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THEMES

The 2012 CCAE National Conference will lift you out of your workday rut, change your overload blues to neon ideas, and connect you across advancement disciplines and geography. The Co-Chairs and Program Committee have been honing an experience that promises to be “not your mama’s conference”!

The approach is integrative, at times provocative, always geared to expose new perspectives and explore genuine solutions. Wherever you work, at whatever level in any advancement area, we invite you to challenge your ideas, make new connections, and leave recharged for the changing world of advancement.

Themes

Create

Capture the creative spirit that we need to ‘spark’ within advancement and offer insights into how to seize new opportunities.

• Profiling new ideas and creative solutions – the ‘what for’ and ‘how to’ in innovation
• Starting from scratch to build a new program, service or product from the ground up
• Getting your hands dirty – active participation in applying creativity to your challenges

Engage

Meaningful and measured engagement can be a powerful tool, though it remains an ambiguous construct. This track will focus on how people are motivated to connect to ideas, to organizations and to each other – all in support of a common mission and with active investment in positive outcomes. Specifically, sessions will discuss:

• Engaging your constituents through storytelling and imaginative marketing – moving beyond information sharing to inspiring involvement and investment
• Creating leading-edge alumni programs or donor plans – capturing the hearts and minds of potential champion
• Leading through effective talent management – keeping your most valuable assets engaged, energized, and productive

Adapt

Darwin may have coined the phrase, but advancement professionals have taken it to heart – survival of the fittest. In a world where change is the only constant, workloads are ever-mounting, and we’re constantly being asked to do more with less, advancement professionals have to be nimble and ready to adapt. These sessions will dig deep into new thinking and ask the big questions – should we be rethinking our endowment strategy? Do our teams have the skills to be successful in a turbulent economic climate? How can we reshape our organizations to better serve all stakeholders?

Deliver

As advancement professionals, we are depended on to ‘deliver’ every day. With higher expectations, limited resources and an ever-changing landscape, our success - and that of our institutions - depends on having the right tools and knowing how to use them.

Look to these sessions to provide you with the ‘best of the best’ in terms of more effective advancement tools and best practices from colleagues across the country. Explore innovative thinking and collaboration to improve results. Expect to come away with tangible resources to put to work in your shop right away.