2025 Speakers and Moderators

We’re grateful to all of our 2025 NEAGC speakers, for their generosity and their expertise.
🍎 = Returning NEAGC Faculty Member!
🍏 = First-Time NEAGC Faculty Member!

Skylar Beaver 🍎
Conference Chair

Skylar Beaver is the Assistant Director of Advancement, Director of The Lawrenceville Fund, and Alumni and Family Engagement at The Lawrenceville School. In this role Skylar oversees annual giving efforts, alumni and family engagement initiatives and oversees the advancement systems team. Previously, she led annual giving teams at The Spence School, Washington and Lee University and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She has thirteen years of annual giving experience, is a frequent presenter with CASE, is a past chair of STAFF (Sharing the Annual Fund Fundamentals), and serves on the Northeast Annual Giving Conference (NEAGC) planning committee. Skylar holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and a master’s degree in nonprofit management from SUNY Brockport.

Bob Burdenski 🍎
Conference Director 

Bob Burdenski is an internationally-known annual and regular giving programs consultant for schools, colleges and universities.  Bob is the author of three CASE annual giving books and is a recipient of the CASE Crystal Apple Award for Lifetime Teaching Excellence as ranked by his audiences. In 2019 he was also named a CASE Laureate for his years of volunteer service to the profession. He has educated (and entertained) at presentations throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, including numerous CASE Europe and CASE Asia Pacific Annual and Regular Giving Conferences and Masterclasses.  He presented CASE’s first-ever annual giving training programs in India, Japan, Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia, and in 2019, Bob served for the third-straight year as Chair of the CASE Institute for Senior Annual Giving Professionals. Since 2002, Bob has served as the moderator of FundList, the largest fundraising e-mail discussion listserv in the world, with thousands of development professional subscribers.

Daniel Burgner 🍎

Daniel Burgner is the Assistant Vice President of Annual Giving at The George Washington University, where he oversees central and unit-based annual giving efforts, donor pipeline development, and leadership annual giving programming. A recognized industry leader, Daniel drives innovative strategies that leverage data-driven segmentation, digital engagement, and storytelling to grow donor support across GW’s largest donor populations. Under his leadership, GW has seen significant growth in donor retention and acquisition, with an impactful increase in annual giving revenue. Daniel began his career as a Phonathon caller at Abilene Christian University. Before joining GW, he served as a Senior Consultant with Ruffalo Noel Levitz, guiding universities on pipeline development and donor acquisition strategies, and as the Senior Director of Annual Giving for the Texas Tech University System, where he grew the alumni donor base by over 17% through integrated omnichannel marketing efforts. An active member of the advancement community, Daniel serves on the steering committee for the Annual Giving Director’s Consortium, regularly speaks at industry conferences, and advocates for modernizing university advancement through donor-centric strategies. He and his wife, Emily, live in Alexandria, Virginia, with their children, Quincy and Eleanor.

Colleen Carroll 🍎

Colleen Carroll is Community & Events Lead with Double the Donation. Colleen’s background is in nonprofit fundraising, mission-driven marketing, and community engagement. In her role at Double the Donation she facilitates educational opportunities for institutions of higher education, nonprofits, and K-12 schools to discuss workplace giving, an often overlooked fundraising channel.

Christopher Chambers 🍏

Chris Chambers is Manager of Annual Giving and Corporate and Foundation Relations, as well as Development Officer, School of Science, Health & Criminal Justice, at the Canton College Foundation, SUNY Canton.

Meg Cummins 🍏

Meg Cummins is Assistant Director of the Bryant Fund at Bryant University.

Emily Etzkorn 🍎

After spending over a decade in the higher education fundraising space, Emily Etzkorn joined VanillaSoft as a Fundraising Evangelist, bringing with her a background in annual giving, engagement centers, and phonathons. In her role at VanillaSoft, Emily is working closely with fundraising clients and promoting VanillaSoft within the fundraising world.

Jon Gregory 🍎
Conference Committee

Jon Gregory is the Associate Director, Donor Participation & College and Unit Partnerships at Cornell University. In his role, Jon leads the coordination of strategic partnerships throughout Cornell Alumni Affairs and Development to develop integrated marketing strategies to solicit 250,000+ alumni annually, grow alumni and student giving year over year, and raise broad base support for the annual funds. He serves as the project manager for Cornell’s annual Giving Day, leading the strategy, implementation, oversight, partnerships, evaluation, and refinement of Cornell’s flagship integrated marketing campaign which results in as many as 15,000 donors and $10 million raised in one day. He spearheads the piloting of innovative initiatives that increase donor participation, and leads integration of new efforts making them scalable for college and unit partners. Prior to joining the Big Red, Jon started his career in athletic administration at his alma mater and served as Assistant Athletic Director at Johns Hopkins University before returning to Ithaca College as a member of the alumni engagement and philanthropy team. Jon holds a bachelor’s degree in Sport Management from Ithaca College with a master’s degree in Athletic Administration from Southern New Hampshire University.

