Here are NEAGC’s sessions for Tuesday, March 25th.
All times are Eastern.
8:00-9:00 a.m. – Breakfast and Networking in the Biltmore Ballroom
9:00-10:00 a.m. – Breakout Sessions
Sustaining the Spark: Reinvigorating and Growing Giving Days for Long-Term Success
Nora Marzocchi and Meg Cummins, Bryant University
Biltmore Ballroom
At Bryant University, Giving Days have become pivotal moments to unite the community, inspire generosity, and celebrate a shared mission. But staying relevant and impactful year after year requires innovation and strategic growth. In this session, Nora and Meg will share insights drawn from their experiences at Bryant, highlighting the strategies they’ve used to keep a campaign fresh and effective. From expanding participation and increasing annual donations to fostering deeper major donor connections, you’ll learn actionable steps and creative ideas to ensure your Giving Day not only thrives but grows stronger each year.
Managing a Volunteer Peer-to-Peer Leadership Giving Society
Yoni Sunshine and Nadia Baum, Brown University
Narragansett Bayview Room
Peer-to-Peer outreach is one of the most powerful methods to inspire Leadership Level giving. This is more true than ever as the world becomes louder and more organizations compete for our supporters’ attention. In this session, we will review the Brown Annual Fund Young Leadership Council and Leadership Council from soup to nuts, with a focus on practical tips and tools that you can apply to your org and your volunteers.
Email Fundraising, Communications and Digital Analytics Bootcamp
Beth Hatcher, Beth Interactive
L’Apogee B Room
How can you take your email communications to the next level? This interactive workshop is all about email fundraising and engagement best practices—and how to leverage post-campaign data to drive greater giving. We’ll walk through fundamental email marketing best practices, advanced analytics and A/B testing, as well as navigating the impact of AI and machine opens/clicks on email. We’ll also present case studies on how emails can drive a donor pipeline, target engaged prospects, and build major and planned giving portfolios. Finally, we’ll provide practical tools like an email send checklist and library of samples, so you can begin implementing new ideas right away. Participants can even get live feedback on their email campaigns—with guidance on copy, design and fundraising strategy—by sending their email samples to us in advance! Join us for this instructive bootcamp and walk away full of actionable, practical next steps to see real results with your next email campaign.
Donor Journeys : Green Lights, Cross Roads and Stop Signs
Rachel Spencer, VanillaSoft
Summit C Room
An understanding of where a given prospect sits on their individual journey of awareness, interest and desire to take action, should be at the core of our outbound engagement strategies; as well as the way we think about sustainable pipeline development. From the Engagement Center, to DXO and Leadership Gift programs, we need to pay close attention to the various signs and signals of “readiness to progress” (or – perhaps – a lack thereof!!!) So, what signs should we look out for? And what should we do when we encounter them?!!
Leveraging Loyalty and Leadership: A Look into Five Giving Society Programs
Dominique Marcial-Clark, The Lawrenceville School
Summit Hall
How are we celebrating, recognizing, and retaining our dedicated donors? Join The Lawrenceville School’s Associate Director of The Lawrenceville Fund to discuss how they group and interact with donors based on their giving behaviors. From participation to major gifts to women in philanthropy, The Lawrenceville School wants to ensure it is meeting donors where they are to foster long standing relationships through giving society recognition.
10:00-10:30 a.m. – Break
10:30-11:30 a.m. – Breakout Sessions
From 0 to 43 Student Organizations:
Building Your Crowdfunding Campaign From the Ground Up!
Shannon Wood, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Biltmore Ballroom
In October 2024, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth launched a brand new initiative – the inaugural Registered Student Organization Crowdfunding Campaign. In collaboration with the Office of Student Affairs, this campaign was a remarkable accomplishment with 43 student organizations participating. Aside from total donors and dollars raised, the effort was successful in many unexpected ways; engaging students in philanthropy, gathering updated contact information and bolstering on campus relationships. Join Shannon Wood, Director of Annual Giving at UMass Dartmouth as she shares her story and best practices on building a student crowdfunding campaign from the ground up by securing campus partnerships and supporters, setting expectations, communicating clearly with students, and thinking creatively in soliciting alumni, friends, community members and more. This session is perfect for schools new to crowdfunding, or those looking to expand on their successes!
