Breakout Sessions I

Day Three | Friday, November 15, 2024

1I: Best Practices for Implementing a Compliance Program and Committee

Having a fund compliance program and committee can both be powerful tools, but where do you start? Who should be involved? What types of policies and procedures should be in place to guide the actual execution of these powerful tools? In this session, Hillary Dudley from The University of Texas at El Paso and Chelsea Lamego from FundMiner will share their first- hand learnings and experiences implementing and managing a compliance committee and program. You will learn how to create and maintain an engaged and empowered organization-wide compliance committee who can drive positive change. Further, we will cover common compliance program formats and standards. This talk delves into the strategies, systems, and best practices that will empower your team and organization to navigate fund management while amplifying your impact. They'll share best practices for managing funds and tracking fund utilization as well as guidelines and experienced from our first-hand experience.

Chelsea Lamego is the Co-Founder and CEO of FundMiner. Chelsea was inspired to build an advancement operations platform when she was previously the Assistant Vice President for Advancement Operations at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). During her time at UTEP, she pioneered the creation of a Gift and Endowment Management System, which won a CASE Grand Gold Award for the University in 2020 and was later the basis for FundMiner. Chelsea graduated from The University of Texas at El Paso, where she received both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Business Administration. Before joining UTEP, Chelsea was the Executive Director of the El Paso Opera, where she now serves of the Board of Trustees.

Hillary Dudley is the Associate Director of Gift Services and Compliance in the Office of Institutional Advancement at the University of Texas at El Paso. She has been with the Department since 2017 and, in 2020, transitioned to focus exclusively on fund compliance, overseeing the administration of endowed and donor-restricted funds. Her role involves ensuring that all contributions are utilized according to donor intent and maintaining alignment with university and regulatory guidelines. With a keen eye for detail and a commitment to accuracy, Hillary works closely with various departments to provide clear fund reporting and ensure audit readiness. She is passionate about fostering trust with donors and supporting UTEP's long-term mission through transparent financial practices.

[CANCELED] 2I: Implementing DEI in Your Fundraising Database: A Case Study Using Constituent Names

Pronouns, genders, titles, prefixes, suffixes, addressees, salutations, name formats, formality and informality…oh my! Our culture is changing (has changed!) and our databases and CRMs need to as well. But if you're the "database manager," especially in a small or mid-size shop, you're probably not getting a lot of help or direction to do this, *you're* being expected to take the lead. Take the “simple” but important matter of how we format constituent names in our communications and lists, for example. In this session that conference program leadership has asked Bill to repeat from last year’s Summit, an experienced fundraising database/CRM consultant will walk you through what is happening culturally today that is causing changes in how we address constituents, how it compares to traditional database protocols you likely inherited, how to think about making these changes, how to work with leadership to make policy and changes, and how to implement this in your database, including gotchas to watch out for. The presenter has experience helping many organizations think through and implement these changes and welcomes your experiences and questions as well.

Bill Connors, CFRE, bCRE-Pro, is an independent consultant and trainer on Raiser’s Edge. His work extends beyond the buttonology of the software, however, into the operations and fundraising contexts in which the software resides. He is the author of Fundraising with The Raiser’s Edge: A Non-Technical Guide. Until 2005, Bill was Principal Consultant for Fundraising Systems for Blackbaud, having helped found the Blackbaud consulting program in 1998. He has been providing consulting and training on Raiser’s Edge worldwide since 1995. Bill has spent his entire career in nonprofit work. He previously served as Senior Consultant for Fundraising Technology for a London fundraising consulting firm, and he worked for Junior Achievement as a director of development and for the national headquarters overseeing the roll-out of Raiser’s Edge nationwide. Bill has degrees from Yale University and Harvard Divinity School. He lives near Sacramento, CA, with his partner, and he loves sweets.

 3I: Strategic Plan and KPI Development

Emory University will provide participants Insights from their Strategic Plan development project which included the development of KPI and fundraising and engagement dashboards. Execution of Strategic Plan:

1. Use of Top 11 Focus Areas: Focus on Pillars and tactics in digestible forum

2. Enterprise Project Management: Use of Wrike to manage strategic plan projects and other significant. projects

3.Value to Behavior: How do we create ground rules to reinforce the behaviors we coach and expect?

Strategic Plan starts with a great culture. Recognition and rewards plans

Shomari White, Chief Operating Officer, Emory University Advancement and Alumni Engagement. Shomari has a strong track record of leading non-profit organizations through successful strategic planning and change management. Using his experience as a frontline fundraising and his corporate background in sales and marketing executive at Verizon, he has been leading teams to develop a donor centric environment while positioning frontline fundraisers for optimal success. As a senior operations executive at both the Foundations within Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia and Children’s National in Washington DC., Shomari helped double fundraising totals while leading operations management, KPI development, pipeline optimization strategies, technology conversions and stewardship and donor communications. He has also been one of the leaders in recruiting, retaining, and developing top talent in the non-profit industry. Shomari is the immediate past President of the Association of Advancement Services Professionals (aasp), the preeminent network of current and aspiring leaders in advancement services who inform strategy and direct operations that fuel nonprofit organizations and was honored to be the Associate Vice President of the Year by theInternational Association of Top Professionals in 2017.As a graduate of Howard University and with an MBA from the University of Maryland Global Campus, Shomari served his local community as treasurer of the DC Chapter of National Association of Health Services Executives (NAHSE) and as a member of the Board of the local MD chapter of the 100 Black Men of America.

