Maximize your learning and inspiration with this fantastic program of peer breakout sessions!
The following workshops will be held over the course of three breakout sessions, listed on the conference schedule.
Breakout Session 1, Mon. 3/7, 11:15am - 12:15pm
The Philanthropy Pulse: 2022 Fundraising Trends & Insights/2022 Philanthropic Climate Survey Data Report, Laurel Room Thomas Kissane CCS Fundraising, Principal & Managing Partner CCS Fundraising is proud to share insights and data from nearly 900 organizations about their fundraising experiences, practices, and plans in the current environment. In our Philanthropy Pulse Survey Report, we reveal high-level findings that will support trends and provide intel on what is to be expected in the nonprofit space in 2022.
CTA to KPI to ROI - How to Be the MVP of Your Marketing Team, Mountain View Room Elisabeth King, Director of Communications, Lycée Français de New York Metrics drive marketing. It's a challenge to embrace because data makes for stronger marketing programs and better ways to articulate success. In this session, we'll review the Key Performance Indicators that drive marketing trends and look at new strategies and tactics to better target and steward families through the admission funnel.
Volunteers as Super-Givers, Sunset Room 1 Tom Fiorella, Assistant Director, Parent Programs & Kavita Bordia, Assistant Director of Annual Giving, Ethical Culture Fieldston School We all know the old saw… Volunteers give their “Time, talent and treasure.” That’s certainly true, but there are some volunteers who are ‘super givers.’ Not only might they be donating their time and their money to our schools, but many of them have an impact far beyond their work on one committee, one grade or at one event. In this talk, we’ll share some research on volunteers: Why do they volunteer? How likely are they to donate to our annual funds? How has the experience of being a volunteer changed because of COVID? And, when stewarding volunteers, who are those that we might prioritize because of their impact on the school community? With these insights, we hope to develop, as a group, some game plans: What can you do differently to steward volunteers and maintain or increase their impact as event planners, ambassadors, leaders, and most important donors? We’ll share a slightly different definition of stewardship that might apply to ‘super givers’ that could have a far-reaching impact on your community, including Annual Fund participation rates, the leadership of your parent association, and on the events, such as galas, which affect your whole community.
Engaging Your Constituents Through Tough Times: What’s Working? What’s Not?, Sunset Room 2 Anne Conway, Director of Communications & Hannah Kurnit, Director of Alumni Relations, Saint Ann’s School Communicating with and engaging our communities through a seemingly never-ending pandemic, political instability, reinvigorated movements for racial and social justice, and calls for schools to take accountability for their role in shaping culture is challenging, exhilarating work that requires strategic coordination. The expectations for advancement and communications professionals in schools have risen: we must be empathic, nimble, and always ready to pivot when our best efforts don't go as planned. And it’s all happening against the backdrop of a constantly shifting media landscape, as our inboxes runneth over. Let’s talk about it! We will share a few ways Saint Ann’s has tried to confront these challenges—from new newsletters and parent communications to affinity-based virtual social events, one-on-one alumni outreach, and managing our inboxes with an equity lens. Then we envision this as an interactive session where everyone can share an idea that worked or a disaster to avoid. There’s no judgment here: bring your successes and failures to share so we can learn from one another as we all continue to navigate a changing world.
#TwoClaps! Rooting Giving Tuesday in Athletics Tradition, Cliff View Room Mary McCarty Director of The Calhoun Annual Fund, The Calhoun School #TwoClapsforCalhoun was The Calhoun School's first-ever community-wide giving day in support of the annual fund. While we had run giving days for individual constituencies successfully before, we set to find out what could happen when the entire community was invited to participate in a single day of giving. But ours wasn't a day just about financial and participation goals - instead, faculty and staff, current families, grandparents, alumni and their family and friends were invited to share an "appreciation" when making their gift on Giving Tuesday. Appreciations are a special tradition in Calhoun Athletics in which athletes and coaches recognize teammates for their commitment to Calhoun's mission and values. In our first year with an Athletics-directed giving option for the annual fund, we felt that appreciations could extend beyond the court, field and track, all while growing awareness about the impact of giving! We crafted a framework for Giving Tuesday that linked the elements of gratitude and appreciation in our Athletics program to The Calhoun Annual Fund. Join us for a conversation about new partnerships between development and other school departments (like athletics), and find out how this inclusive, energetic approach helped dramatically boost volunteerism for the annual fund, promote a very special school tradition, AND help us reach 52% family participation (up from the previous year's 27%) by January 1. For you, #TwoClaps! https://www.givecampus.com/schools/TheCalhounSchool/twoclapsforcalhoun-community-giving-day.
