who are you using? Email vendors? Print? Business Associate Agreements?
◾ Giving initiatives: Doctor’s Day, Giving Day, Nurses Week? Do these help?
Lunch – 11:45 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Conference Luncheon is in two locations: In the Kellogg Center Dining Room (Lobby Level) and on the outdoor Terrace just outside of the Auditorium. (Lower Level)
1:00-2:15 p.m. Breakout Sessions
Employee Giving – Casa Colina’s “Five Days of Fame” Campaign
Grace Casian & Savannah Thomas, Casa Colina Hospital and Centers for Healthcare
Auditorium Room
Need new ideas to get employees excited about giving? Join this session and gain insight into increasing your organization’s employee giving by debuting your version of Casa Colina’s 5 Days of Fame Employee Giving Campaign. Launch a customized campaign using strategies from annual and major giving practices, stewardship, marketing, education, and leadership support. Whether you have an established employee giving program, or are just getting started, this session will inspire you to think outside the box when appealing to your peeps!
Sustaining Your Digital Engagement Program: Tools and Tricks for Continued Success
Michelle Poesy, UC Davis
Mountain View Room
In today’s evolving philanthropic landscape, digital engagement officers are proving to be indispensable in enhancing fundraising strategies and cultivating robust donor pipelines. At the 2025 Meeting of the Minds Conference, the UC Davis team presented an overview of its “DIY” digital engagement officer program. Michelle Poesy returns for an update on the program’s successes (and challenges), lessons learned, some new innovations in portfolio management, and a review of how any institution can take the steps to build and sustain a viable digital engagement program. Benefit from the experiences of this seasoned program and leave equipped with the knowledge to elevate your donor engagement and fundraising success.
The 3Cs: Curiosity, Clarity, & Communication
Mark Longo and Amy Hanson, Caltech
Valley Vista Room
This interactive session is designed to foster a culture of open dialogue, mutual understanding, and effective collaboration within advancement teams. Participants will explore the foundational principles of Curiosity, Clarity, and Communication—the 3Cs—and learn how these elements contribute to high-performing, inclusive work environments. Through role plays, practical tools, and guided discussions, attendees will gain insights into how to ask better questions, express expectations clearly, and engage in meaningful conversations that can drive success for their advancement operation. By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
◾ Define and apply the 3Cs—Curiosity, Clarity, and Communication—in daily work interactions.
◾ Recognize the importance of open-ended questions in fostering deeper understanding and collaboration.
◾ Practice effective communication strategies through role-play scenarios that simulate real workplace challenges.
◾ Utilize prompts and tools to enhance clarity and invite constructive dialogue between staff and managers.
◾ Understand the Communication Pyramid and how behavior, writing, signals, and speech contribute to impactful communication.
◾ Create space for feedback and diverse perspectives to ensure alignment and shared ownership of outcomes.
Roadmap To Build Data Strategy, Infrastructure & Governance
Joseph Lanasa, Gregory Jaros an Karen Latora, Advance Data Systems
Campus Vista Room
This seminar is designed specifically for Advancement Services and Annual Giving professionals involved in technology decisions that support fundraising and alumni engagement. If you’re evaluating a new CRM, considering artificial intelligence, modernizing data infrastructure, or trying to improve reporting and analytics, this session will help you step back and build a clear, defensible plan before committing resources. We’ll walk through a practical, step-by-step framework for creating a technology roadmap that aligns fundraising strategy, operational reality, and institutional priorities. You’ll learn how to define the outcomes that matter most to advancement teams—such as revenue, donor retention, campaign performance, and staff efficiency—and use those outcomes to guide technology choices and sequencing. For those early in the process, this seminar also provides the foundation for a strong business case. You’ll learn how to frame technology investments in terms that leadership understands, using metrics grounded in your own advancement operation rather than generic benchmarks or vendor promises.
By the end of the session, you will be able to:
▪️Define the steps for creating a roadmap that will guide your journey from where you are now to where you want to go
▪️Estimate the benefits and costs of your journey
▪️Have the foundation for a business case you can take to leadership
Navigating Submissions for Charity Navigator and Guidestar
Dr. Wayne Combs, CHOC Children’s
Hillside West
Session description to follow.
2:15-2:30 p.m. Ice Cream Break in the Sponsor Lounge
Ice cream bars in the sponsor lounge compliments of Vanillasoft.
2:30-3:45 p.m. Breakout Sessions
A Big Crowdfunding Forum
Ryan Lawrence, UC Berkeley and University of Oregon
Auditorium Room
Session description to follow.
Headwinds and Headlines: How Institutional Comms Practices Keep Fundraising on Course
Jennifer Yuan, Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health
Mountain Vista Room
When “headwinds” hit–whether it’s distressing headlines, federal policy changes, or sensitive internal issues–how do you keep your leaders and field team focused on revenue generation and organizational priorities? In this session, we’ll share how establishing an Institutional Communications function helped our organization (a children’s hospital foundation) navigate a turbulent year, preserve donor and staff trust, and ensure that fundraising stayed focused on mission. Outcomes include:
◾ Reduced leadership and field staff time diverted to issue response—freeing them to stay focused on organizational priorities and revenue generation.
◾ Increased donor engagement at a time when philanthropy is more important than ever.
◾ Formalized organizational systems and tools such as a Crisis Communications Plan and playbooks for gift announcements and coordinated news rollouts.
