2018-2019 CCAeLearning Webinars

Mount Allison University’s 2017 Giving Report was a bold departure from its previous reports to donors. The new approach was widely praised and well received by alumni and friends of the University and garnered a CCAE Bronze Prix d’Excellence.

But there were a number of points along the way when it seemed the project might never come to fruition. This session will explore why Mount Allison decided to take a new direction with its Giving Report, how it developed a new approach, and what kind of positive impact it had, as well as the challenges faced along the way.

Learning Objectives:

1. Time to rethink: reviewing the case for a change in direction.
2. Review of resources: describing internal and external resources required for this project.
3. Assessing success: how MtA tracked and measured the project’s impact.
4. Lessons learned: reflecting on the benefits of the process.

Audience:

Post-secondary staff working in donor relations, stewardship, development, annual giving, and communications.

Aloma Jardine, Communications Officer, Mount Allison University

Aloma Jardine has worked in journalism and communications for more than 20 years, joining Mount Allison University’s Marketing and Communications team seven years ago. Her current role provides opportunities to work on a wide variety of responsibilities, including writing, issues management, web content development, and emergency planning, with occasional forays into media relations, project management, and event planning. She project-managed Mount Allison’s 2017 Giving Report, which won a 2018 CCAE Bronze Prix d’Excellence, and was part of the team that produced the Share your story annual giving materials, which earned a 2018 CCAE Gold Prix d’Excellence.

On October 16, 2017, the longest academic strike in Ontario college history began. This case study will share Sheridan’s blueprint for real-time, two-way communication during a five-week long academic strike that cancelled classes for 23,000 students, before switching gears to help ease our community’s transition back to class and work.

Learning Objectives:

1. The membership and responsibilities of our contingency planning and communications teams, and the best practices and guiding principles we used to ensure fairness, consistency and timeliness in our decision making and response protocol, in the face of rapidly changing circumstances;
2. What our audience analysis determined and how this helped to shape our key messages and the many tactics we employed (including 3 dedicated web properties, 2 strike hotlines, social media channels, live open forums, print materials and videos).
3. The SMART objectives we set and the metrics we used to prove that our campaign was a success.

Christine Szustaczek (MCM, APR), AVP, Communications, Public Affairs and Marketing at Sheridan College.

Prior to Sheridan, she ran her own communications consultancy for ten years, helping colleges, universities, hospitals and social services agencies to communicate their impact. She has also worked as a Communications Director at the University of Toronto. In addition to being an award-winning, in-house communications specialist, Christine is a board member at CPRS Hamilton, the Oakville Chamber of Commerce, and the Alice and Murray Maitland Charitable Foundation. She’s passionate about research, public relations and higher education and is an eternal optimist who is always up for hearing a good story.

In the face of an increasingly "disrupting" job market, millennials are choosing universities that, in addition to a stellar education, provide the resources needed to prepare them for the world beyond the classroom. Spearheaded by McGill's Alumni Relation unit in University Advancement, in partnership with a variety of campus units, Life After Your Degree, or LifeAYD incorporates both existing and original career exploration, job preparedness and life transition activities and events that are delivered to students by career professionals and alumni, on campus, in key regions and virtually. Learn how students, alumni, and - your engagement metrics! – can reap the benefits of alumni contributions to your student-future-readiness programs.

Learning Objectives:

1. How to build effective and complementary working relationships with campus partners and student groups
2. How to build meaningful experiential opportunities for students that satisfy the University's co-curricular requirement, while ensuring alumni satisfaction
3. How to leverage your alumni network to amplify experiential learning opportunities for students

Audience:

Alumni Engagement professionals, student and young alumni program developers, other campus professionals with student career planning portfolios

Kay Dass, Student and Young Alumni Program Officer, Alumni Relations, McGill University

Kay has over ten years' experience working in University Advancement at McGill, from event coordination and volunteer management, to implementing programs for students, young alumni and parents. To strengthen the culture of philanthropy on campus, Kay engages students, young alumni and others to bolster recruitment/yield efforts, mentoring/job shadowing programs, LifeAYS and affinity group activities, and more.

Chelsea Bell, Student and Young Alumni Programs Associate, Alumni Relations, McGill University Advancement

Chelsea has over five years' experience in University Advancement at McGill. In her current role, she develops engagement programs that connect students to alumni through mentoring/job shadowing, LifeAYD and online chat-based events, and financial support for student-run and student-focused projects and more.

In 2018, Lakehead University won a Prix d’Excellence in the category for Best Alumni Initiative for their varsity engagement program. Learn about a tried and proven new strategy to engage alumni (and potential donors!) using distance to your advantage!

Learning Objectives:

1. How to find new & innovative ways collaborate with internal colleagues
2. Overcome the barriers related to distance and create opportunities to engage with alumni who have moved away since graduation
3. Turn engagement into dollars for your fundraising needs or objectives

Audience:

Annual Giving, Alumni Relations, Advancement staff tasked with managing volunteers, committees and boards.

Mark Tilbury, Annual Fund and Alumni Engagement Director, Lakehead University

Mark Tilbury believes that you get out of something what you put into it. Following this philosophy has made him an exceptional Lakehead supporter for 27 years. A graduate of the school’s Faculty of Business, he became Lakehead’s director of alumni and community relations and he’s been busy engaging with grads across the world ever since. In 2017 his title changed to annual fund and alumni engagement director, and he continues to serve as Executive Director of the Alumni Association.