Alert! This is not a software program and it requires a lot of effort. Do you want to create a relationship management system in your office? Jen Filla will guide you through the big picture, examples for big and small organizations, and the basic building blocks everyone has to start with. Learn to avoid common pitfalls and how to get the right fit for your organization.

At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to:

• Explain the three main parts of a relationship management system
• Name the fundamental pieces of every program and why they are important
• Get started creating their own system using a worksheet

Target Audience: 

Executive directors, development directors and anyone interested in how a relationship management system works; beginner's introduction to creating

About the Presenter:

Jennifer Filla, president of Aspire Research Group, assists organizations across the country that are concerned about finding the right prospects, worried about what size gift to ask for, or struggling to meet major gift goals.

Has an opportunity presented itself where your organization needed to raise funds today, in 24 hours, or in one week?

This webinar will take you through a series of case studies where one organization, in 24 hours, raised 100% of the funds needed to purchase a building; a small arts organization, in four hours, raised $15,000 to bring a major exhibit to a small rural community. A simple one hour breakfast, a group telethon, an online media campaign – all of the intense, fun, successful and raised the profile and profits of each nonprofit.

Presenter: Michelle Conklin, CFRE

In spite of our best planning and adoption of best practices in the field, our donors don't fit into the process very neatly. Why? Because the donor's definition of the best way to help them make a philanthropic gift isn't necessarily what has been captured in our systems. It's not that all of the best practices are broken: it's that we need to be more flexible, innovative, and empathetic to the donor's perspective. In this session, we'll share stories of donors that didn't quite fit the mold, provide insights on how you can examine your own development strategies for "sacred cows," and recommend ways to be more responsive to your donors' needs.

At the conclusion of this session, participants will:
1. Identify changing motivations for donors and the way they want to give
2. Evaluate current fundraising strategies that may need revitalization
3. Evaluate new fundraising tools and strategies to meet donor needs

Target Audience: 
General

About the Presenters: 
James S. Anderson has more than 25 years of sales and sales training experience through his positions with research companies such as Nielsen Media, Simmons and Scarborough Research and was regularly recognized as a top producer, including Salesman of the Year and Top Revenue Producer ($30 million +). Since moving to the nonprofit field, Jim has "used his powers for good" to improve marketing campaigns and corporate support programs. He currently serves as President for AFP Northern Arizona and was the 2010 AFP-Northern Arizona Fundraising Professional of the Year.

Alice L. Ferris, MBA, CFRE, ACFRE is the founding partner of GoalBusters Consulting, LLC, and has over twenty years of professional fundraising experience. She is a two-time honoree as AFP-Northern Arizona Fundraising Professional of the Year and is one of less than 100 in the world to attain the Advanced Certified Fundraising Executive (ACFRE) credential. She is also recognized for her on-air work for public television nationwide, including her recent work on PBS' Masterpiece: Downton Abbey. Alice specializes in development and strategic planning, annual giving, board development, and grant proposals.

Both Alice and Jim are Association of Fundraising Professionals Master Teachers.

Is incremental progress a satisfactory level of performance for your nonprofit? Are your staff and volunteers working very hard, but finding it difficult to get enough real traction moving forward? The answers to these challenges is not to work even longer hours or to work “smarter.” We need to work more creatively. The Break through Strategy webinar is designed to show you how you can drive innovation and creativity throughout your organization and create breakthroughs in performance. Learn how to leverage innovation concepts used by companies like Google and apply them to your nonprofit setting.

At the conclusion of this session, participants will:

• Learn how to make their mission statement more impactful, and how to create metrics around it so they know the extent to which they are accomplishing their mission.
• Learn the process for creating an Aspirational Vision for their organization and how it can help propel them forward. 
• Learn the power of Almost Impossible Goals and how to apply them to the strategy process
• Learn new ways to identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – and then how to weave them into a Strategy narrative which will guide their organization toward Breakthrough Performance into the future.

Target Audience:

Nonprofit staff and board members at any level will benefit from this webinar – but those in the higher ranks will have more opportunity to apply what is learned. If you are a “junior” person in your organization and this session intrigues you, then recruit your boss to participate with you as well.

About the Presenter:

Dr. Rob Sheehan is the author of an AFP-Wiley sponsored book, Mission Impact: Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits, which introduces a new innovation-focused approach to strategic planning for nonprofit organizations. He has more than thirty years of executive management experience, including eighteen years as the CEO of two different national nonprofits. Rob is currently the Academic Director of Executive MBA Program at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and also Principal of Sheehan Nonprofit Consulting.

