More than 100 total educational sessions* are waiting for you at AFP ICON 2022. Whether you want to master leadership, relationship building, securing the gift, trends and innovation, or all of the above, AFP has the latest and greatest information to unlock your fundraising potential.
Thank You To Our AFP ICON 2022 Education Track Sponsors!
Low donor retention is a costly and persistent challenge for fundraisers. Research shows that timely communication – specifically impact reporting – plays a critical role in keeping donors engaged. This session will help you and your team plan and produce impact reports to inspire and activate donors and build stronger community partnerships.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Strategic
Begin with participants identifying challenges and goals in developing donor impact reports. The group list will inform and focus the discussion. Working with examples, participants in small groups will evaluate and share balanced critiques of data and financial storytelling, and report narratives. Session ends with time allotted for Q&A.
Understand businesses are looking for more benefits than their name on an event program/swag. They are looking more strategic in the ways they give to maximize their ROI. Join us as we review basics of engaging businesses and review how one organization created a unique business group.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
Brainstorm some recognition and benefits for business donors.
Discuss what value add organizations can provide to businesses.
Identify ways to engage with the business community.
Nonprofits can no longer stay silent on the public policies that affect our missions and the communities/people we serve. This session will address the myths and fears that hold us back from engaging in advocacy. Advocacy can turn donors into powerful advocates for change while increasing giving and donor retention.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
A mixture of technical presentation (What you can/cannot do around advocacy) and panel discussion on how each presenter engaged their organizations and donors (individual, corporate & foundations) in advocacy.
Curious about working with influencers? Want to know where to start? Hear what Best Friends Animal Society learned when they launched their influencer program in 2021! Learn how influencers can benefit your organization, steps to create a program, and real life examples of fun collabs before brainstorming your own!
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Introductory/Foundational
During this presentation participants will use what they learned and work in groups or pairs to brainstorm creative ways influencer partnerships could benefit their organization.
View your annual fund, major gift, and corporate sponsorship strategy as well as your organizations' stewardship and communication techniques through a community-centric lens. Attendees will identify ways to improve communication, stewardship, and fundraising strategies to further involve diverse community members and increase diverse supporters for your organization.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
Participants will break into groups to discuss various scenarios and suggest solutions, they will be asked questions and their responses will determine content in some instances
Members will have a chance to develop SMARTIE (Strategic, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound, Inclusive, Equitable) goals pertaining to their fundraising strategies.
Learn from international fundraisers the importance of reshaping the culture of philanthropy and human engagement. The culture of philanthropy has muted. Its key elements (inclusion, empowerment, transparency, collaboration, celebration) will be reviewed; how can we update them? The five sides of the “PENTAGON” of Human Engagement will be presented.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
Participants will know the results of a revealing survey applied to NGO´s stakeholders about the new human engagement.
International presenters with more than 50 years of experience will offer an enriched with examples conference.
The Key Elements of a Culture of Philanthropy (inclusion, empowerment, transparency, collaboration, celebration) will be reviewed.
As women play a larger role in their families' finances, fundraisers need new data on how couples make giving decisions. Women Give 2021 explores the question: "who decides?" This session will guide participants through the research and how to use it to prompt deep conversations and increased giving from donors.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
The presentation uses engaging visuals to bring data to life. Interactive polling, share with your neighbor, inspiring videos and guided group discussion will encourage the audience to grapple with how they see the research in their work and how they can incorporate the research to improve practice.
In this session, learn tips for creating videos that tell the story of your organization, inspire donors, and create deeper relationships. Watch recent videos from Cranbrook Institute of Science, Cranbrook Academy of Art, and more. Storytelling is at the heart of fundraising-tell YOUR story in a way that inspires!
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
The audience will be asked to compare and contrast several sample videos and discuss the pros/cons of each. What worked? What didn’t? Why not? Was the message clear? What would you do differently to improve some of the videos?
By participating in this session, you will know the key learnings from the coronavirus pandemic for high value giving and understand how to build deeper relationships with major donors, philanthropists and foundations from now on. The speakers will launch you to innovate at a pace never imagined.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
The speakers will guide the audience through the major donor market, explain the issues, and illustrate techniques that will help all participants make the most of major donors. Beside that, they will propose an exercise: the participants will discuss a challenge and how new learnings will be helpful.
Creating a framework to get more digital donors requires planning, but it’s easier than you may think. In this lively, energetic session, digital fundraising expert Julia Campbell and social media fundraising expert Josh Hirsch will show you how to convert - and keep - more digital donors.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Introductory/Foundational
Using Mentimeter we will live poll the audience to gauge knowledge level and using Kahoot we will have an interactive game with prizes.