The Brown Model: Pathways to Inclusion and Belonging 5 Years in the Making
Alyssia Coates, Ph.D., Brown University
Narragansett Bayview Room
A retrospective view on Brown University’s journey in the identification, development and growth of affinity scholarships and fundraising. Dr. Coates will review strategies for increasing engagement and philanthropy among donors of colour at Brown as well as review what steps the University took to work collaboratively, nurture engagement and philanthropy among donors of colour and promote DEI initiatives to the wider donor community.
Sexualized Violence in Philanthropy – How Did We Get Here and How Do We Fix It?
Venna Penney, Dalhousie University
L’Apogee B Room
Sexualized violence is a reality in fundraising and philanthropy. Recent data from nation-wide studies supported by AFP show that up to 80% of fundraisers experience sexualized violence on the job. Dalhousie University’s Office of Advancement began approaching this issue over two years ago, and with significant support across campus and from external experts, subsequently developed eight recommendations provided to their leadership team that were approved and have begun to be enacted. Follow our story and learn about what we’ve been able to achieve within the past few years to support our staff and change the narrative on this topic.
Three learning objectives include:
● Sharing a case study from “real life” – including successes and failures on the road to building safe and inviting workspaces when it comes to sexualized violence prevention and response;
● Providing tangible examples of work that can be done to move towards a safe working environment;
● Creating an open dialogue about this topic in philanthropy, specifically in publicly funded institutions across the country.
Generative AI: What Does It Mean for Fundraising… and For Me?
Sean Devendorf, Tufts University
Summit C Room
Generative AI — the technology that powers platforms like ChatGPT, CoPilot, and Gemini — is experiencing explosive growth. And it’s projected to grow even more (10x by 2030). For many, this new technology designed to create content is their first hands-on experience with AI. And it’s their first time encountering how AI will transform how we live, work, and fundraise. In this interactive workshop, we’ll talk about the rise of AI, help attendees understand generative AI and large language models, and discuss data protection and privacy. We’ll then spend time in an interactive prompt engineering workshop, showing how generative AI can increase efficiency, generate ideas, and become a part of your daily work. Every participant will walk away with the skills and knowledge to use these platforms in their work and personal lives.
Is It Time to Move Your Giving Day? How Strategic Timing Can Unlock More Donors
Michael Ganchegui, Kent School, and Holman Gao, Boost My School
Summit Hall
Your Giving Day might be working—but could it be working better? Kent School recently revamped its Giving Day strategy, and the results were staggering: over $1M raised, participation above expectations, and a major boost to long-term major gifts pipeline. But the real takeaway isn’t just about moving a date—it’s about how the right timing, structure, and engagement tactics can supercharge your Giving Day’s impact. In this session, Michael Ganchegui, Director of the Alumni Fund at Kent School, and Holman Gao, CEO of Boost My School, will share data-driven insights on what makes a Giving Day successful. Attendees will learn how to assess whether their current Giving Day timing is maximizing donor engagement, how to structure challenges and affinity-based appeals for stronger participation, and how to sustain Giving Day momentum long after the event. Whether you’re seeing diminishing returns or simply want to take your Giving Day to the next level, this session will provide actionable strategies to unlock more donors, drive participation, and build a stronger foundation for long-term annual giving success.
11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. – Lunch on Your Own
(See some nearby choices, and also the brand new Track 15 Food Hall just across the street!)
1:30-2:30 p.m. – Breakout Sessions
Ten Years of “Power of Purple:” Powerful Giving Day Lessons Learned
Jen Shea, College of the Holy Cross
Biltmore Ballroom
Session Description to Follow.
Unlocking Potential: Leveraging Alumni Engagement Metrics
for Prospect Identification and Donor Acquisition
Kira Mudd and Gina Simonelli, University of Rhode Island
Narragansett Bayview Room
Annual giving programs are harnessing the power of alumni engagement data to identify and acquire new prospects and donors. This session will explore how the University of Rhode Island is in the beginning stages of utilizing engagement metrics—from event participation and volunteerism to digital interactions and communications—to sharpen prospect identification strategies and boost donor acquisition efforts. Join us to be part of the discussion on how best to integrate engagement data into your annual giving pipeline and collaborate with Alumni Engagement to align engagement and giving strategies.