The millennial generation is now the largest generation in our nation’s history but we continue to struggle with how to understand them and their needs. What worked with other generations just isn't working and the amount of giving to non-profits within our economy has remained stagnant. This open and honest discussion will address both the misconceptions and the hype that surround Millennials and their philanthropic goals.

At the conclusion of this session, participants will:
Have a better understanding of why millenials are or are not committed to their organization, be able to create a clear and concise strategy to engage millennial donors, understand how to best steward these donors as they age into different giving segments, and effectively utilize millennial influencers for their organization.

Target Audience: 
The target audience will be fundraisers and non-profit administers of every age group, who would like to learn more about how to work with the very important millennial age group.

About the Presenter:
S. Michelle Cline is the Director of Planned Giving for Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. She is dedicated to using philanthropy in the creation of social change as both a fundraiser and a philanthropist herself.

Yes, your organization should fire non-performing board members. Of course, that means you have to define what is good and not so good. And you need ways to fire them that don't cause pain – to them or your organization. Join this workshop to learn the secrets to this tricky business.

And please! Do not decide to "just stick it out" till someone's term expires!

At the conclusion of this session, participants will:

• Understand the distinction between good and not-so-good board member performance.
• Understand how to encourage non-performers to resign.
• Recognize why this matters.

Target Audience:

General audience. Sadly, lots of fundraisers don't want to do this because of money. Lots of EDs are afraid. Etc.

About the Presenter:

Simone P. Joyaux, ACFRE is described as "one of the most thoughtful, inspirational, and provocative leaders in the philanthropic sector." She provides consulting services in governance, fund development, and strategic planning. Joyaux presents all over the world, has written three books and contributed to several others. She blogs as Simone Uncensored and is the founder of the Women's Fund of Rhode Island.

Email fundraising has risen in popularity by 20% over the last year alone. Effective email campaigns are more than just creative design and discussion around a cause; they are a multi-channel ticket to engaging and retaining donors. Derrick will discuss how to make an effective campaign from the importance of design, content and delivery. Derrick will also provide examples of effective email campaigns and how to create similar campaigns for your organization.

At the conclusion of this session, participants will know:

• The importance of email design 
• Appropriate content; the importance of telling a great story
• Donor focus vs. organization focus
• How to track success

Target Audience:

• Fundraisers at all levels
• Nonprofit professionals
• Representatives from organizations with challenging email campaigns
• Representatives from organizations who want to learn more about how to launch a successful email campaign

About the Presenter:

As CEO, Derrick provides overall leadership for Achieve. He is responsible for providing strategy to clients, overseeing the creative development of client work, and leading the full execution of fundraising efforts for clients. He leads the research team on the Millennial Impact – a project to understand Millennial engagement in the nonprofit sector. When not working closely with Achieve clients, he is a speaker and author on the latest trends in fundraising, online engagement, and Millennials. Derrick is the author of Cause for Change – The How and Why of Millennial Nonprofit Engagement published by Jossey Bass.

When the span between fundraising campaigns is measured in hours, it can be difficult to think about anything but the next major gift. And while a focus on cultivating and soliciting these high-wealth prospects is key to a successful fundraising effort, where do those prospects come from? The most effective fundraising directors know an integrated approach which consistently acquires and upgrades annual giving donors is critical to populating major gift portfolios.

This course will examine the interchanges between annual giving and major gifts, with a careful eye on strategy and tactics to enhance both programs as well as the overall fundraising effort. In this case, 1 + 1 really do add up to more than 2!

Course participants will come away with a greater understanding of the roles of both programs when they work well together, and specific steps to maximize returns in or out of a campaign. While this is a great session for development directors, this is also a good session for Executive Directors and CEOs who are looking to enhance their existing development efforts.

At the conclusion of this session, participants will:

• Understand how a robust annual giving program works not only to generate current-use dollars, but future major gift prospects.
• Understand how major gift officers can work with their annual giving colleagues to advance the organization and build the donor pipeline.
• Have concrete next steps and tools for their annual giving and major gift programs to improve their current situation and advance a comprehensive pipeline management strategy.

Target Audience 
Beginner to intermediate fundraisers, although senior fundraisers and management will also benefit from the systems and strategic principles presented.