Embracing the Transition of a New Head of School During Times of Uncertainty, The Study Deirdre O'Brien, Director of Development & Angel Gonzalez Ph.D. '99, Head of School, De La Salle Academy This workshop will discuss the challenges and opportunities with transitioning a new Head of School during a pandemic. Specifically, the role of the Director of Development plays in the transition and the importance of the relationship between the DOD and the new Head of School.
Building Leadership Resilience in Times of Change, Parlor Ren Washington, I2C Consulting, LLC For Team, Department, and other leads who desire to help reframe pressure for their groups and mitigate stress. (session capped at 24 participants) Most of us assume that events in life cause us stress. However, it is not the event that causes stress – it is Us. Yes, everyone experiences pressure in life but those pressures do not have to be inherently stressful. Stress is directly caused by rumination or, when we apply negative thoughts or emotions over and over to an event in the past or future. Learning how to mitigate our proclivity for rumination is the way to not just manage stress – but entirely change the way we experience stress.
Breakout Session 2: Mon. 3/7, 2:00 - 3:00pm
What's Next?: The Independent School Financial Model, Laurel Room Sara Shulman Director of Development, Packer Collegiate Institute & David Smith, Director of Advancement, Saint Ann’s School The Covid crises forced us to adapt in many ways. Enrollment shifts and increased expenses compelled school administrators and trustees to question some aspects of our financial model. The national trends show increases in school tuition and in the discount rate. At the same time, the case for annual giving gets harder and harder as families stretch to pay tuition. Let’s look ahead and examine some key questions about our financial model and the challenges associated with it. If schools are now discounting tuition approximately 18% on average, what is the implication for fundraising? Should schools focus on closing “the gap” instead of filling it with annual giving? As small colleges nationwide implement tuition resets, should more independent schools start exploring that option? Come for a “big picture” discussion of where we are and where we are going as an industry.
Advancing the Work, a Case Study: Partnering with Constituents and Diversity Practitioners to Set the Conversation and Authentically Amplify Community Voices, Sunset Room 1 Elizabeth "Oz" Oswald, Director of Institutional Advancement & Daniel Hrdlicka, Assistant Director of Institutional Advancement, The Cathedral School of St. John the Divine In February 2021, unable to host the traditional Absalom Jones Benefit for Financial Aid—named for the first Black priest in the Episcopal Church—The Cathedral School Office of Institutional Advancement planned and implemented Doing The Work: Equity and Engagement at Cathedral, a weeklong exploration of the school’s Equity and Engagement Curriculum and an opportunity for all community members to engage more deeply in the work of anti-racism, equity, and justice. In addition to six social media posts per day and interviews with faculty and administrators, the week also included four community events:
Cathedral Alumni Focus Group
The 1619 Project, Teaching Slavery in Schools: A Conversation with Nikita Stewart of The New York Times
This presentation will examine—through Doing The Work—the unique role that Advancement and Communication offices can play in bringing together and amplifying voices from a broad range of constituencies. While a one-size-fits-all approach is inadvisable (and impossible) in independent schools, this session will offer practical, hands-on tips for developing authentic and effective fundraising, communication, and engagement programs that suit the needs of your community and advance the work of equity, justice, and inclusion.
Video Making Crash Course, The Study Stephanie Long, Director of Communications, Buckley Country Day School Not every school has the resources to hire a professional videographer every time we want to convey our message via video. With just an iPhone and iMovie, you can make moving, impactful video content, and engage your students and key constituents in the movie-making process. In this session, you’ll learn the basics of making a video using an iPhone to shoot videos and photos, and iMovie to edit the pieces together.
Making the Case: Demonstrating Excellence to Parents and Donors, Cliff View Room Tom Rochon, ERB, President Parents and alumni stay connected when they feel pride and confidence in the excellence with which the school carries out its mission. Stories are powerful means of illustrating excellence, but the ability to demonstrate systematic excellence for all students must rely on data. In this workshop, you will see how the assessment data already being collected in your school can be used to demonstrate excellence. We will use ERB data to illustrate the process of creating a few simple and powerful graphic displays of student growth. Whether your school uses ERB assessments or something else, the same principles will apply to your assessment data.