Saying thank you is both an art and science. Join us as we explore best practices and trends in acknowledgement writing, digital vs. mail delivery, and personalization vs. customization of content. We will assist you in building a program that is meaningful for your donors and still efficient fo
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
We will use real life samples as well as ask for samples and ideas from those in attendance. We will help solve problems and create the best acknowledgements possible!
Donor Fatigue - we have heard the term as a vague part of the pandemic’s impact. But what is it? And why does it feel so relevant now? Let’s ignite some new energy into fundraising strategies to be more exciting, effective, and defeat the fatigue.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Strategic
Diversifying your donor pool can feel overwhelming. You know it is more important than ever to be inclusive, but it seems like everyone is paying attention to the same individuals right now. Together we will tackle this task in smaller pieces so you leave with a plan you can implement.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
Attendees will break out into groups and will receive a comprehensive description of an organization’s donors. They will identify a way to segment the donors to work on a diversification plan. In their groups they will come up with ways to engage the segment to increase diversity in their supporters.
Join Anthony Alonso, President of Catapult Fundraising, to learn how to make your annual fund THRIVE! Anthony will share ideas that can be used for both stewardship AND solicitation. Leave this session with new ideas to implement for immediate results!
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
The presenter will answer questions from the audience throughout the presentation. He will solicit the audience for their input and ask them to share their own experiences on the subject matter.
As Black or Brown fundraisers we are often raising funds from donors that don't look like us. Join a lively discussion about race, ethnicity and fundraising in today's racially-charged society.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
Co-presenters will invite fellow Black fundraisers to a panel discussion and also provide a Q&A session.
Are Major Gifts only for big institutions? Take the next step into fundraising. Starting a Major Giving program. This training is a highly practical, step by step way to build a small, starter Major GIving program with limited resources and staff.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Introductory/Foundational
Survey and Q&A
Time is money and most prospects don't have more than 30 minutes to spend on you. You will learn the fundamentals of productive, efficient qualification visits . You'll observe a qualification visit and be able to offer an assessment. Session handout will include sample questions to ask prospects.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
I will recruit two people from the audience to participate in a qualification visit (one as the prospect and one as the fundraiser). The audience will observe the "visit" and then offer feedback and their assessment of the prospect's viability.
From Amazon, to Disney, Shake Shack, to Crumbl Cookies, today’s consumers want ease, immediacy, and self-curated experiences. And guess what? Today’s consumers are also your mission supporters. During the pandemic, expectations changed, as more people experienced life (and giving) online and via an app 24/7. As a result, the need for “frictionless” philanthropy is here. Donors expect and want simple, on demand, and choose your own adventure giving. From fundraising events to online campaigns, generosity joins forces with easy-to-use technology to create flexible options for your supporters. Is your cause ready for the future? In this session, we’ll explore new automated strategies to make ease a focal point of your fundraising experiences, create personalized interactions, and showcase how “chose your own” giving options can be part of your donor journey. Whether it’s through automated text communication, QR codes, or self-service fundraising – this session will help you map out giving experiences that make donors happy, optimize engagement, and drive higher impact.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
Using research discussed in Malcom Gladwell’s Talking To Strangers and Kate Murphy’s You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters, this session will highlight what is known about effective communication skills and discuss how to apply that information to cultivation, solicitation and stewardship within the donor pipeline.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
There are multiple opportunities during the presentation for audience interaction and participation. We will perform at least two different activities to drive home the session in the session.
Joslyn Art Museum was prepared to launch a $135M capital campaign and had every major gift ask strategized the week COVID shut down the U.S. Learn how staff creatively altered each cultivation and stewardship activity into virtual engagements and left donors feeling more connected than ever before.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
Presenters will engage the audience with questions/quick surveys to better understand what types of cultivation/stewardship activities the audience is using throughout the session. Time will also be allotted for participants to share their successful strategies utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Learn which email, website and social media data points your organization should track and analyze. Why? So you can: - Build more relationships with donors, supporters and followers. - Upgrade your fundraising and marketing efforts. - Raise more money. - Service more people. - Have greater impact in your community.
Education Track: Relationship Building
Audience:
Applied
I will use numerous examples to help the audience understand which data points they need to track to build more relationships and raise more money.
Attendees will receive a "data tracking" checklist so when they go back to work, they can begin analyzing the most valuable online data they possess.