About the Presenter:
After several years in healthcare administration, Mike, a Chicago native, began his nonprofit career as the program administrator for Washington workshops, in Washington DC. He then moved to a public foundation in Los Angeles and later spent time as an executive director of development at UCLE and as the VP of development & marketing at Special Olympics Southern California.

Since moving to Houston, Mike has been a director of development/team lead for Rice University, the chief development officer of the Houston food bank and is now a director of philanthropic resources at MD Anderson.

In addition to being past president of the association of fundraising professionals (Greater Houston Chapter), he is also a member of AFP international’s political action committee (PAC) board, a member of their committee on directorship (2012-2013) and chair of their US government relations committee. He is vice chair of the development committee for the space center Houston board of directors, a member of the Fall Creek Elementary PTO, an AFP certified master trainer and a fellow of the Paul Harris rotary international foundation. Mike and his very patient wife Yvette Money enjoy an above average eight year-old daughter Caroline Fiona.

Chris Kasavich has been a professional fundraiser for eleven years, serving in a variety of positions and nonprofit sectors.

He began his career in fundraising at Rice University as their first Leadership Giving officer for Annual Giving before joining their Major Gifts team. After four years he joined the Houston Symphony as Director of Corporate Relations, where he managed the Corporate Relations team in engaging and stewarding new and existing corporate partners.

This webinar, based on the upcoming book by Ellen Bristol and Linda Lysakowski, ACFRE will help you look at how your fundraising efforts are really going. Participants in the webinar will have the opportunity to complete the Leaky Bucket Assessment online prior to the webinar. The Leaky Bucket Assessment takes 5 minutes, it’s free, and you’ll get your confidential results immediately. bristolstrategygroup.com/nonprofit-leakybucket. Use the team code AFP. The presenters will break out your collated data and compare it to the national study. Results for organizations nationally and results for webinar participants in particular, will be reviewed in the webinar. Participants will then be given some ideas on how to fix their fundraising and stops the "leaks" in their own "buckets.

At the conclusion of this session, participants will:

• Learn the difference between leading indicators and trailing indicators
• Learn how to determine the weaknesses in your fundraising program
• Learn how to develop a plan to improve donor acquisition and donor retention
• Learn how to communicate with donors effectively

Target Audience 

Mid-level development professionals

About the Presenter:

Linda is one of fewer than 100 professionals worldwide to hold the Advanced Certified Fund Raising Executive designation. In her twenty years as a philanthropic consultant, Linda has managed capital campaigns, helped hundreds of nonprofit organizations achieve their development goals, and trained more than 22,000 development professionals in Canada, Mexico, Egypt and the 50 United States. 

A graduate of Alvernia University and AFP’s Faculty Training Academy, she is a Master Teacher. Linda is the author of Recruiting and Training Fundraising Volunteers; The Development Plan; Fundraising as a Career: What, Are You Crazy?; Capital Campaigns: Everything You NEED to Know; Raise More Money from Your Business Community; Fundraising for the GENIUS, a contributing author to The Fundraising Feasibility Study - It's Not About the Money, co-editor of YOU and Your Nonprofit and The Nonprofit Consulting Handbook and co-author of The Essential Nonprofit Fundraising Handbook and What's Wrong With Your Fundraising…And How You Can Fix It. 

In addition to her consulting and training practice, Linda serves as Acquisitions Editor for CharityChannel Press and For the GENIUS Press.

Ellen Bristol has worked with hundreds of nonprofits for the past seventeen years, helping them improve their fundraising results using systematic disciplines and metrics. She says "We bring in the science that makes the art of fundraising possible." She is the developer of the firm's flagship methodology Fundraising the SMART Way®, an evidence-based model for managing the fundraising effort on the basis of continuous improvement and its accompanying software utility SMART Way™ Scorecard 2.0.

Ellen developed the Leaky Bucket Assessment for Effective Fundraising, an on-line assessment that has been collecting data for over a year. She wrote a book based on the findings of this study, called What's Wrong with Your Fundraising and How You Can Fix It, with co-author Linda Lysakowski. She currently is working on a book about Fundraising the SMART Way™.

Ellen is considered a thought leader in the specialized field of performance management and business intelligence for nonprofits. She is a member of the Professional Advancement Division of the Association of Fundraising Professionals International, where she serves on the Research Council.