Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Category: Apra Chapters
Topics include Prospect Engagement, Research, Pipelines, and more.
Session Descriptions below!
Session 1 (10:00 a.m.-10:45 a.m.): Engaging Students and Young Alumni
Presented by: Alan Ham, George Washington University
Session Description: More information coming soon!
Session 2 (11:00 a.m.-11:45 a.m.): A Celebration of Collaboration! How to Incorporate Fundraisers into Prospect Research and Management
Presented by: Jen Clifford, Harvard and Emily Donohue, University of Massachusetts Boston
Session Description: Overwhelmed by research requests – big and small? Do you feel like you and your fundraisers are on two different wavelengths when it comes to prospect management? We are here to help! We will provide tips and resources you can share with your fundraisers so they can do simple research on their own. We’ll also discuss how to best communicate what you can provide for fundraisers and what they can provide to improve your work. You will also leave with strategies for being each other’s perfect partners in portfolio optimization. Finally, we will go over artificial intelligence’s effect on the field.
Session 3 (1:00 p.m.-1:45 p.m.): Pipelines and Metrics
Presented by: Dawn Cattoor, University of Calgary
Session Description: What does a truly healthy prospect pipeline look like—and how can you advise fundraisers to get there?
This session explores the characteristics of strong, successful prospect pipelines and the metrics that help us assess their health with clarity and purpose. Grounded in the philosophy that smaller, active pipelines perform better, we’ll reposition pipeline review as a supportive check-in, not a performance judgment.
Participants will walk through the Pipeline Health Check tool as developed and used by the University of Calgary’s PRPM team end to end—from generating the report and interpreting insights to having meaningful conversations with the fundraiser to turn diagnosis into action.
We’ll unpack the core metrics that matter, show how they connect to real decision-making, and briefly go behind the scenes to explain how the report was created (Power BI, with data from the donor database BB-CRM and the data warehouse).
Session 4 (2:00 p.m.-2:45 p.m.): Building a Sustainable Pipeline Management System for Campaign Growth
Presented by: Emily Maple and Grace De Jong, University of St. Thomas
Session Description: During a period of immense growth and opportunity at the University of St. Thomas, we were faced with the challenge of scaling our prospect management system to support a new cohort of gift officers during our campaign. Join us as we share how we used scoring, prioritization, and automation to create an efficient system for managing the prospect pipelines across colleges and units. We will share the basic concept of our new system, how it has worked in practice after more than a year, what we have learned, and where we are going next.
Session 5 (3:00pm-3:45pm): AI in Fundraising
Presented by: Emma Hinke, BWF Zuri and Mike Lair, Phoenix Children's Foundation
Session Description: More information coming soon!
We hope to see you there!
Registration Fees:
Members: $50
Non-Members: $85 (which includes a one-year membership in APRA-NY)
LEARN MORE + REGISTER