Dr. Mark Walcott has over 20 years of experience in technology-related and advancement services roles focused on Data Analytics, Data Management, and technological innovation.  He serves as the Assistant Vice President of Technology and Business Intelligence within the division of Advancement and Alumni Engagement at Emory University.  Dr. Walcott actively speaks on a variety of topics and has served on Blackbaud Higher Education Executive Advisory Board, Multicultural Leadership Institute (MCLP) Board, and other organizations focused on community and technological Advancement.  As a Vice President of aasp, Dr. Walcott is focused on continuing to build the profession through the strategic growth of aasp.

4I: From Scratch: Cooking Up a New Business Process and the Dashboards That Accompany It

Join us on "From Scratch!" the hit cooking show where we walk through how to cook up a new business process in 4 simple steps. First, enter the research and development kitchen where we will figure out the ingredients, equipment, and chefs (also known as data, tools, and stakeholders) needed to get the job done. Then we'll head on over to the test kitchen to try out our ideas and make a recipe. Once we have the recipe, it's time to move into the restaurant kitchen where we will create an incredible dish (implement the business process and create the accompanying reports). And of course, no recipe is perfect on the first try, so we will also talk about the best ways to tweak your process and reports for maximum customer satisfaction. Each of these steps will follow along with a case study from the University of Nebraska Foundation's quest to create an organization-wide prospect lead pipeline. We'll show how we went from an idea to an actionable and repeatable process.

Karen Hardy is a User Experience Analyst at the University of Nebraska Foundation. Her mission is to show everyone that they can become a “data person.” Karen advocates for data-driven decision making, teaches end users reporting and data skills, project manages for the reporting team, and helps validate reports throughout the creation process. She works with internal stakeholders and dashboard creators to ensure dashboards will serve business needs. Prior to her current role she worked in the Prospect Management department. Previously, Karen was a project manager for a building automation company. Karen has a Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics from Creighton University and a Master of Business Administration in Business Analytics from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. In her free time, Karen enjoys spending time with her husband and sons, reading, watching college basketball, and hiking. If you run into her, be sure to share a favorite hiking spot!

5I: Babson College's Journey to Advancement

Like many other advancement teams across the country, before Salesforce, Babson College was faced with aging technologies and obstacles stemming from fragmented systems, hindering a comprehensive understanding of their constituents. However, with their ultimate mission of moving towards a connected campus, they became one of the first institutions to leverage Salesforce for Advancement. Join Cloud for Good and Babson College as we delve into their advancement journey, uncovering strategies for seamless integration, lessons learned, and the impact of this revolutionary technology shift.

Jordan Sites career is founded on 'getting things done'; no matter the challenge, he makes it happen. Jordan genuinely loves collaborating with people on initiatives. As an experienced leader capable of building teams from the ground up to solve problems, he enjoys applying Lean 6 Sigma, Agile, and Waterfall project management tools/methods to solve business problems. Naturally mechanically inclined, Jordan has a general love of electrical components, and is driven by understanding how things work.

Nancy Doherty, Deputy Chief Information Officer at Babson College, is a self-motivated and professional leader with strong strategic vision and execution skills. Her strategic mindset and operational excellence enable her to thrive in advancing the modernization of technology for the institution. She adeptly manages multitasking, meeting critical deadlines with flexibility, creativity, and a commitment to long-term strategic goals.

6I: Managing a Modernized CRM: Innovative Business Processes, Formulas, Automation, Analytics, AI, and Time-Saving Tips to Increase Your ROI and Save Hours Every Day from a Team Managing Implementations for a More Than 25 Years.

See how modern CRM tools are changing the landscape of fundraising, engagement, membership and program management. Review innovative and collaborative business processes that provide your team with the automation to save you team valuable hours every day. Look at Intelligent tools allow you to effortlessly personalize your calls to action, messaging, and donor interaction aligning with the ‘Amazon type’ experience. We will be sharing the best of our team and customer's ideas, innovations and so much more:

• automated donor and membership levels, types, status, and behavior
• easy to access self-service for your donors and constituents
• technology customized to improve ROI
• collaborative tools providing your Annual Giving team quick ways to manage their appeals
• automated donation processing within your CRM from credit card to batch and acknowledgement
• simple target asks that are easy to update and customize for those top donors
• predictive AI showing the likelihood a constituent will become a first-time donor or will increase their gift

Jason Long is the Vice President of Sales and Engagement at Sleek and former Associate Vice President of Advancement Operations at Western Michigan University. Jason is a certified Salesforce Administrator and has 15 years of experience in higher education and non-profit advancement.

Trevor Underwood is a seasoned professional with 7 years of experience in advancement in higher education, specializing in delivering technical solutions to drive organizational progress. Since June 2024, he has taken on the role of QSS Product Manager at Sleek, where he continues to leverage his expertise to enhance and innovate in the advancement space.

Sabre Leek is the creator of the Salesforce accelerator product QSS for Education Cloud and the founder of Sleek Consulting. Sabre has more than 25 years of direct consulting experience working with higher education institutions, non-profits, and healthcare across the country. Sabre has invested her time and energy in industry best practices and technology. Her background includes 30+ years of experience in fundraising and engagement operations including Director and Executive Director level positions. Sabre is passionate about serving nonprofits, creating technical solutions that push the common industry limits, and openly sharing on the challenges of mental health.