Survey your Alumni! Designing Data-Driven Metrics to Fuel Alumni Engagement and Programming, Sunset Room 2 Bart Hale Director of Alumni Relations, The Calhoun School How do your alumni want to connect and remain engaged with the school? There's no better way to know than to ask them! At The Calhoun School, we developed a comprehensive alumni engagement survey that focused on three topics: school sentiment, communications and alumni events. The results opened new opportunities for our programs and helped us make informed decisions on how to better connect with alums across all eras. Learn some of the key steps to creating an effective survey campaign, factors in structuring them and fresh ideas for your own alumni program.
Working in Cross-Generational Teams, Mountain View Room Marjorie Jean-Paul, Buckley Country Day School & Elisabeth King, Lycée Français de New York Whether you're a Boomer, GenX, Millennial or Gen-Z--a leader, manager or frontline staff--you're working in teams of many different backgrounds and life experiences. In this session, we'll invite you for a conversation of wide-ranging perspectives on how to make the most of our experiences (and time on the planet!) to stay mission-focused, and have fun, too.
Breakout Session 3: Tues. 3/8, 8:45 - 9:45am
Motivations & Mindsets: Donor Behavior in Research and Practice, Sunset Room 1 Anna Schlia Graham-Pelton Vice President and Ph.D. Candidate Donors support independent schools for many reasons. Perhaps they have a personal connection to your school’s mission or are searching for a way to support their community. In reality, it is rarely that simple: donors are guided by a complex web of personal, cultural, and financial goals that all influence their giving. By understanding these motivations, your thoughtful advocacy can deepen relationships with prospective donors and create more meaningful opportunities for philanthropy. In this presentation, we’ll share the psychological principles that shape a person’s desire to give and equip you with the tools needed to start decoding the complexities of donor motivation at your school.
From Black@ to Backlash: Advocating for DEIB Efforts Against Pushback, Laurel Room Jan Abernathy, Chief Communications Officer, Browning School, Courtney Archer-Buckmire Chief Advancement Officer, Grace Church School, & Marjorie Jean-Paul, Chief Community Engagement Officer, Buckley Country Day School The co-founders of the Black Advancement Networking Group (BANG), a New York-based organization dedicated to supporting and uplifting Black professionals in advancement roles in independent schools will present a session on how advancement and communications professionals can effectively address substantial and sustained objections to equity work at independent schools throughout the country. In the wake of the Black@ movement, independent schools publicized their DEIB initiatives and the ways in which they addressed systemic racism within their curricula. This was met with pushback in the national press, led to the creation of organizations specifically designed to combat this work, and has placed boards, administrators and teachers on the hot seat. Come to this session to learn what to say -- and what not to say -- when you're challenged with such common objections as “all of this race talk has gone too far” or “this is teaching children what to think and not how to think.” Understand how to approach these conversations with empathy and active listening - and how to challenge incorrect statements without leaving your conversational partner angry or on the defensive.
Picture This: Social Storytelling that Stands Out, The Study Jeremy Katz, Associate Director of Strategic Communications, The Browning School In a sea of non-stop communications about COVID and challenging events, transform your social media presence into an oasis of “Must See Content!” Attend this workshop and see how you can give your socials a voice that will surprise and delight your constituents and enhance your school’s brand.
It Takes a Village (And a Good Pair of Nikes): The Marathon of Special Events, Mountain View Room Toni Santangelo Archibald, Director of Community Engagement and Special Events, The School of the Holy Child Whether you are planning a small class reunion, an annual benefit, or a weekend-long anniversary celebration for your school, the logistics of event planning can be overwhelming especially during a pandemic. This session offers tips and tricks for pulling off a flawless event for your alumni, parents, faculty, donors, and students.
Intentionality in Philanthropy, Cliff View Room Maureen Barry, Director of Development & Community Relations, St. David’s School & Severn Taylor, Director of Annual Giving & Stewardship, Collegiate School How to build a strong and intentional fundraising program that is personal, sincere, and based on deep relationships; investing time and energy into building and maintaining relationships, whether or not the immediate outcome.
Campaigns, Community and COVID-19, Sunset Room 2 Tara Askeland, Director of Development at Portledge School, and Kelly Walles, Associate Director of Development The typical Portledge life cycle for strategic planning is every three years and work had just commenced on the next plan when COVID-19 struck. It quickly became apparent that strategic planning needed to shift in order to manage this crisis which continues to challenge every aspect of school life and operations. In this session, join Tara Askeland, Director of Development at Portledge School, and Kelly Walles, Associate Director of Development, to explore a journey of major gift fundraising during Covid-19. Participants will hear how we strategically pivoted to maximize the strength of the community and deliver on our vision of the campaign.