Annual Giving Stewardship: Delivering Annual Giving Affection At Scale
Dominique Matteson, University of Connecticut
L’Apogee B Room
Annual giving “appreciation” used to mean a prompt thank you letter and “see-you-next-year” strategy. But giving data have confirmed the importance of retaining the donors you already have, and our multi-channel world has opened new cost-effective methods of showing appreciation and giving donors hugs throughout the year. Dominique will host a discussion and share a global collection of effective giving pages, personal thank you videos, digital impact reports, online satisfaction surveys and more, and will show how institutions are successfully turning high-volume gift transactions into philanthropic relationships – without exhausting the team and breaking the budget.
Perk Up Your Annual Appeals with Personalization Strategies
Theresa Aide, and Kate Cominsky, Suttle-Straus
Summit C Room
Data can be used to personalize your appeal campaigns using many variables. Let’s explore how you can use personalization to improve your fundraising results. Get 11 examples of personalized mail in this session!
AI in Annual Giving:
How BC High Supercharged Donor Outreach for Giving Days & Beyond
Chrissy Dahlheimer Boston College High School and Kevin Massimino, Gravyty
Summit Hall
What if you could increase donor participation and deepen engagement without overwhelming your team?Join Chrissy Dahlheimer, Sr. Director of Alumni Engagement at Boston College High School and Kevin Massimino, Account Executive at Gravyty to learn how BC High leveraged AI-driven donor outreach and video messaging to build momentum leading up to Giving Days—and beyond. Attendees will learn how AI helped personalize engagement, improve donor pipeline management, and drive record-breaking giving days.
2:30-3:00 p.m. – Break – Ice Cream Social Sponsored by VanillaSoft
3:00-4:00 p.m. – Breakout Sessions
The Reunion Giving Playbook – A Class-Based Fundraising Forum
Heather Gelardi, College of the Holy Cross
Biltmore Ballroom
The College of the Holy Cross has a highly effective class-based fundraising and reunion giving program. Hear from Heather about how it’s all managed. Should you be looking into class-based fundraising at your institution? Are their methods and strategies scalable to your shop? Do you have any of your own success stories to share? Bring your question and solutions, successes and challenges to this forum on reunion and class-based fundraising.
Let’s Get Digital: Introducing & Capitalizing on Digital Fundraising Strategies
Daniel Burgner, The George Washington University
Narragansett Bayview Room
This practical session is designed for fundraising professionals ready to take their digital efforts to the next level. Presented by the Assistant Vice President of Annual Giving at George Washington University, this session draws from GW’s hands-on experience in implementing and refining digital strategies that engage and retain donors. Attendees will explore a powerful toolkit of tactics—from organic and paid social media ads to targeted video content, dynamic email segmentation, and personalized online giving pages—that turn digital communication into a full donor journey. Whether you’re looking to boost your online presence, maximize ad budgets, or create meaningful post-gift touchpoints, this session will provide actionable insights and real-world examples to help you build a sustainable, digital-forward fundraising model. Join us to learn, strategize, and get inspired by the future of digital fundraising!
Principles of Ethically Influencing Annual Giving
Clark Gafke, LEAD Philanthropy
L’Apogee B Room
Discover the science behind donor motivation in this engaging and insightful session! Principles of Ethically Influencing Annual Giving will equip you with eight proven principles—Authority, Consistency, Contrast, Liking, Reciprocity, Scarcity, Social Proof, and Unity—that inspire donors to make meaningful gifts to their university. Rooted in the groundbreaking research of the Cialdini Institute, these principles provide a framework for authentic and ethical donor engagement. Clark Gafke, a Cialdini Certified Professional and Ethical Influence Practitioner, will guide you through the subtle yet powerful elements of everyday communication that drive generosity. With practical examples and actionable takeaways, this session will empower you to build stronger connections with donors and achieve sustainable results in annual giving. Whether you’re a seasoned fundraiser or new to the field, this session will improve the way you approach donor engagement!