Nora Marzocchi 🍏

Nora Marzocchi is Director of the Bryant Fund at Bryant University.

Sara Pond 🍎

Sara is the Vice President of Client Development at MCR, Inc. She is a philanthropic leader with a 20-year career serving educational and non-profit sectors with special focus on pipeline development. Her experience details leading teams, targeted marketing and communications, technical strategy, artful storytelling, and qualitative analysis to build the donor pipeline and raise revenue. She is passionate about helping organizations provide economic mobility, access to educational pathways and healthcare.

Stephanie Rasamny 🍎

As the founder and president of MainSpring Media Communications, Inc., Stephanie is responsible for the company’s day-to-day operations, as well as leading the strategic planning of projects, business development and implementation of new technology. She has over 20 years of digital fundraising experience and has a proven track record of increasing engagement and giving at a broad base of institutions. Her fundamental vision for MainSpring was to assist fundraisers more effectively grow participation and contributions by integrating digital tools with traditional fundraising methods. Under Stephanie’s leadership, MainSpring is at the forefront of effective digital fundraising.

Christene Riendeau 🍏

Christene Riendeau is Senior Director of Annual Giving and Volunteer Engagement at College of the Holy Cross.

Gina Simonelli 🍏

Gina Simonelli is Director, Annual Initiatives at the University of Rhode Island.

Rachel Spencer 🍎

Rachel Spencer is Senior Account Executive, Fundraising with VanillaSoft. Rachel is a true “phonathon” and Engagement Center expert, benefitting from nearly 15 years of tele-fundraising experience. She graduated from student caller, to telefundraiser-for-hire, to Engagement Center manager (and VanillaSoft client), and is currently salesperson-cum-consultant. In her role at VanillaSoft, Rachel works closely with more than 100 universities and her ability to imbue others with her unique brand of enthusiasm and joie-de-fundraising is truly unmatched.

Jake Strang 🍎
Conference Committee

Jake Strang is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Alumni Annual Giving at the University of Pittsburgh. In this role, he leads a central annual giving team that engages alumni constituents and secures sustainable funds for Pitt’s highest priorities. Jake is a resource and convener for annual giving staff at Pitt’s regional campuses and has primary responsibility for the operations and staff of Panthers Forward, a signature student debt relief program. Prior to joining Pitt, Jake was the director of annual giving and alumni engagement at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. While there, he led a comprehensive annual giving program including reunions, volunteers, graduating class gift campaigns, and the school’s leadership society. In addition to annual giving responsibilities, he also was responsible for alumni marketing including newsletters, social media, alumni webinars, and the semi-annual Tepper Magazine. Jake also worked at Columbia University, where he was the senior associate director for annual fund programs. At Columbia, he served on the core team for the first five Columbia Giving Days and led the direct marketing for multiple annual funds across the university. Before joining Columbia University, he was a program center manager with Ruffalo Noel Levitz. While with RNL, he managed the on-site telefunds for Columbia University and the University of South Carolina. Jake holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina in Marketing and Management and a master’s degree from Columbia University in non-profit management.

Matt Sulzer 🍎

Matt Sulzer is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for MCR, Inc. For the past 20 years, Matt has served more than 600 college, university and healthcare teams with their direct mail needs. He prides himself on providing clients with excellent customer service, while partnering with them to help achieve and exceed their organizational fundraising goals. In Matt’s tenure, he has achieved Sales Person of the Year eight times and regularly speaks at conferences on different annual giving and direct mail topics.

Yoni Sunshine 🍏

Yoni Sunshine is Assistant Director, Annual Leadership Giving at Brown University.

Amanda Talbot 🍏

Amanda Talbot is Senior Leadership Annual Giving Officer at Brown University.

Amanda Tsapatsaris 🍏

Amanda Tsapatsaris is Director of Annual Giving and Alumni Engagement at Endicott College.

Shannon Wood 🍏

Shannon Wood currently serves as the Director of Annual Giving at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, a role she had held since January 2022. At UMass Dartmouth, she oversees traditional and leadership annual giving efforts consisting of direct mail, campaigns, giving days, crowdfunding, technology solutions and personal solicitation supporting current use and endowed funds for eight schools and colleges, athletics, student affairs and more. Prior to her current role, Shannon spent 5 and a half years in annual giving at the College of the Holy Cross managing outreach strategy and fundraising volunteers for young alumni and the senior class gift effort. Shannon is a 2020 CASE District I Rising Star Award Winner. A proud public school advocate, Wood graduated from the University of Connecticut with her Bachelors in Communication and will complete her Masters in Public Policy with an Educational Policy concentration in May 2025 from UMass Dartmouth. She currently lives outside Providence, RI.