2026 Institutional Advancement Preconference Education Sessions

Join Us for Two Free Online Events in March

Get a taste of the expertise offered at the 2026 AAMC Conference for Institutional Advancement! Register separately for either or both of these two free online events for anyone at an AAMC member institution who is interested in institutional advancement issues:

Thursday, March 5, from 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET
Tuesday, March 31, from 3:00-4:00 p.m. ET

You don’t have to be registered for the conference to attend these sessions, which offer hot topics from industry leaders. Different topics are featured at each session, so consider joining us at both! Please share this invitation with your colleagues!

During each preconference education session, you will join a main Zoom room and select one of the breakout rooms in the moment. While registration is required, no pre-selection of topic is necessary. The breakout rooms will be part presentation-part discussion and will offer you takeaways to help you in your work. Please note these are educational sessions and not a pitch of any services or products. The sessions will not be recorded, and we will not share your information with presenters.

You will need to register for each session separately. Your confirmation and event access information will be sent via an email from Zoom immediately after you register.

Topics Offered Thursday, March 5

Purpose-Driven Alumni Engagement: Using AI to Advance Mission and Impact

Alumni want engagement that reflects shared values and meaningful impact—not just events or solicitations. This session explores how utilizing AI can support purpose-driven connection, belonging, and service aligned with institutional mission. AI in Practice: 1) Identifying alumni interests in service, mentoring, advocacy, and impact areas. 2) Matching alumni with mission-aligned opportunities. 3) Using data to tell collective impact stories, not just track activity. Key Takeaway: AI becomes a tool for alignment and listening, helping alumni relations teams foster meaningful engagement that naturally supports long-term philanthropy.

Facilitator: Alyssa Grovemiller, Director, Alumni and Constituent Engagement, The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Session Leader: BrightCrowd

Increasing the ROI on Philanthropy

This session focuses on treating philanthropy as a strategic investment by aligning fundraising efforts with measurable organizational outcomes. Participants will explore methods to prioritize initiatives, deploy resources more effectively, and demonstrate impact to donors and executive leadership.

Facilitator: Sameksha (Simi) Khurana, Director of Community Giving, West Florida Foundation, AdventHealth
Session Leader: BWF

Unlocking Transformational Gifts

We will examine how schools of medicine, academic medical centers, health systems, and cancer centers can sharpen their value propositions, leverage clinical and institutional leadership in cultivation strategies, and define multi-year “investment cases” that resonate with donors seeking impact and outcomes.

Facilitator: Kristen Kidder, Assistant Vice President, Development, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Session Leader: CCS Fundraising

How AI Can Aid Strategic Decision-Making in Advancement

Join us for an open conversation about practical, near‑term AI use cases—prospect triage, pipeline forecasting, narrative synthesis—and the governance, privacy, and change‑management guardrails peers are putting in place.

Facilitator: Amanda Bassett, Vice President, Donor Experience and Engagement, Yale-New Haven Health System
Session Leader: Huron

Considering Cost: Understanding Consumers' Concerns

Hospitals and health systems across the country are grappling with cost headwinds and the challenges associated with increasing financial pressures. Of course, so are patients and consumers. With this backdrop, Jarrard’s 2026 national consumer survey shows that the U.S. public overwhelmingly views cost as the biggest healthcare issue today. Throughout this session we’ll go deeper, learning how that concern plays out in more specific instances of getting and paying for care. We’ll consider how this concern affects the way people view the entire experience of care and how we interact and communicate with those we serve.

Facilitator: Amy Albo, Publisher & Director, Marketing & Communications, Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah
Session Leader: Jarrard

Topics Offered Tuesday, March 31

Essential Tips to Help Make You and Your Annual Giving Team More Successful

Personnel turnover in annual giving (AG) tends to be high. Experience levels vary. Maintaining your advancement team’s momentum in this environment is vital. Challenges abound for new and even more experienced AG team members. AG is multifaceted…loaded with opportunities and challenges, but help has arrived. This session will provide essential advice for foundation leadership regarding filling AG positions and assessing performance. AG team members will greatly benefit from a variety of discussion topics and tips: how to manage leadership expectations; improving advancement team communications and collaboration with all departments; campaign planning for effective donor acquisition and renewal; structuring and maintaining effective omnichannel communications; and making campaign adjustments with fact-based planning. Leadership, join this discussion and get to know your AG team better. AG Team, set a positive and productive pathway forward.

Facilitator: Megan Smith, Executive Director, Annual and Special Giving Programs, University of California, San Francisco
Session Leader: Borns Group Nonprofit Solutions

Interpreting Annual Giving Metrics: Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Annual giving teams are increasingly asked to demonstrate impact through data, yet many struggle with how to interpret metrics in ways that meaningfully inform strategy and decision-making. Conflicting reports, blended averages, and attribution assumptions can lead to conclusions that oversimplify complex donor behavior. This session will focus on common pitfalls in interpreting annual giving metrics and how they can unintentionally mislead teams. Rather than emphasizing benchmarks or advanced analytics, we will explore practical ways to add context to performance data, recognize patterns across donor segments, and ask better questions of existing reports.

Facilitator: Danielle Auriemma, Managing Director of Alumni Affairs and Development, Alumni Engagement, Harvard Medical School
Session Leader: C.I. Partners Direct

Communication Methods That Fit the Lifestyle of Today's Donors

Many organizations rely on some very old traditional methods to communicate with their donors. Wealth is being handed down to a much younger generation that is more accustomed to contemporary communication methods. It’s time to consider moving your communication strategy to one that’s consistent with the way donors consume media today. The result is likely to raise more capital than traditional methods.

Facilitator: Elena Wu, Executive Director and Head of Marketing, External Affairs, Weill Cornell Medicine
Session Leader: Corporate Communications, Inc.

More Effective Grateful Patient Engagement

Traditional grateful patient outreach (email and DM) yields an average of .4% pledge rate with an average gift of about $45. And retention rates for these new donors? Equally abysmal. But there is a better way. By raising awareness to the role of philanthropy in healthcare from the start (when a patient is in the hospital) through events like Doctor’s Day, Nurse’s Week, and Grateful Patient Day and employing targeted, multi-channel outreach, you can uncover which patients are truly both grateful and interested in helping your mission—leading to more new, and engaged, donors.

Facilitator: Sameksha (Simi) Khurana, Director of Community Giving, West Florida Foundation, AdventHealth
Session Leader: StoryCause

Topic:

Professional Development