Through practical case studies and interactive discussion, participants will learn adaptable tools to strengthen clarity across their own organizations. We’ll share best practices such as an “issue vs crisis” triage framework, a proactive process to curate news and touchpoints to keep donors connected and engaged, and the strategic value of strengthening internal communications. Even without a dedicated Institutional Comms team, members can start small and adapt powerful practices such as landscape monitoring, and create playbooks for leaders and other team members to help them meet the moment in ways that remain on brand and aligned with the org’s values and mission. You’ll leave with concrete strategies to steady your ship and safeguard philanthropy amid today’s unpredictable environment.
Gift and Pledge Administration – A Panel Discussion
John Taylor, Moderator, with Trina Richardson, Harvey Mudd College, Erika White, Occidental College, and Quamrun Salam, Pomona College
Valley Vista Room
This audience participation session will attempt to answer fundamental questions about gift processing and entry that have raised concerns for decades! The session will begin by asking the audience to identify the gift processing issues they face in daily operations. The panel will attempt to suggest solutions and share national best practices. They will also come prepared to discuss various topics, including gift dates, receipt requirements, gift processing metrics, copying/scanning requirements, and recurring giving challenges. (Feel free to email your discussion topics beforehand if you prefer to be anonymous!)
Designing Engagement at Scale: What Actually Moves Donors to Act
Sylvia Vandever, Gravyty
Campus Vista Room
Fundraising teams are reaching larger audiences than ever before, but outreach volume alone isn’t translating into meaningful engagement or donor action. As giving becomes concentrated into fewer, higher-stakes moments, the way engagement is designed matters more than the number of messages sent. In this session, we explore how institutions are rethinking outreach across digital giving, phone programs, and stewardship to better engage donors at scale. Drawing on real-world examples from higher education, we’ll examine where engagement commonly breaks down, why traditional models struggle to keep pace, and how small design changes can unlock momentum across large donor populations. Attendees will see how teams have modernized outreach to engage more donors, move relationships forward faster, and improve results without adding staff or increasing workload. The session will focus on practical takeaways that can be applied immediately to campaigns, Giving Days, phonathons, and ongoing donor engagement efforts.
3:45-4:00 p.m. Break in the Sponsor Lounge
4:00-5:15 p.m. Breakout Sessions
From Inboxes to Impact: Our Year-End Giving Campaign Playbook
Catherine Quirk-Hanneke, CFRE, Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health
Auditorium Room
What if year-end fundraising felt more intentional—and less like a sprint to the finish? This session offers a candid look at how the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health has evolved its year-end approach to fundraising for our Children’s Hospital—aligning mail, email, paid media, stewardship, and gift officer collaboration into a more omnichannel effort. We’ll share what we’ve learned about email deliverability, inbox performance, donation page conversion, and practical email tactics, along with how we’ve embraced (and pivoted around) AI. We’ll also share the ideas, learnings, and best practices we repurposed from peers and aspirational organizations to bolster our success. Attendees will leave with realistic, right-sized nuggets they can apply to their own year-end fundraising efforts, or even a Giving Day or any major calendar moment.
Cause-Based Fundraising
Greg Carlson & Iyoni Rice, USC and Chris Taft, Pollination Group
Mountain View Room
Today’s annual giving landscape is evolving rapidly. As generational shifts, digital engagement, and changing donor expectations reshape how people give, annual giving professionals must rethink traditional appeals and strategies. This session will explore how cause-based fundraising offers a powerful framework for engaging modern donors, particularly Millennials and Gen Z, who prioritize impact, transparency, and alignment with personal values. Attendees will learn how to infuse annual giving campaigns with compelling storytelling, leverage donor segmentation and behavioral data, and integrate cross-channel tactics to inspire gifts through their institution, not just to it. Whether you’re running giving days, digital campaigns, or direct mail, you’ll leave with practical tools to reframe your annual giving efforts around causes that resonate—and build stronger, longer-lasting donor relationships as a result.
Building a 100% Stewardship Model: Automating Gratitude and Accountability in the Age of Third-Party Giving
Natalie Greenhouse, Occidental College
Valley Vista Room
When the legal donor isn’t the real donor, stewardship can fall through the cracks. Occidental College tackled this challenge head-on by designing an automated model that ensures every donor—no matter the payment source—is acknowledged accurately and personally. This session will walk participants through how Advancement Services partnered with Prospect Research and Individual Giving to build a scalable, rules-based stewardship engine that identifies donor relationships, routes tasks to the right team member, and measures completion rates in real time. Learn how this cross-functional collaboration replaced “ghost lists” and manual spreadsheets with a living system of gratitude, transparency, and operational accountability. Attendees will leave with a replicable framework and change management insights to help them bring similar transformation to their own institutions.
From Burnout to Breakthrough: Cadence Approaches That Drive
Meaningful Donor Engagement
Emily Etzkorn, Vanillasoft
Campus Vista Room
Declining participation and high fundraiser turnover are often symptoms of outdated and inflexible outreach strategies. Join Emily to explore cadence building strategies that protect & nurture donor relationships while also maximizing fundraiser efficiency. Learn and discuss methods that accomplish both objectives via smart segmentation and optimal channel prioritization to improve connect rates, reduce fundraiser burnout, and ensure each cadence step is a strategic touchpoint, not “just another dial”.
The Collab Lab: Where Insight Meets Initiative:
Empowering Teams to Think Together, Solve Together, and Succeed Together
Quamrun Salam & Jeremy Taylor, Pomona College
Hillside West
The session introduces the four key stages of CPS—Clarify, Ideate, Develop, and Implement and demonstrates practical tools like “Stick ’Em Up Brainstorming” that foster creative thinking and collaborative decision-making. Participants will leave with techniques they can immediately apply to strengthen communication, enhance problem-solving, and inspire innovation within their own teams and organizations.