This June I was able to attend the CASE Special Event Conference in Nashville. About 300 other attendees (special events managers, Advancement directors, annual giving managers, and alumni relations managers) from around the country came together to talk everything events in Advancement. It was a great space to be able to go to learn more about what other schools and colleges are doing and what struggles they are dealing with. Which surprisingly are very similar to ours.
I wanted to be able to go to this conference to gain more insight and knowledge about campaign events. I was able to attend a few sessions on campaign events. I was able to get some new ideas that I think would be different for our community to keep people engaged.
One surprising thing that I was able to take away from the conference that I did not expect to be a huge topic - but it was! Was volunteerism and attendance to events. We have been seeing a huge decline in volunteerism on campus - but this seems to be a problem across the board. A lot of people want big events to happen but do not want to volunteer to help them happen. I was able to listen in to some conversations and be a part of some group that try to brainstorm some news ways to get more active participation to events. I hope to try to implent those ideas here at Burke's.