Pre-Conference Workshops « Bridge Conference 2024

Pre-Conference Workshops

Wednesday, July 15th 10:00 AM4:00 PM

Fundraising 101

Are you a volunteer or staff member new to fundraising and development? Have you been working in fundraising but need to better understand the big picture of how all the ways we raise funds fit together?

This day-long workshop covers today’s best practices for building long-term donor relationships in order to sustain and grow nonprofit organizations. Learn what is needed –  a compelling case for support, an infrastructure for development, an engaged board and volunteers, regular donor communications, and a written development plan – to create a diverse and successful fundraising operation.

The panel will share their significant experience in developing fundraising strategies for a variety of nonprofit organizations and institutions including annual giving, foundation and corporate giving, major and planned gifts, special events, social media, and more.

Presenters: Steve Titlebaum, CFRE, President & Founder, Fundraising by Design

Bathsheba Philpott, CFRE, Vice President, Advancement, American Council on Education

D’Andre Phillips, Partner, Philanthropy Forward, LLC


Digital 101

This full day pre-conference workshop will give you all the essentials needed to successfully grow a digital fundraising and marketing program, reaching donors where they “live” online and on their phones. The internet is a wide and wild place, but the speakers at this workshop will map it out for you, helping you gain the skills to optimize emails, landing pages, advertising, social media, SMS, and how to drive direct mail responsive donors online to make their gifts! We’ll go through best practices for interface design, basic URL tracking and dynamic personalization. By the end of the day you’ll not only speak the lingo, you’ll feel like a digital native and leave with actionable tips and tricks to increase your response rates, retention, sustainer conversion.

Presenter: Brenna Holmes, MPA, MS, VP, Digital Services, CCAH


Sustainer Day

Sustainers are not just for big organizations any longer and you don’t need huge budgets.

Giving monthly has become more popular with donors of all ages and benefits organizations of all sizes.

But nobody said it would be easy. We’re looking to change that!

The day will be filled with exercises, examples, discussions, statistics, proven approaches and new ideas, including  storytelling, marketing, payment systems, reports and most of all: lots of sharing amongst organizations.

You’ll learn from those who’ve gone before you to pave the way.

Moderated by Erica Waasdorp, this unique full day workshop is aimed at nonprofits, who have a small, mid-size or mature sustainer program.

The day will focus on the three main areas: Sustainer Acquisition, Sustainer Cultivation and Recognition and Retention and Sustainer Upgrades and Conversions. You’ll look at sustainers from an omni-channel perspective: Digital, Mail, Face-to-face, Phone, Text and Social.

If you’re looking to make sustainers part of your overall fundraising strategy, you can’t afford to miss this Sustainer Workshop!

Presenters: Erica Waasdorp, President, Direct Solutions

Cameron Popp, Director of Membership, WETA

Liz Murphy, Executive Vice President, Beaconfire Red

Anne Kottler, Partner, Sage Communications Group


Integration Strategies: Inside Out

In real estate its location… location… location!

In fundraising its relationships… relationships… relationships!

As a leader in your organization, you are skilled at building and sustaining strong and authentic relationships with your donors. From $1 to $100M, your ability to connect creates a flywheel of generosity that allows your organization to deliver on its mission.

But can the same be said for your relationships with your colleagues in Marketing? What about Finance? HR? Legal? IT? Building relationships internally, is an essential yet often overlooked key to driving donor experience. And without it, your organization is likely stifling generosity and limiting impact on mission.

Join our extraordinary facilitators for an interactive full-day workshop focused relationship-based fundraising from the inside out. Together we’ll explore culture, communication, attribution, strategy development, channel integration, staffing and operational discipline. You’ll create an actionable plan tailored for the area of greatest opportunity in your specific organization, and set the stage to ensure both your staff and your donors experience the joy of giving!

Presenters: Kelley Hecht Stewart, Executive Vice President, Pursuant

Hilary Noon, Executive Vice President, Pursuant


Masters Session on Neurofundraising

In this full-day pre-conference workshop, you’ll review and discuss examples from direct mail, digital and video creative, and how it is seen by your prospective donors. You’ll discover the latest results from Neuromarketing (neuroscience, behavioral economics, social psychology and cognitive psychology), some of which comes from commercial direct response marketing (mail, telephone, television, digital) and some of which comes from the test results from more than a year’s learnings from the Neurofundraising Laboratory. This information can be applied to improve your direct response messaging. You’ll not only enjoy access to the latest research that underlies more effective direct mail, direct response television and digital marketing, you’ll be challenged to apply that knowledge to your fundraising skills. You’ll also review new information from eye-scanning studies and discuss how that might affect digital, video and paper-based design to achieve better results. You’ll walk away with proven neuromarketing know-how to improve your overall effectiveness in fundraising.

You will learn how to:

  1. Use eye-tracking technologies to view your fundraising solicitations/communications from your donor’s perspective.
  2. Understand how donors react (using neurological and biological measurements) to fundraising solicitations/communications and their emotional and attention-related engagement.
  3. Analyze how the design of direct mail, landing pages, video, etc., affects where prospective donors focus their attention and how that affects their responsiveness.

Presenters: Geoffrey Peters, President, Moore DM Group

Tracey Trost, President, TCM Creative


Major Gifts

Description coming soon.

Presenters: Pam Larmee, Principal, Strategic Philanthropy Services


The 15th Annual Bridge to Integrated Marketing & Fundraising Conference is approved for a total of 17 CFRE points – 12 for the conference and 5 for the pre-conference workshops. Total approved hours per day are: Wednesday, July 15th -5, Thursday, July 16th – 6 and Friday, July 17th – 6.