8:45 am

Registration, Exhibit Time, and Morning Snacks (Upper School Hallway)

9:00 am

PIVOT FROM MISSION TO BRAND TO GROWTH: An In-depth Look at Your School’s Brand Strategy, Maria LaTour Kadison, EdwardsCo. (Auditorium)

In an increasingly competitive environment, every independent school wants its unique value to stand out to all its stakeholders; not just prospective students and their families, but also to alumni, faculty, administrators, staff, board, and the community at large. In this intensive three-hour session, Maria Kadison will show you actionable steps that are based on proven research, positioning, strategic, and creative practices. The key is to identify the elements of your mission that resonate most deeply with each of your school’s audiences and translate them into a brand strategy that expresses your strengths effectively. This session is designed for all leaders in your advancement team (marketing, communications, admissions, alumni, and development professionals) from any size school.

10:30 am

Break and Exhibit Time 

10:45 am

PIVOT FROM MISSION TO BRAND TO GROWTH: An In-depth Look at Your School’s Brand Strategy, Maria LaTour Kadison, EdwardsCo. (Auditorium)

12:00 pm

Lunch, Discussions and Exhibit Time (Auditorium)

1:00 pm

Marketing is Everyone’s Job, Penny Rogers, ISM (Auditorium)

 Seasoned advancement professionals know that marketing is the job of everyone who works at the school. The trouble is: most faculty and staff do not. Your colleagues may react poorly to the words “marketing” or “fundraising.” This session will introduce ways that you can use in your own school to train your faculty and staff. Learn how to rally teachers and staff to the advancement cause and empower them to message the mission of your school.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand faculty and staff and engage them powerfully and productively to become advocates for the school in meaningful ways.

2. Positively influence recruitment, retention, and the culture of philanthropy at your school    

OR

Advancement Essentials for Small Schools and Small Shops, Starr Snead, Advancement Connections (Media Center)

Get a grip! The tangled, elusive priorities of fundraising in small schools could discombobulate Indiana Jones – and it’s even tougher for more conventionally gifted humans. So busy changing hats that you nearly lose your head? Realize wistfully in October you forgot the course you set in September? Did midwinter find you just putting one foot in front of the other, eyes to the linoleum?  If you long for your program’s True North, some reliable means of quieting the noise of competing projects, voices, objectives and deadlines, this is the session for you. That’s the bag of tricks this workshop offers: approaches to constructing a valid, realistic, sustainable “big picture context” for what you do and where you’re headed; ways to work on balancing ambitious goals with realistic, manageable practices.

2:15 pm

Breakout Sessions

Solicitation Strategies: Not Just a Question of Asking, Starr Snead, Advancement Connections (Media Center)

Ask for what you need in a way that’s more likely to get it! We’ll figure out how to overcome the obstacles to effective gift solicitation. Actually, it doesn’t take a lot to learn how to approach “the ask” with positive confidence, realistic expectations, and thorough preparation. The coy, modest approach won’t work, so save that for your next dinner date – and don’t let your volunteers use it, either! Tips, techniques, and case studies from this workshop will better inform your solicitation strategies, help you prepare better to deal with donor reluctance, and strengthen your volunteer recruitment and training.

Assessing Your Admission and Enrollment Management Operations, Penny Rogers, ISM (Auditorium)

An effective and productive admission and enrollment management operation/office is essential to a school’s long-term ability to sustain excellence in student programs and deliver its mission with distinction. An accountable and results-oriented office must evaluate how well its operations reflect best practices and whether objectives are being achieved. A standard metric makes this evaluation possible. Join us as we guide you through a questionnaire meant to provide a framework for appraising your performance and reviewing the practices that define success.  Analyze the state of your operations and establish a baseline from which to measure the effectiveness of your plan strategies.

Implementing ​Mobile ​Bidding: ​The ​Three ​Big ​“To ​Do’s!, Leah Callery, 501 Auctions (Digital Classroom)

Are​ ​you​ ​interested​ ​in​ ​implementing​ ​mobile​ ​bidding​ ​technology​ ​to prompt​ ​guest​ ​engagement​ ​and​ ​take​ ​your​ ​fundraising​ ​efforts​ ​to​ ​the​ ​next​ ​level? Learn​ ​more​ ​about​ ​going​ ​mobile,​ ​hosting​ ​an​ ​online​ ​auction​ ​and​ ​take​ ​note​ ​of​ ​the steps​ ​you​ ​should​ ​take​ ​to​ ​run​ ​a​ ​successful​ ​event​ ​ultimately​ ​putting​ ​more​ ​money​ ​in your​ ​organization’s​ ​pocket! 

3:30 pm

Adjourn