What We’ve Learned From Fully Autonomous AI Fundraising & Where We’re Going Next
Renee Quinn, Version2.ai and Amanda Glann, St. John Fisher University
Summit C Room
It’s been almost a year since the world’s first fully autonomous fundraiser interacted with its first assigned donor. It started with a cohort of 13 organizations, led by 11 higher education institutions, who joined together as the first cohort to engage donors with an AI-powered Virtual Engagement Officer (VEO), but more importantly research, develop, and accelerate the deployment of autonomous fundraising for our entire industry. Since then, two additional cohorts have brought a total of 40 organizations the opportunity to add a digital workforce to complement their human fundraising teams and address a labor shortage preventing them from managing more of their donors in 1:1 engagements. In this session, Amanda Glann will introduce participants to St. John Fisher’s Virtual Engagement Officer, Quinn, share the areas of opportunity that Quinn is working to address with its portfolio of 1,000 donors, and how digital labor supports the work of their frontline fundraising team. She’ll also provide insight into the unique opportunities that the VEO has to amplify the work of the Fisher Fund. Renee Quinn will share overall results across autonomous fundraising – donors engaged, dollars raised, and pipeline built – in addition to use cases, successes, and where course corrections were needed, and how we navigated AI in a field defined by relationships. We’ll share all of our findings including portfolios for autonomous fundraisers, sourcing engagement content independently, and the future of digital labor in advancement. Finally, we’ll conclude by looking at where we are going in 2025, what we can continue to learn, how we can continue to further personalize donor journeys led by donor engagement data, how to push the outer limits of technology, and more. Learning objectives will include:
● See firsthand results as well as the future of a digital workforce to enhance human fundraising efforts.
● Understand what autonomous fundraising is and where it fits into donor engagement and overall fundraising strategy.
● Evaluate key lessons from the deployment of AI-powered Virtual Engagement Officers, including successes, challenges, and necessary course corrections in AI-driven donor management.
Independent School Favorites From the
25 Years of the Annual Giving Appeal and Idea Exchange
Bob Burdenski, Robert Burdenski Annual Giving
Summit Hall
For 25 years, Bob Burdenski has hosted an annual exchange where hundreds of institutions share thousands of annual giving innovations, ideas and success stories. Awesome appeals, terrific technologies, dynamic discoveries and marvelous messages. It was a great year of pushing the envelope in direct mail, digital and beyond. Come and see CASE Innovations in Annual Giving author Bob Burdenski dump out his bag of BOB (Best of the Bunch) favorites with a special collection of all-independent-school favorites.
3:45-4:00 p.m. – Break
4:00-5:00 p.m. – Breakout Sessions
A Digital Fundraising Forum
Jon Gregory, Cornell University and co-Moderators TBA
Biltmore Ballroom
Join Annual Giving Leaders in a discussion about the current non-negotiables for your digital fundraising strategies, and what is just around the corner by way of digital tools and tactics that will perhaps change the way our shops operate in the future. Our discussion will include a dive into those emerging trends and how to navigate scarcity in resources to create a digital forward fundraising operation.
A Small Shop Forum
Christopher Chambers, SUNY Canton and Ellen Walbrun, Rhode Island School of Design
Narragansett Bayview Room
Are you a one-person annual giving shop? Are you <1? Join Chis and Ellen for a little therapy and a lot of shared ideas on how to leverage your work, scale the solutions, work with third-party resources and accomplish annual giving goals when the “team” is you.
Raise the Sails: Jumpstarting Your Student Philanthropy Program
Letitia Evans, Elizabeth City State University
L’Apogee B Room
“Raise the Sails: Jumpstarting Your Student Philanthropy Program” will guide you through launching a successful student philanthropy program at your institution. Learn how to engage students, implement effective marketing strategies, and measure the impact of your efforts. Join us to inspire the next generation of donors and make a lasting impact on your campus community.
Why is AI All Up In Your Business?
Wally Fisher, GiveCampus
Summit C Room
AI is everywhere, in every industry, and it’s actually been a part of our daily lives for years. Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Face ID, Netflix’s movie recommendations, and Gmail’s spam filter all use AI to–at least in theory–make our lives easier and better. But what does it mean for you as an advancement professional? After all, cultivating an authentic, personal relationship is key to getting someone to give, so how exactly can AI help? Discover how to leverage this emerging technology while preserving and enhancing the most important aspect of the work you do—meaningful human-to-human engagement.
In this session, participants will learn:
● Why advancement teams should care about Artificial Intelligence
● The opportunities and challenges of this technology in the fundraising space
● Practical ways to start leveraging AI in order to reclaim your most precious resource—time.
Join Wally as he discusses the opportunities and challenges posed by AI and how to effectively leverage this powerful tool today.
An Independent Schools Forum
Katie Grant, The Peddie School
Summit Hall
Join Katie for a forum session devoted to independent schools. Bring your questions, answers, challenges and solutions to this open discussion session.