National Conference 2012

LISTEN! GIVE! STAY!: What You Need to Do to Attract and Keep Donors

To create and sustain marketing and fundraising success, your organization or association needs a plan that will get your audiences to do three things: first, pay attention to your message; second, support you financially; and finally, stick with you over time. In other words: Listen! Give! Stay!

To make this happen, your plan should integrate all your marketing and fundraising efforts, and give you the know-how and readiness to interact with all audiences across all platforms. In this session, you’ll learn why a plan is so important, and what factors will help you develop a plan that serves you most successfully. We’ll also talk about how to identify audiences and create strategies to engage them and turn them into donors. This interactive session will be a great way to kick off your conference day!

Participants will learn how to:

1. Identify potential donor audiences and craft appropriate messages to attract them.
2. Cultivate audiences to engage them as donors.
3. Steward donors well so they keep on giving to your organization.

Power of Your Brand!

“A product is something made in a factory; a brand is something that is bought by the customer.  A product can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful brand is timeless.” ~ Stephen King, Director, WPP Group

This session will explore brands you know, brands you don’t; branding for your market and constituencies; impact of branding –recognition, financial return, etc.; and how to brand. This power panel will discuss branding, the process of rebranding, and how to affiliated organizations use branding to support their respective and collective missions.

Attendees will:

• Learn what branding is;
• Discover the value of branding;
• Learn about the elements of brand creation and sustainability; and
• Gain an understanding of what it takes to rebrand an organization

Corporate Giving: Building Strategic Corporate Alliances

Corporate giving has moved from “doing good” to developing strategic partnerships that fuel greater social responsibility efforts. Join us for an interactive and thought provoking presentation that will help you build more engaging, measurable and sustainable relationships with corporate funders. We’ll walk through innovative and non-traditional approaches, give examples of how to best expand your fundraising efforts and share models of successful corporate alliances in the nonprofit and association worlds.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the benefits of strategic corporate alliances
2. Learn ways to maximize current corporate relationships
3. Learn innovative approaches to new corporate alliances

Design Thinking for Association Foundations
Speaker:  Scott Steen, CAE, CEO of American Forests

Association Foundation: Relationship Realities

An association and its affiliated foundation inherently have a unique relationship, but that relationship can manifest itself in many different ways. This session examines the causes and natures of these relationship issues and offers practical recommendations for making the relationship positive and productive. It also includes new research results that categorize association foundations into five major operational types.

Join Curtis and learn:

• How to make the association-foundation relationship a win-win reality;
• Learn which of the five major operational models your foundation uses.

How to Engage Your Board Leadership in Raising Money

Participants will learn:

• a step-by-step process to involve board members in a major gifts
  program
• strategies to engage board members and other key volunteers (in ways that fit their strengths) 
• how to identify objections to making personal asks – before they become an issue

How to Ask For and Get Major Gifts: A Training Workshop for Board, Volunteers and Staff

A practical, highly interactive training session for board members, agency executives and development professions on building the culture to attract major gifts in smaller or even a one-person shop.  Highlights include arranging the appointment, handling objections and making the request.  The session includes significant role-playing activities

At the conclusion of this session, participants will:

• Understand how to build a major gifts program and specifically how to ask for a large gift.
• Know how to involve board members in the solicitation process.
• Be able to integrate a major gifts initiative into even the smallest development shop.

Association Foundation Group 2012 Benchmarking Survey: Who Are We, Where Are We Going, and Are We Getting There?

Megan will review the data gathered in the recent survey of association foundations administered by Veris Consulting and help us understand trends and realities. How does your organization compare with your peers? Are there lessons to be learned from looking at these connections? Get the stats you’ve been looking for.

Join us we discuss the latest “hot topics” in association foundation and association fundraising.

• Ask a CFRE, Nathan Ruby, CFRE,  World Soy Foundation
• Best Practices for Turning Members into Donors, Bob Lane, Lane Services, Jeff Web, ASI
  
• Building Strategic Partnerships-We Can All Play in the Same Sandbox, Michelle Duke, National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation
• Engaging Younger Members to Create Lasting Relationships, Natasha Rankin, Employers Council on Flexible Compensation
• Foundation Center Resources, Kim Patton, Foundation Center
• Grant Prospecting: From Government to Corporate Foundations, Barbara Gordon, Executive Director, ICA
  
• New Legal Landscape for DC Nonprofit Corporations, Kristalyn J. Loson, Esq. and Janice Ryan, Esq., Venable
• Non-Dues Revenue Ideas, Lesa Faris, Women in Cable Telecommunications
• Small Shop Success: Opportunities and Opportunism to Thrive, Rick LaRue, Jr., Solar Electric Light Fund
• Thinking Outside the Pledge card and Silent Auction Box, Rebecca Flick, RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association

Beauty and the Beast. Annual Giving for Association Foundations

At the completion of the presentation, the learner will:

• Understand the fundamentals of annual giving at association foundations including components, planning and evaluating.
• Identify constituent prospects for annual giving and how to build a sustaining giving program.
• Be able to create a giving/donor club within the annual fund program

Report from the Trenches: Building a Social Media Strategy

Join this Power Panel to:

1. Learn how to build a culture of social media within your organization.
2. Discover best practices to set-up your organization for success?
3. Understand how to define a unique voice for the Association Foundation social media campaign, yet work within the larger Association framework to improve effectiveness.

Estate Planning in the Digital Age

As computer use expands among all ages, this session will provide an overview of how estate planning has changed for those with electronic contracts.  When discussing planned gifts with donors, it is important to make sure their wills are up-to-date, and this can include access to items stored on computers, on-line banking passwords, e-Trade accounts, etc.

Learn how to:

~ Alert people to what happens to online accounts after one dies and how we can make sure our heirs can access what remains of our virtual life and handle it according to our wishes.

~ Provide information on how to: document your digital presence; know which ones are yours; designate an executor; and make your wishes known to your heirs.

Legalese Made Fun with Paula Goedert
How to Stay out of the News: Foundation Relations with Commercial Companies

Congress and the IRS have turned the spotlight on relations between companies and charities.  Many believe they are too cozy and public benefit is suffering.  Goedert will offer practical tips for avoiding scrutiny and subpoenas.  And as anyone who has heard Paula speak knows, she shares her legal knowledge and real-life experience with wit!