Join Bentz Whaley Flessner consultants Bruce Flessner, Bruce Dreon, and Bobbie Strand at CASE Summit08-the largest gathering of senior advancement professionals in the world. During the conference, please stop by the Bentz Whaley Flessner exhibit booth, #26.

On Sunday, July 13, join us for the official launch and book signing event for Bobbie Strand's book, A Kaleidoscope of Prospect Development, recently released by CASE. The event will be held during the champagne reception, at the bookstore in the exhibit hall from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.

On Monday, July 14, Bruce Flessner will co-present a session with Patricia VandenBerg of Mount Holyoke College entitle, Addressing the Public About Cost of Highter Education and Financial Aid. As senior advancement professionals, we frequently are asked questions by constituents, friends and family about the exorbitant costs of higher education: Why does tuition rise so much more than inflation? Why can't colleges and universities be more efficient? How can any family afford the cost of education without incurring significant debt? As public scrutiny on these issues increases daily, it is imperative that we become much more articulate in our responses to such questions and recognize the need to educate our various publics on the true costs of education. Come join a lively, interactive conversation and debate on how best to accomplish this.

Conference details

Bruce W. Flessner is a member of the BTFRI faculty and will be a presenter at this years' institute.

Conference details

On Thursday, August 14, Josh Birkholz will discuss How to Make Direct Marketing Metrics Work in a Small- to Mid-Size Organization. Smaller organizations may not always have the resources or the data available to track a broad and deep set of metrics on their direct-response fundraising programs. Hear how our panel of seasoned fundraisers learned to identify what really works, and discuss with them the ways in which they implemented mail, online, and phone programs informed by these metrics to drive their organizations fundraising programs to new levels of success.

Panelists include Joshua Birkholz, Director of Bentz Whaley Flessner's DonorCast division, Ken Meifert, Director of Membership & Sales, National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum, and Rob Wallace, Vice President of Marketing & Communications, Keep America Beautiful.

Conference details

Bentz Whaley Flessner is proud to be a sponsor of the Distinguised Service Award at this years' conference. In addition to being an exhibitor and sponsor, our consultants will be conducting the following workshops and sessions.

On Wednesday, August 20, consultants Josh Birkholz and Chris Cannon will conduct a pre-conference workshop entitled, Creating and Implementing a Prospect Management System. Explore state-of-the-art approaches to prospect management with two seasoned fundraising professionals. In addition to discussions about prospect management fundamentals, speakers will share twists on the basics, tricks to getting a system in motion and tools of the analytics trade that can maximize your organizations prospect management. This interactive session will highlight how all members of the team can and should play a role in capitalizing on an innovative system.

Josh will also present a conference session on Friday, August 22, entitled, Using Analytics and Projection for Effective Campaign Planning and Execution. Successful campaigns are built on careful planning and a thorough assessment of the organization's needs, its capacity for raising funds, and the level of support and enthusiasm of the organization's constituency. Analytics is a powerful tool that leading institutions turn to as they begin campaign preparations. Josh Birkholz will present how analytics, with a wide scope of applications, will enhance campaign planning by using your data to guide your strategies. Primary among these are the analysis of the existing constituency, assessing the capacity of the database, and revealing the metrics leading to successful fundraising.

On Wednesday, August 20, Pamela Poland will conduct a pre-conference workshop entitled, Planning and Implementing a Successful Prospect Screening. Although conducting a database screening requires careful planning, the ultimate success relies on a great implementation plan. How do you prevent the data from sitting on a shelf and prevent development staff from drowning in too much data? This session will cover initial planning for your screening, migrating data points to your constituent database, qualifying the results, disseminating prospect leads and evaluating your successes while avoiding common pitfalls. You will leave prepared to create an implementation plan unique to your development goals and culture.

Also, be sure to visit the Bentz Whaley Flessner exhibit, booth #14.

Conference details

Josh Birkholz will conduct a live audioconference entitled, Redefining Fundraising Success through Analytics. There is a fundamental change emerging in 21st century fundraising. This change is driven by the most important component of the philanthropic partnership  our donors. The most successful fundraising institutions are redefining success through the incorporation of sophisticated systems for understanding their donors and prospects and using this data to guide strategy. This session presented by Josh Birkholz will explain analytics and describe how it can drive success in your fundraising programs.

Conference details

Bruce W. Flessner will lead this seminar, designed specifically for the uniqueness of hospital fundraising. He will provide an overview of the campaign process from feasibility study to leadership gifts to kickoff and the general campaign.

Conference details

Bruce W. Flessner will co-present a session with Elizabeth Elkas, Associate Dean for Development, Indiana University School of Medicine, entitled, Transformational Gifts: How Extraordinary Philanthropists are Reshaping Health Care Philanthropy. The explosion of extraordinary gifts in recent years is shaping important programs at hospitals and other not-for-profit organizations. This session will focus on who is making these gifts, what is motivating the donors, the challenges to transformational gifts, and how development offices will need to adjust to these exceptional donors. By combining national trends with real-life examples, the session will provide practical advice on how development officers and academic leaders can address the challenges and opportunities of these key gifts.

Mr. Flessner will also close the conference with a special session, Back to the office: Exploring the Important Challenges you Will Face When you Return to the Office on Monday. In this closing session, Bruce Flessner will explore three challenges facing all health care fundraisiers: making the case for your institution in a challenging fundraising environment; building a successful and long-lasting fundraising program when others are raiding your talent; and growing your institution's donor base during a period of shrinking donor numbers. This session will explore strategies you can use to cope with the big issues shaping health care philanthropy today.

Bentz Whaley Flessner is proud to be a sponsor and exhibitor at this years' AHP International Conference. Please stop by and visit us at our booth.

Conference details