HE Alumni Engagement and Fundraising Conference 2024

Thursday 21st November 2024
9:30 am - 3:30pm
Virtual Conference

The HE Alumni Engagement and Fundraising Conference will explore the next steps for enhancing supporter relationships, building income streams from alumni campaigns and designing a strategy to drive growth in donations.

The Conference will offer insights on:

  • Attracting and developing relationships with major gift donors

  • Building a strategy to drive substantial growth in donations from alumni, business and individuals

  • How to develop your value proposition and unlock new fundraising sources

  • Planning and delivering high impact fundraising campaigns for alumni audiences

  • Evaluating the reach of engagement programmes and reviewing impact

Why attend the conference?

Discover how universities are driving growth in fundraising income

Review the impact of your fundraising engagement function

Understand how to build a strategy to enhance supporter development

Agenda

09:30 am

Chair’s Welcome Address

Jonaid Khan
Director of Alumni Relations
Aston University (CONFIRMED)

09:40 am

The Bigs Trends on Fundraising in Higher Education

  • Examining the transformation on fundraising income into higher education, surpassing £1.5 billion

  • The factors driving the growth of major gift giving and impact of advancement functions

  • How universities are building fundraising into a major income stream amid a challenging financial backdrop

  • Assessing the profile of successful institutions and how they are tapping into the motivators of their supporters

  • What is working for institutions outside the traditional elite?

  • What can we learn from successful institutions on resourcing and developing advancement teams?

Nik Miller
Partner
More Partnership (CONFIRMED)

10:10 pm

Is it Working? Approaches to Target Setting and Measuring Fundraising Performance

  • How should target setting and growth planning be managed?

  • How do we resource and prepare teams to hit ambitious objectives?

  • What should we measure and what should be our guiding metrics to drive performance? 

  • What are the next steps for modelling future performance and building an enhanced picture on market trends?

Natalie Lloyd
Deputy Director of Development (Philanthropy)
University of Warwick (CONFIRMED)

Rosalyn Forbes
Head of Philanthropy
University of Warwick (CONFIRMED)

10:40 am

Break and Networking

11:00 am

What Does it Take to Drive Accelerated Growth in Fundraising Income?

  • Assessing the profile of resources and staffing functions to support fundraising development

  • Securing institution-wide buy-in and collaboration on philanthropy

  • Setting out a strategic direction on high value donors versus a large base of mass giving

  • How successful institutions are driving long-term personalised relationship building with donors and building a pipeline

  • Demonstrating how fundraising income is being utilised to drive impact as a tool for future success

  • The next steps in supporting meaningful integration between alumni engagement and philanthropy functions

Shona Aitken
Director of Advancement
SOAS (CONFIRMED)

Aerian Rogers
Head of Philanthropy and Deputy Director of Advancement
Newcastle University (CONFIRMED)

Rebecca Preston
Director of Advancement & Alumni
Royal College of Art (CONFIRMED)

11:50 am

Building Long-Term Relationships with Major Donors

  • Understanding the passions, interests and sense of connection of major philanthropists

  • What does it take to develop entrenched relationships based around repeat donations?

  • Right person, right place, right time: How to build market intelligence to know when and how to approach major donors

  • A sense of belonging: how to ensure major donors feel part of the success of an institution

  • Dedicating resources to long term highly bespoke relationship building

Chang Gao Lung
Head of Major Gifts
City St George’s, University of London (CONFIRMED)

12:20 pm

Break and Networking

1:10 pm

So You’ve Secured Your First Principal Gift – What’s Next?

  • How the University of Bradford has built upon principal gift success to deliver wider philanthropic success

  • Developing a distinct values-driven fundraising proposition at the three years in a row Social Mobility Index topping University and ahead of City of Culture 2025

  • Delivering a successful one-to-one and one-to-many volunteering programme with strong reporting to create meaningful relationships

  • Maintaining momentum within a philanthropy team through high-performing staff turnover and building great new teams

Philip Fisher
Senior Development Manager
University of Bradford (CONFIRMED)

1:30 pm

Social Mobility: An Upward Trend for Donors?

  • Find out how Bournemouth University repositioned its scholarships and bursaries offering to appeal to new donors

  • Explore how social mobility and inclusion initiatives can help companies deliver on their CSR and DEI strategies

  • Rethink return on investment – discuss the value of student recruitment versus student retention

Jonathan Goode
Head of Fundraising & Alumni Relations
Bournemouth University (CONFIRMED)

1:50 pm

Break and Networking

2:10 pm

Enhancing Meaningful Supporter Engagement with the Alumni of the Future

  • Building a lasting connection between student belonging and sustained alumni engagement

  • Matching expectations on a tailored and personalised digital experience

  • Understanding how to match the needs of a gen-z alumni base that is increasingly diverse and more cause-led

  • What works? How are successful universities developing a following of loyal alumni supporters engaging in mass giving?

Jemma Roper Gurr
Head of Supporter Engagement
The University of Manchester (CONFIRMED)

Josie Love Murelli
Head of Alumni & Supporter Engagement and Direct Marketing Fundraising
University of Southampton (CONFIRMED)

Alan Kennedy
Director of Alumni & Supporter Engagement
University of Nottingham (CONFIRMED)

Aisling O'Neill
Associate Director - Supporter Engagement
University of Bath (CONFIRMED)

3:00pm

In Conversation: Designing High Impact Corporate Partnerships

  • Open conversation session with a corporate partner, giving insight to their experience of working closely with a HE institution

  • Sharing a case study of a multi-faceted corporate partnership, including philanthropy, funded research and joint CSR activity

  • Exploring the motivations and expectations of corporate partners

Kerrie Holland
Executive Director of Community, Alumni Relations and Development
Aston University (CONFIRMED)

Nathan Wallis
Director of Strategy & Communications
Wesleyan (CONFIRMED)

3:30 pm

Conference Close

*Programme subject to change

Audience

This event is designed for all those involved in HE fundraising, supporter development and alumni engagement. Those in attendance will include:

  • Directors of Philanthropic Partnerships and Alumni

  • Directors of Philanthropy

  • Directors of Fundraising

  • Directors of Development & Alumni Relations

  • Associate Directors, Development and Alumni Relations

  • Chief Development and Alumni Engagement Officers

  • Heads of Development and Alumni

  • Heads of Fundraising and Alumni Relations

  • Heads of Alumni and Supporter Engagement

  • Heads of Alumni and Supporter Communications

  • Heads of Alumni Relations

  • Alumni Relations Managers

  • Alumni Engagement Officers

Secure Your Ticket

Public Sector (HE)

£345 + VAT

Attendance to HE Alumni Engagement and Fundraising Conference 2024

Private Sector

£595 + VAT

Attendance to HE Alumni Engagement and Fundraising Conference 2024

For group discounts and enquiries about your registration please contact us on enquiries@heprofessional.co.uk